Legal obligation upon discovering truancy

[kells76]

Continued from here: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=345994.0

Summary: DH and I learned by surprise that SD14 is considered truant.

We did know that Mom unenrolled her from Local Public HS earlier this fall, and SD14 said that Mom said she (Mom) "was getting the paperwork ready" to enroll SD14 as a homeschooler with the County Ed Services, as is required in our state.

I'd been emailing the following persons to see if the math I'm doing with SD14 is good for 9th grade: School District Math Curriculum coordinator, who directed me to Local HS Counselor, who directed me to County Ed Services, who let me know "We triple checked our books and SD14 is not enrolled as a homeschooler, and is considered truant".

DH is the noncustodial parent.

This is separate from the question of "Should/ought DH or I communicate to Mom about this", and because of who she is and how she handles info, the general consensus is No, not helpful, and would be saving her from her own choices. We're on board with this.

Question:

Do DH and/or I have a legal obligation to report this to anyone?

Does this count as educational neglect?

Am I considered a "mandatory reporter" because I am teaching SD14 math?

Is educational neglect a mandatory reporting thing?

I don't want to not say something if I am required by law to say something.

That being said, this isn't one of those "educational neglect" situations where SD14 isn't doing anything for school, is hanging out with a bad crowd during school hours, etc etc. It does seem more like a "technically/by definition educational neglect" thing... maybe?

We're not looking to "catch" Mom somehow, and as long as we're confident that the County Ed Services people will somehow talk to Local School District, then we're OK with letting the process "do its own thing". But I want to make sure that DH and I are meeting any legal obligation we have, if there is any, and that is really unclear.

Haven't decided yet about contacting L... depends what kind of info I can get here and elsewhere online.

[Notwendy]

If mom is the custodial parent- wouldn't she have gotten notice about the truancy too?

This doesn't change your questions or actions, but I would assume that she would have been made aware of this.

[kells76]

That is what I don't know.

I know that Mom unenrolled SD14 from Local Public HS. So, they know SD14 is not a student there.

I know the next step was supposed to be Mom notifying County Ed Services that SD14 is an official homeschooler. County Ed does not have a record of SD14 being enrolled.

I do not know if County Ed Services contacts the custodial parent.

I also don't know if or how the Local Public School District and County Ed talk to each other. You'd think they have to, to see "hey, this student got unenrolled from Public School... are they with you now?"

Like... do public schools have to notify "a higher authority" about unenrollments?

That is where I am wondering if the system is going to do its thing. I too would assume there's some way to make parents aware of their student's enrollment status... but here we are in 2020.

And so tied into that is the feeling of... "Uh oh, is it MY job now to connect the dots for County Ed and Local HS so that they FINALLY talk to each other and the system gets rolling"?

[worriedStepmom]

You would not be a mandatory reporter under the law because you aren't a licensed teacher or in any occupation that requires mandatory reporting (I assume).

I do think you need a lawyer to answer the other questions.  My worry is that if you know and don't do anything, then you're complicit and can't bring it up as evidence of mom's wrongdoing.

SD may be doing some work, but if mom has no plan to make sure she gets credit for it, then it's just as if she were doing nothing.

[kells76]

You would not be a mandatory reporter under the law because you aren't a licensed teacher or in any occupation that requires mandatory reporting

OK, good to get some feedback there. Yeah, our state's list of MR's didn't list "homeschooling instructor" or anything like that.

SD may be doing some work, but if mom has no plan to make sure she gets credit for it, then it's just as if she were doing nothing.

Right. What I found with math is that I'd need to somehow get an accredited homeschool group to either have her in a math class, or somehow sign off on what she's doing with me, in order to get HS credit. And now that we know she isn't even enrolled as an official homeschooler, my gut feeling is that no officially accredited homeschool group will be like "sure, we'll sign off on your shady deal!" But I need to look at that more.

I guess the way I'm "staying in my lane" on this is that if SD14 doesn't get any credit for what she does at Mom's, that's not my problem. But I can put in some effort to see if what she's doing with me can count. If there's a way, awesome! If not, at least I tried, for the stuff I was responsible for. Not for Mom's stuff.

Sounds like it's time to email our L again...

[ForeverDad]

What is the current parenting time split?  You recently reached a deal, she agreed to it to avoid court, as I recall.  What was that about and how did it impact parenting authority?  Do you have majority time now?

If mom disenrolled SD14 from school and here we are at least 3 months into the school year with SD14 not enrolled anywhere, dad ought to file for court authority for at least school matters.  Mom proactively withdrew SD14 from regular school and failed to do whatever followup.  File for court to award dad custodial authority for him to return her to school.  Or whatever the lawyer says.  Trying to walk a tightrope tiptoeing with mom until SD14 and any other minor children are grown - another 5-6 years? - just prolongs the agony and expense IMO.

Regardless the reasons, mom isn't making good decisions and as long as dad is relatively powerless with the current court order these sorts of issues will keep occurring.

[CoherentMoose]

Two areas.  Or maybe three.  The first is getting your step-daughter as much math help/instruction as you can and continuing your mentorship/relationship with her.  The second is getting her some sort of credit in the school system.  The third is preparing the battlefield legally in case you need to use the legal system to protect her.  In my very humble opinion, the first area is by far the most important.  The other two are not trivial, but pail to actually having math skills and maintaining a healthy relationship with her.  Plus, the first one is clearly in "your lane".  Be well.  CoMo

[kells76]

Talked to registrar at local public HS who was very helpful.

She said that just because a student isn't enrolled as a homeschooler with the local ed service district (ESD) doesn't mean they aren't enrolled as a homeschooler... somewhere. It could be a homeschool program based out of state. Typically if the student unenrolls from the local HS and enrolls in another "standard" school, the new school sends a records request to the old school. She hasn't seen any records requests come in for SD14, but she said that happens a lot with homeschooling. So, it is entirely possible that SD14 is "officially" enrolled as a homeschooler, but not with the county ESD.

She offered to make a "courtesy call" to Mom to check on SD14's enrollment status, without mentioning what initiated the call. She called 3 times and left messages but apparently Mom hasn't called back. This was a couple of weeks ago. She said she'd call me back if she hears anything from Mom.

She said if we want the info, it may take "rocking the boat" by talking to Mom about it.

...

Not really sure if there's anything else to do on this one if DH isn't looking to add data for custody revision.