Legal Question in Family Law in Massachusetts
I am a non custodial parent. I live 90 minutes away from my son. My son is with me every Weds (this day can be flexible) and every other weekend. When my son is with me, he attends CCD for religion. In May he will make his first communion. There are 2 practices that are mandatory to make his communion. They are on Thursday and Friday. I have informed his mother that I need to change my visitation from Weds to Thurs. The issue I am having is that I want to keep him out of school on Friday so he doesn't have to travel 3 hours on Thursday and a hour and a half on Friday. I have said I will go over the school work that he will miss on Friday. His mother will not allow me to keep him out of school. She was allowed to take him out of school for a week in March for Disney World, but I want to keep him out for a day for communion and there are issues. I am in Massachusetts. Any thoughts?
2 Answers from Attorneys
This is a difficult problem to solve. On one hand, you are trying to give the child a religious education without the cooperation of the mother. If mother cooperated, she could take the child to CCD in her area. Your solution provides a religious education at the expense of his public school education. I am sure that the school authorities will state that it is harmful to the child to keep him out of school every Friday. They will also say that your going over the school work is not an acceptable substitute for attending school. I am afraid that if you take this before a Judge, the Judge will rule that the child can't miss school. The logical solution is for mother to take child to CCD on her time. If there is no dispute about religion, a Judge may decide that mother should do this.
I would agree that it is a gamble. However, I beleive that if you can show that the missing of school wont affect the child then I beleive that a Judge may alloow the modification of visits. You can contact the office for further discussion 774-745-0562.