Court Opinion

ID: 9538850
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:42:38.465226+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:12.323125
License: Public Domain

SIMMS, Justice,
concurring:
I agree with the majority that these facts do not support the trial court’s determination that Ms. Martin is incapable of educating her children and that the trial court’s decision requiring her to enroll her boys in public school under threat of losing of their custody, must be reversed. I would go further, however, and hold that the threshold for judicial interference in Ms. Martin’s custody of her children was not reached by the noncustodial father’s challenge to her choice of one lawful educational alternative over another, and that the entire scope of the inquiry into the adequacy of her teaching was inappropriate for the trial court’s consideration of change of custody.
It is not the business of the courts to become involved in everyday decisions of child rearing which are properly the prerogative of the parents or, in the case of divorced parents, the custodial parent. The right of the custodial parent to determine and control the education of the child is well-settled. In the absence of specific provisions in the divorce decree or an agreement between the parents, the sole decision making power over significant decisions affecting the child’s welfare, including education, resides in the custodial parent. See Annot., Noncustodial Parent’s Rights As Respects Education of Child, 36 A.L.R.3d 1093; Bennett v. Bennett, 73 So.2d 274 (Fla.1954); Von Tersch v. Von Tersch, 235 Neb. 263, 455 N.W.2d 130 (1990); Jenks v. Jenks, 385 S.W.2d 370 (Ct.App.Mo.1964); Rust v. Rust, 864 S.W.2d 52 (Tenn.Ct.App.1993); Griffin v. Griffin, 699 P.2d 407 (Colo.1985); Parrinelli v. Parrinelli, 138 Misc.2d 49, 524 N.Y.S.2d 159 (Sup.Ct.Suffolk Co.1986).
The essence of the custody which the court awarded to Ms. Martin at the time of her divorce is the right to companionship of her children and the right to make fundamental decisions regarding their care, control, education, health and religious training. 10 O.S. 1991, § 4; 43 O.S.1991, § 112; Matter of Adoption of Darren Todd H., 615 P.2d 287 (Okl.1980). It is a matter of unquestioned constitutional principle that in the absence of jeopardy to the health and safety of children, the government may not interfere with fundamental parental rights and interests in directing education and the religious upbringing of their children. Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 92 S.Ct. 1526, 32 L.Ed.2d 15 (1972); Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 45 S.Ct. 571, 69 L.Ed. 1070 (1925); Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 43 S.Ct. 625, 67 L.Ed. 1042 (1923). The rights and obligations of custody are extensive and operate against third parties, including the noncustodial parent, as well as against the state. In *99the absence of exceptional facts, decisions made by the custodian regarding a child’s education cannot be grounds for the modification of custody.
The legislature is the proper body to provide standards for the education of children. In its wisdom, our legislature has enacted statutory protection of the right to home educate children, [70 O.S.1991 § 10-105(B); 70 O.S.1991, § 10-109(A) ], but has not seen fit to enact minimum standards for teachers or curriculum. We cannot do so in its stead. Home schooling is a lawful educational alternative available to Ms. Martin and in the absence of the most unusual conditions, which were not shown to be present here, it was not within the power of the trial court to pass on the quality of education they were receiving or dictate the type of education it felt best suited to her children. These educational decisions are placed by law with her and with her alone.
The trial court erred in considering and determining custodial imperatives under the guise of ordinary schooling complaints. The evidence fell far short of showing that Ms. Martin’s instruction of her boys was a substantial change of circumstances which directly and adversely affected them in any material way or posed a serious threat to their health, safety or welfare. Gibbons v. Gibbons, 442 P.2d 482 (Okl.1968).
In Jenks v. Jenks, 385 S.W.2d 370, 376 (Mo.App.1964), the court stressed that courts should not specify in a divorce decree nor afterwards by modification prescribe the manner of the performance of duties of the parent awarded custody so as to abridge that custodial discretion, and in fact, once custody has been awarded no further decision should be required of the court except to prevent abuse of the child or neglect of his essential interests. The court refused to direct a specific school which the child of divorced parents should attend although the agreement between the parents was unenforceable and, on that point, the court stated:
“... Courts are not so constituted as to be able to regulate the details of a child’s upbringing. It exhausts the imagination to speculate on the difficulties to which they would subject themselves were they to enter the home or the school or the playground and undertake to exercise on all occasions the authority which one party or the other would be bound to ascribe to them. Considerations of the most practical kind, therefore, dictate that in these cases the duty of attending to the details of the child’s rearing be delegated to a custodian, and, as an indispensable concomitant of the appointment, that the custodian be vested not only with commensurate authority but with that degree of discretion upon which the expeditious exercise of authority invariably depends. It must be presumed in the absence of a contrary showing that the custodian, whether he be the child’s parent or a stranger, will discharge his duties with fidelity and good judgment ...”
Facing facts very similar to those of the instant case, the court in Rust v. Rust, 864 S.W.2d 52 (Tenn.Ct.App.1993) reversed the trial court’s decision sustaining the noncustodial father’s objections to the mother’s decision to home school one of their children. The court held the threshold for judicial interference with the custodial mother’s decision to home school one of her children was not met merely by the noncustodial father’s objections and the trial court’s determination that the mother’s decision was not in the child’s best interests. The court recognized that the parent awarded legal custody has the right to make the decisions regarding the child’s education and stressed that the new family unit created by the divorce custody order, a single-parent family, has the same fundamental right to child rearing autonomy and freedom from unwarranted governmental interference as is accorded an intact two-parent family: the right to raise children as they see fit. The court cautioned that courts should exercise the same restraint from interfering with a custodial parent’s decision regarding a child’s education as would be shown to a decision made jointly by divorced parents or by married parents. Courts, it was held, should not second guess a custodial parent’s decisions concerning a child’s education when those decisions are consistent with state law and should not countermand those decisions unless they are contrary to *100an existing custody order, impose increased, involuntary burdens on the noncustodial parent, are illegal, or will affirmatively harm the child. See also Lane v. Schenck, 158 Vt. 489, 614 A.2d 786 (1992) (New family unit entitled to deference in considering choice to relocate).
Because home schooling is a permissible lawful educational alternative in this state and the noncustodial father did not present sufficient proof to warrant the trial court’s interference with the mother’s decision as sole legal custodian of the children to educate them at home over the father’s objections, the trial court should not have interfered with her decision. The mother was unquestionably a fit parent and a good custodian and there was no showing that her teaching was illegal or affirmatively harmful to the children.
It is not difficult to see that we will be embarking on a perilous course if we decide to consider and pass on questions concerning the quality of educational choices in motions to modify custody. In addition to weighing arguments concerning home schools vs. traditional schools, we will be opening the floodgates for uncountable and never-ending post divorce challenges regarding the relative merits of all aspects of education: one teacher vs. another, one school system vs. another, one school vs. another, one curriculum vs. another, etc. These are not decisions our courts are competent to make and we should strenuously avoid the temptation to become education analysts.
I am authorized to state that Justice WILSON approves of the views expressed in this concurring opinion. I am also authorized to state that Chief Justice KAUGER, Justice OP ALA, and Justice WATT Concur in this separate opinion.