Generally, information about health and education must be provided to a noncustodial parent, with few exceptions. State statutes do vary somewhat in their specificity regarding the exact documents to be provided. It is valuable in maintaining the child’s relationship with both parents to ensure that both parents are equally informed about the child.
Your parenting plan needs to consider what information about the children will be shared by the parents, and how. You will likely want to include some text broadening the type of information shared from the minimum the state may require. For instance, game schedules and school performances should be included, but these daily details will not necessarily be specified by a court agreement.
It is improper to burden children with the job of transmitting information from one parent to the other. If it is later claimed that information is not being provided, a judge will be displeased if a parent blames a child for the omission. Our advice is for the parent who gets these records to provide them to the other parent without being asked. This eliminates a common source of frustration between separated parents. There are now online tools designed for divorced parents that allow one parent to post information in a place where the other can access it at any time. These tools can even record when the information was posted, in case a dispute comes up later regarding the timeliness of information sharing.
If problems do arise, one simple solution may be for the nonresidential parent to get duplicate information directly from the source. For instance, teachers are now accustomed to dealing with children with separated parents, and can often provide two copies of everything they send home.
