We are in MICHIGAN!!
My husband has exercised parenting time with his daughter every Wednesday at 8:00am until Saturday at 1:00pm each week for almost 5 years. This has been a consistent schedule except for a time period of 5 months this past March-August when we had full physical and legal custody of his daughter and her mother had supervised visitations. When the judge reinstated our original parenting time agreement he told the bio-mom......No more games....knock it off of you'll be back in my court room.
Bio-mom now has a new boyfriend....has moved out of her apartment...my SD is sleeping on a matress on the floor in the same room as her mom's boyfriend's 4 year old daughter and 8 year old son most of the time.....all of their belongings are at her granparent's house where she said she was "moving". They have only spent 3 nights there this past month and bio-mom didn't even stay with SD 2 of those nights.
Bio-mom's boyfriend lives 55 minutes from SD's school so she is in the car 1 hour and 50 minutes each day driving to and from school....she is failing 2 subjects (used to be an A and B student). Bio-mom is threatening to change her school for next year which would make it impossible for us to transport her to and from school on our days (Wed., Thurs, Fri each week) because she is 40 minutes from us.
The biggest kicker is that now bio-mom, who just took a worker's compensation settlement, is going back to work 3rd shift because it's in the best interest of her boyfriend's kids that HE move to 1st shift. My SD (age 11) is very upset that she will have to spend the nights at her mom's boyfriend's house while her mom works or even at her granparent's house during her mom's parenting time.
My husband and I have discussed this situation and have decided to file for a modification of custody so that SD can be in the same bed (our home) each night and will have consistency in her life. As we know how long these take from the previous battle, we have also decided to Petition to Modify Parenting Time in the interim.
The simplest solution seems to be to ask that the court order that bio-mom be court ordered to maintain SD's attendance at her current school. HE would also like to request First Right Of Refusal to prevent SD from having to spend nights with her mom's boyfriend or her grandparent's during her mom's parenting time. I have heard that in some states FROR is almost always given. As we have been able to get along well for the past 8 months or so, my hubby is NOT happy that they are not able to address these issues between themselves but bio-mom just isn't hearing it.
Can anyone answer these questions?
Are there guidelines to the sleeping arrangements required for minor children. Is a matress on the floor in the same room with 2 other children, one of the opposite sex satisfactory, to the court?
Does FROR apply to anytime that bio-mom does not have the child in her care or just to "child-care". Would dad be offered FROR even over the step-parent (should they decide to get married)?
Has anyone ever had the court address the district the child attends school?
And finally:
OUR WE MAKING A BIG DEAL OUT OF NOTHING?????
Sorry this is so long!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

