Legal Question Of The Week - 1/10/13
By Attorney Thomas B. Mooney, Neag School of Education, University of Connecticut
The "Legal Question of the Week" is a regular feature of the CAS Weekly NewsBlast. We invite readers to submit short, law-related questions of practical concern to school administrators. Each week, we will select a question and publish an answer. While these answers cannot be considered formal legal advice, they may be of help to you and your colleagues. We may edit your questions, and we will not identify the authors. Please submit your questions to: legalmailbag@casciac.org
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Dear Legal Mailbag:
I am sick and tired of divorced parents treating me like a ping pong ball as they jockey for position in their fights over their children. Normally, I want to stay out of such fights, but a request that I got last week has me stumped. The mother just got custody of her son, as she proved to me by showing me the court order. She told me that she will be going to court to get her son’s name changed, because he was named after her husband, whom she now despises. She explained that the divorce has depleted her bank account, and that she will not be able to seek a court order changing her son’s name for another six months. Given that her son is only seven, she told me that time is of the essence, and she has asked me to have her son’s teachers start calling him by his new name now. I told her that I could not do that, but she insists not only that I can, but also that I should. Is it possible that she is right?
Signed,
Second-guessing Myself
Dear Second-guessing:
Actually, as a legal matter, people can call themselves whatever they want, as long as they are not doing so for purposes of fraud. The problem here is that school officials are responsible for keeping official records. If a student or parent has unofficially changed a name, it is fine for teachers and others to address the student by the chosen name, not the legal name. Of course, only the custodial parent can make such decisions, and if the non-custodial parent doesn’t like it, the dispute is a matter for the courts, not the schools. In any event, school officials still must assure that the school records are accurate, and thus unless and until the student’s name is changed legally, the transcript should still reflect the student’s legal name. The furthest I would go to accommodate such a request for an unofficial name change is to have a notation on the cumulative record following the student’s legal name with “aka” followed the student’s new chosen name.
The "Legal Question of the Week" is a regular feature of the CAS Weekly NewsBlast. We invite readers to submit short, law-related questions of practical concern to school administrators. Each week, we will select a question and publish an answer. While these answers cannot be considered formal legal advice, they may be of help to you and your colleagues. We may edit your questions, and we will not identify the authors. Please submit your questions to: legalmailbag@casciac.org
_____________________________________________________________________________
Dear Legal Mailbag:
I am sick and tired of divorced parents treating me like a ping pong ball as they jockey for position in their fights over their children. Normally, I want to stay out of such fights, but a request that I got last week has me stumped. The mother just got custody of her son, as she proved to me by showing me the court order. She told me that she will be going to court to get her son’s name changed, because he was named after her husband, whom she now despises. She explained that the divorce has depleted her bank account, and that she will not be able to seek a court order changing her son’s name for another six months. Given that her son is only seven, she told me that time is of the essence, and she has asked me to have her son’s teachers start calling him by his new name now. I told her that I could not do that, but she insists not only that I can, but also that I should. Is it possible that she is right?
Signed,
Second-guessing Myself
Dear Second-guessing:
Actually, as a legal matter, people can call themselves whatever they want, as long as they are not doing so for purposes of fraud. The problem here is that school officials are responsible for keeping official records. If a student or parent has unofficially changed a name, it is fine for teachers and others to address the student by the chosen name, not the legal name. Of course, only the custodial parent can make such decisions, and if the non-custodial parent doesn’t like it, the dispute is a matter for the courts, not the schools. In any event, school officials still must assure that the school records are accurate, and thus unless and until the student’s name is changed legally, the transcript should still reflect the student’s legal name. The furthest I would go to accommodate such a request for an unofficial name change is to have a notation on the cumulative record following the student’s legal name with “aka” followed the student’s new chosen name.