School enrollment; Child’s best interests; MCL 722.23; Parenting time modification to accommodate the child’s school attendance; Legal custody; Deciding whether joint custody is in a child’s best interests; MCL 722.26a(1)(b); Proper cause or a change in circumstances; Vodvarka v Grasmeyer

The court held that proper cause existed to revisit the legal custody of the parties’ child, and that the trial court’s findings on the best-interest factors as to both the child’s school and legal custody were not against the great weight of the evidence. Thus, it affirmed the trial court’s orders in these consolidated appeals providing that the child attend school in the district where defendant-father lived and granting him sole legal custody. Plaintiff-mother first argued “that defendant’s enrollment of the child in his school district without plaintiff’s consent stripped the” trial court of decision-making authority on the issue. But she failed to “cite any legal authority to support her contention that one parent not agreeing to school enrollment, standing alone,” deprives the trial court of decision-making authority or results in it “abusing its discretion if it orders the child to continue attending that school.” And the court found no palpable abuse of discretion. It also rejected her argument that the trial court’s factual findings that certain best-interest factors favored defendant related to the school decision were against the great weight of the evidence. She failed to show “that the child’s attendance of school in defendant’s district did not serve the child’s best interests.” Further, the evidence did not clearly preponderate against the trial court’s finding after an evidentiary hearing in 3/21 that, following entry of its 12/20 order as to “the child’s school, the parties’ communication and cooperation regarding the child’s school and medical issues significantly deteriorated sufficient to warrant revisiting the” issue of legal custody. The court concluded that the record evidence supported its finding that her “unilateral actions impacted the child’s schooling and interfered with the school’s ability to assess his progress.” The evidence also showed she did not “inform defendant about the child’s medical issues and appointments.” After analyzing the best-interest factors to decide whether a legal custody change served the child’s best interests, the trial court based its “decision on plaintiff’s undisputed unilateral conduct of withdrawing the child from standardized testing, failure to properly assist the child’s completion of school work, unannounced removal of the child from school for two days, and failure to involve defendant in" important medical decisions. The evidence did not clearly preponderate against its findings.