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Can I Get In Legal Trouble If Someone Else’s Child Living In My Home Doesn’t Go To School?

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Location: Florida, USA

To make a very long story short, my husband’s parents became homeless several months ago. They live in their vehicle, but their 13yo stays in our house. I’m going to keep this post focused on school/truancy because there is too much going on and I don’t want things getting muddled. We do NOT have temporary guardianship/kinship/any type of custody arrangement making us legally responsible for her.

For months, I was the one taking her to and from school—this was a hardship for me, because we’re not zoned for her school so they didn’t provide a bus, and I had to drive her, and it took 2+ hrs a trip (~4hrs per day). I also have my own children to get to and from school. I also have a physical disability, and was in physical therapy for some time for it, and had to miss sessions I was never able to get back, due to having to be available to get SIL from school. Or sometimes she would just have to miss school, because I wouldn’t be available to pick her up, and don’t have the authority to get her from school early. During this time, there were multiple instances where their parents would come take her and not bring her back for days or weeks, causing her to miss school. On one such occasion, I tried to bring her to school anyway and said if they want to take her they can pick her up there. It caused a huge fuss, with her calling them to come get her quickly before I could leave the house, and of course they took her anyway. They also lied about where they were going, and ended up parked at/sleeping at a public park all day instead of her going to school…at this point, I decided to be done with it. I didn’t want to be involved with her getting to school anymore, and we told them they had to take her back and forth from now on. I do not take her on days they can’t take her, because they could get transportation help from the school under McKinney Vento, but they won’t reach out about it. Now they don’t have a license plate on their vehicle so of course they can’t drive her back and forth. If she misses too much school due to this, are my husband and I legally responsible for it?

submitted by /u/RelationUnusual8786
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