An Illinois mother was recently arrested for custodial interference in Wisconsin.

The woman allegedly secretly fled with her child in direct violation of an Illinois court order barring her from any contact with her child during the divorce of the parents.

The father suspected where they had gone and notified authorities, who reportedly found the child at the home of a friend of her mother’s.

Sadly, this incident likely illustrates what not to do if the goal is winning unsupervised visitation and parental access to the child.

Read more in this Wisconsin Journal Times article: Illinois woman arrested after fleeing here with child.

An ex-cop is publicizing her anticipated forthcoming release of software she dubs Custody Calculations.

It is hyped as a cure for virtually everything that ails separating families and family courts nationwide.

In that respect, it sounds naive and simplistic but, of course, everyone will have to reserve judgment until the software actually materializes. Its debut appears to be running late.

More realistic is the software’s core promise of helping the courts to calculate and collect fines for contempt of family court orders and generate standardized orders on demand.

Custody Calculations contemplates tacking onto each contempt order an extra fine which would be paid to the court system for the court system, possibly to the magnitude of $50 million per state per year.

Sounds good, but that would have to be properly authorized …

Read more in this PRWeb press release: Anyone Interested In 50 Million? Custody Calculations Helping Local and State Governments Obtain New Revenue For Their Family Law Court System.

A 3 year old child, previously taken into protective custody by the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF), was released to his mother – only to die two months later.

There was a court hearing on whether to release the little boy, but neither the boy’s non-lawyer advocate nor his caseworker attended. They weren’t aware of the hearing.

And DCF failed to inform the Court (either in person or through a report or other court papers) that the mother’s boyfriend hit the child and his background check was not completed correctly until after the boy went home.

DCF only made a couple of visits after the child was sent home.

The boy’s mother and boyfriend have respectively been charged with manslaughter and murder in the child’s death.

The question remains: did DCF do enough to protect the boy?

Read more in this [Southwest Florida] News Press article: DCF admits to errors in death of Zahid Jones.

Under current law, parents who believe that their special needs student’s public school is not adequately meeting their special needs bear the burden of proving at an administrative hearing that that is the case.

That can be a time-consuming and expensive proposition.

In New York state, the governor just approved a bill that will shift to the school the burden of proving that it is meeting the special needs student’s needs.

This is an enormous victory for New York’s special needs kids and their parents.

Will other states follow suit?

Read more in this Syracuse Post-Standard article: Spitzer OKs special ed bill.