If you’ve mediated or tried a custody case in the last few years, you already know that school-choice disputes have turned into one of the biggest sticking points in Texas family law. Parents aren’t just arguing about curriculum anymore. They’re battling over public vs. private, charters, magnets, out-of-district transfers, and everything in between.
And because most of our standard MSAs said only that one parent (or both) had “the right to make decisions concerning the child’s education,” everyone tended to assume that phrase covered whatever they personally thought it should cover.
The Legislature has now responded to these frequent disputes with a clean statutory framework that separates educational rights into three distinct categories, each of which must be expressly allocated in court orders and MSAs.
The full text of the enrolled bill is available here: H.B. 2495 (Texas 2025)
Background and Purpose of the New Law
Before diving into what mediators and practitioners now need to consider and change, it helps to understand why the Legislature stepped in at all. The bill analyses and committee reports make clear that courts were repeatedly being dragged back into disputes because no one could agree on whether “educational decisions” included picking a school or completing enrollment. Sole managing conservators assumed it did, but possessory conservators often insisted it didn’t. Judges were left to sort out arguments that could have been avoided entirely with clearer statutory language. H.B. 2495 was designed to fix that problem. It confirms that a sole managing conservator holds all three educational components – making educational decisions, choosing the school, and enrolling the child. And just as importantly, the bill now requires that all orders moving forward, including those involving joint managing conservators, allocate each of these rights separately. Once you see the legislative purpose laid out in the bill history, it becomes obvious why the old catch-all “right to make decisions concerning education” is no longer enough.
The Three Separate Educational Rights Under H.B. 2495
Starting September 1, 2025 – and in any case pending or filed on or after that date – the Family Code requires that the following three educational rights be expressly allocated:
- The right to make decisions concerning the child’s education (i.e., curriculum, tutoring, special education services, academic programs, etc.)
- The right to designate the school the child will attend
- The right to enroll the child in that school, subject to eligibility and admissions requirements
This means that our familiar MSA “rights and duties” tables and your corresponding orders will need to be updated with this language. Simply listing the “right to make decisions concerning education” is no longer sufficient. School designation and enrollment rights must now also be explicitly addressed.
What This Means for MSAs and Drafting Lawyers
For mediators and attorneys who rely on a one-page rights-and-duties table, the good news is that these rights can still be allocated succinctly. A single line can comply with the statute while remaining plain and readable.
If there’s no tiebreaker, a single sentence works:
“The right to make decisions concerning the child’s education, including the exclusive right to designate the school the child will attend and to enroll the child in that school, subject to eligibility and admission requirements.”
If the parents want a tiebreaker for general educational decisions, but need to designate one parent to pick the school and enroll the child, you can merge both concepts cleanly:
“The right to make decisions concerning the child’s education shall be joint. In the event of disagreement, the parents shall be ordered to follow the recommendation of the child’s school counselor. * shall have the exclusive right to designate and enroll the child in the school the child will attend, subject to eligibility and admission requirements.”
(Of course, replace * with the parent who will hold that exclusive right.)
This keeps everything short enough to fit into the one-page rights-and-duties table that most of us use at mediation, while still complying with the statute and avoiding future disputes.
Why This Matters in Mediation
From the bench and now the mediation table, I’ve seen this pattern repeated. Parents return to court because the MSA didn’t make clear who actually controls school selection. One parent believes “education decisions” gave them the right to pick the campus. The other thinks it didn’t. Tempers flare, money is spent, and the children get caught in the middle.
H.B. 2495 essentially forces us to address this issue during mediation, not six months later when school starts, and everyone realizes they were never on the same page. And in practice, it makes the conversation at mediation much smoother. When you put these rights in front of parents one by one – education decisions, school designation, enrollment – it almost always becomes clear what really matters to them.
Closing Thoughts: Your Mediation Needs an Expert Who Understands These Changes
Educational decision-making has always been a potential flashpoint. However, with H.B. 2495, the law finally distinguishes between making academic decisions, choosing a school, and enrolling a child in school. For families trying to co-parent successfully, these distinctions matter. For mediators and attorneys, they’re essential.
Let’s Get Your Next Case Wrapped Up the Right Way
I spent years on the family bench watching vague education clauses explode into expensive enforcement and modification battles. Now, as a full-time family law mediator, my work focuses on making sure the MSAs we draft are precise, durable, and designed to keep families out of court.
If you have a custody case with school-choice questions, or any case where rights and duties require careful attention, let’s ensure your MSA language complies with current law and prevents headaches down the road.
Let’s work together to resolve your next case with clarity, confidence, and legal precision.
