Request By:
Mr. William Armstrong
Superintendent
Bellevue Public Schools
215 Center
Bellevue, Kentucky 41073
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Robert L. Chenoweth, Assistant Attorney General
The Office of the Attorney General has received your letter requesting an official opinion regarding the legal status of minor (under 18) married students or couples. On behalf of the Bellevue Board of Education you have asked two specific questions:
1. In all matters of student conduct, attendance, and achievement, to whom is the Board responsible, the student only, the spouse of the student, or the parents of the student?
2. Assuming that the Board is responsible to the student, should the Board ask for a written release from the student before communicating with the student's parents?
It is the opinion of this office that the school board's relationship is with the married student(s) save the matter of the privacy of the student's records.
The problem you presented in your letter relative to married students in school is unlike that usually presented. This office has on a number of occasions stated in opinions that public common schools may not have policies that are arbitrary or unreasonable which have the effect of denying education to a married child of school age. See OAG 77-361, copy attached, and Board of Education of Harrodsburg v. Bentley, Ky., 383 S.W.2d 677 (1965). Your problem concerning married students involves the sometimes vague and nebulous legal concept of emancipation, rather, right to education.
A child is emancipated by operation of law on arriving at the age of majority. KRS 2.015. However, the status of emancipation for a child under eighteen in Kentucky is one that in some respects may come and go several times during minority. From a legal standpoint, "emancipation" of a child is the relinquishment by a parent of the control and authority over a child and by so doing giving the child the right to his earnings and extinguishing the parent's legal duty to maintain and support the child. Round Bros. v. McDaniel, 133 Ky. 669, 118 S.W. 956, 958 (1909). The emancipation of a child by marriage is yet another consideration and it is upon this concentration must be given in answering your question rather than upon any declaration by the child or the parents of the child's economic independence.
Although Kentucky lacks a statute which provides that a minor upon marriage becomes emancipated, we believe by considering general principles, a married minor is no longer under the care and control of a parent. Thus, for purposes of educational involvement, at least for the most part, we believe a minor child is emancipated by marriage. This office concluded in OAG 61-953, copy attached, that the marriage of a child under the age of sixteen years emancipated the child from the provisions provisions, KRS 159.010 et seq. In that opinion we stated in part:
"[T]he reason (is) that the marriage gives rise to a new relation inconsistent with the concept of subjection to the control and care of the parent. When such a marriage takes place, the emancipated child is the head of a new family and as such is subject to obligations and duties to his wife and children which require him to be master of himself, his labor, earnings, and conduct."
For the same reason, we believe the local school and school board must relate to the married student himself or herself on such matters as student conduct, attendance and achievement. Once the minor student has married, there is no reason for school officials to involve the parents concerning these matters, to communicate and relate to them, and there certainly is no reason to turn to the student's spouse. A husband does not have control over or charge of his wife and vice versa.
As noted above, there does exist one situation in which school officials must still relate to the parents of a child, even though married, if the child has not reached the eighteenth birthday. By federal law, The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (20 U.S.C. § 1232g), there exists a responsibility of the school board and officials to afford the parents of an underaged emancipated by marriage student, access to and control over the release of the student's educational records. This federal law, sometimes referred to as the Buckley Amendment, is designed to protect the confidentiality of a student's school records and to at the same time afford the parents of a student access to these records. The rights under this law vest in the parents of a student until the student has attained eighteen years of age with one limited exception not of importance here. Under the provision of this law, then, the parents of even an emancipated child has right of access to the child's school records and before access to these records or the contents thereof may be provided to others, with limited exceptions provided for in the statute, the consent of the parent(s) must be obtained by the school.
We realize what we have said in this opinion may be somewhat confusing and seemingly inconsistent. Such a status is precipitated by the definition of the term "student" in The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974. Nevertheless, we are simply saying that school officials must communicate directly with the emancipated by marriage student under eighteen concerning conduct, attendance, achievement and the like because the onus of meeting these obligations rests fully on the shoulders of the emancipated student; but because of The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974, the parents of such a student retains the legal right to the access and control over the student's educational records. A school board and school officials would not be required to obtain a release from the emancipated student under eighteen before communicating with the student's parents about matters contained in or related to the student's records.