August 2022 and the Texas Standard Possession Order

Intro

Happy summer, everyone. Chris Schmiedeke, Divorce Simplified. We are going to talk about the month of August. This will be an interesting one because school is coming back into session and we are going to begin implementing our weekends and our weekly Thursday periods of possession this month.

Weekend Periods of Possession this month

August is a hybrid month in that we are finalizing the summer and now beginning to get back into the school year. So as we look at this, obviously, the custodial parent is in blue; the non-custodial parent is in yellow. We have our first, third, and fifth weekends continue all year round, so we still have those. Non-custodial – your first Friday of the month would be August 5th. Your third Friday of the month would be August 19th. There is no fifth Friday of the month.

Thursday Periods of Possession

As you can see, I have also implemented the Thursday periods of possession. We know that the Thursday periods of possession continue during the school term. So based on my kid’s school calendar, they go back in early August. So they will go, I don’t recall the exact date, the 8th through the 17th-ish, they go back. So assuming your kids are back in school, the Thursdays are going to begin after they return to school. So in my situation, it would be Thursday, the 18th, and Thursday the 25th of August would be the regular weekly Thursday periods of possession. So you can see that beginning about mid-month of August, you are going to get back into the regular schedule and that’s the yearly school schedule.

Weekend Period of Possession Outside the Extended Summer Possession for the Custodial Parent

Custodial parent, if you have not already chosen your weekend that you can steal outside of the non-custodial parent’s extended summer possession, the weekend that is not inside the month of July, assuming they default to the month of July, the only weekend you have left to you would have been August 5th, but you would have had to provide a notice of that 14 days in advance. Anything outside of the extended summer possession weekend, you have to give 14 days’ notice. If you’re picking the weekend inside of the extended summer possession, that has to be given by April 15th. But if not, if this is the one that’s outside, then you have to give 14 days’ written notice. So if you haven’t already used it, it may be too late for you to get the 5th. Hopefully, you used it in June.

Closing

So the month of August is a busy one. There is the opportunity for the custodial parent to take one of the weekends that would otherwise go to the non-custodial parent probably the first week of August. That would have to be because I believe most kids’ schools are starting around mid-August. After that mid-August time when schools go back into session, the Thursday periods of possession are going to start up and you will be back into the normal standard possession order or the non-holiday-ish summer possession. I hope that helps. Talk to everyone next month.