Medina County Shared Parenting Plan: Ohio Forms, FOCUS Seminar, and Filing

A Medina County shared parenting plan is the court-approved document that divides time, decision-making, and financial responsibility for your children between both parents after a divorce or dissolution. To get one in place, you draft a plan that meets Ohio Revised Code 3109.04, file it with the Medina County Clerk of Courts along with child support worksheets, complete the court’s FOCUS parenting seminar, and attend a final hearing where a judge decides whether the arrangement serves your children’s best interest.¹

What the Plan Must Cover

Ohio Revised Code 3109.04 sets the minimum contents. Your plan must address physical living arrangements, child support, medical and dental care, school placement, and the schedule for holidays, school breaks, and other important dates.² That list is the floor. Medina County judges routinely want more detail, and a vague plan invites disputes later.

Before drafting, gather this information for every child:

Full legal names, dates of birth, and current addresses.
Health insurance provider, policy number, and the cost of covering the children. If coverage comes through an employer-sponsored group health plan, the plan language may need to satisfy federal requirements for a Qualified Medical Child Support Order so the insurer is legally bound to cover the children.³
Which parent’s address determines school enrollment.
Who has final say on medical treatment, education, extracurricular activities, and religious upbringing, or whether those decisions are shared jointly.
How parents will handle emergencies, routine medical updates, and scheduling changes.

Decision-making authority deserves special attention. Many parents gloss over it and end up back in court fighting about whether a child can switch schools or start a new medication. Say plainly whether decisions are joint (both must agree) or whether one parent has final authority in a specific category. The more concrete you are here, the less you will spend on attorneys later.

The Medina County Domestic Relations Court provides a downloadable shared parenting plan form on its website that tracks the statute’s requirements.⁴ Fill out every section with enough detail that a stranger could read the plan and know exactly what each parent is supposed to do on any given day. “Reasonable parenting time” as a catch-all is the fastest way to guarantee a future argument. Specify pickup and drop-off times, locations, and who handles transportation. Both parents sign the finished document, and the court’s standard practice is to require notarization.

Building the Parenting Time Schedule

The Medina County Domestic Relations Court publishes a standard parenting time schedule, but encourages parents to build a custom schedule whenever possible.⁵ The standard schedule breaks parenting time into weekday, weekend, holiday, and vacation blocks, with structure varying by the child’s age.⁶

For holidays like Thanksgiving, winter break, and spring break, parents choose between splitting the time equally or alternating each year. If you don’t specify, the court defaults to the equal-split option.⁶

For children five and older, each parent can take up to fourteen consecutive days of vacation with fourteen days’ advance written notice. The non-residential parent must give forty-five days’ notice of summer parenting time dates, including the destination, phone numbers, travel method, and arrival and departure times.⁶

Both parents must keep each other informed of their current address, phone number, and an emergency contact number. That obligation continues after a move unless the court orders otherwise.⁶

Child Support Worksheets

A shared parenting plan does not eliminate child support. Ohio law requires a child support calculation in every shared parenting order using the state’s standard worksheet for shared parenting cases.⁷ Both parents file completed worksheets with the court, jointly if you agree on the numbers, separately if you don’t.

The court calculates a baseline support amount from the worksheet, but it can deviate from that number if the formula would be unjust or inappropriate. Factors the court weighs include each parent’s ability to maintain adequate housing, child care costs, school tuition, medical expenses, and other relevant circumstances.⁷ If you agree on an amount that departs from the guideline calculation, the separation agreement must include specific factual findings explaining why. Generic language like “this amount is fair and equitable” won’t satisfy the court.

Filing with the Clerk of Courts

Once the plan is signed, you file it with the Medina County Clerk of Courts. Current fees:

Divorce with children: $400
Dissolution with children: $350
Post-decree motion to modify or enforce: $200
Motion to adopt an agreement: $25

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If you cannot afford the filing fee, Ohio Revised Code 2323.311 lets you file an affidavit of indigency. When you submit the affidavit with your paperwork, the clerk must accept your documents without prepayment.⁹ The clerk assigns a case number that tracks all future filings and hearings for your case.

The FOCUS Parenting Seminar

Medina County requires every parent in a divorce, dissolution, or legal separation involving minor children to attend the court’s FOCUS seminar (Families of Children United in Support).¹⁰ The in-house seminar is prepaid by your filing deposit, so there’s no additional out-of-pocket cost for that option.

Sessions run two hours, either Thursday evenings from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. by Zoom or Tuesday mornings from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. Parents in a divorce must attend within forty-five days after service is completed. Parents in a dissolution must attend within forty-five days of filing the petition and before the final hearing. Pre-register by calling the court at 234-802-0944; walk-ins are not guaranteed admission.¹⁰

If you can’t attend FOCUS, the court accepts two online programs at your own expense: “Children in Between” or “Two Families Now” (both available in Spanish). You must file the completion certificate with the Clerk of Courts.¹⁰ The court will not finalize your plan until the certificate is on file. Missing this step is one of the most common reasons cases stall.

Court Review and the Best Interest Standard

After the paperwork and FOCUS certificate are filed, a judge or magistrate reviews the plan. The guiding question is whether shared parenting serves the children’s best interest. Ohio law gives judges a long list of factors to weigh:

Each parent’s ability to cooperate and make joint decisions
Each parent’s willingness to encourage the child’s relationship with the other parent
Any history of domestic violence, child abuse, or parental kidnapping
How close the parents live to each other
The child’s wishes, if the court interviews the child
The child’s adjustment to home, school, and community
The mental and physical health of everyone involved
Which parent is more likely to honor the other parent’s parenting time
Whether either parent is behind on child support

A final hearing is typically scheduled where the judge may ask clarifying questions about living arrangements or support figures. If approved, the judge signs the shared parenting decree, and the Clerk of Courts journalizes the document, making it an enforceable court order throughout Ohio.

Changing the Plan Later

If both parents agree on the changes, they can jointly file the modified terms at any time. The court will incorporate them into the existing decree unless the changes aren’t in the children’s best interest.² The filing fee for a motion to adopt an agreement is $25.

If only one parent wants the change, the bar is higher. The court can modify the plan on one parent’s request only if the modification is in the children’s best interest. For bigger changes, like switching the residential parent, the requesting parent must show that circumstances have materially changed since the last order and that the change outweighs the harm of disrupting the child’s environment.² A contested post-decree motion costs $200 to file.

The court can also terminate a shared parenting decree entirely if it determines shared parenting is no longer in the children’s best interest. When that happens, the court reverts to a traditional custody allocation with one residential parent.²

Relocation Notice

If the residential parent plans to move, Ohio Revised Code 3109.051 requires them to file a notice of intent to relocate with the court that issued the parenting order. The court sends a copy to the other parent, and either on its own or at the non-residential parent’s request, may schedule a hearing to decide whether the parenting time schedule needs to change.¹¹ This isn’t optional. Moving without filing can lead to a contempt finding and puts you in a terrible position if the other parent files an emergency motion. Even a move across the county can affect school placement and transportation enough to trigger a hearing.

If a Parent Violates the Order

A signed shared parenting decree is a court order, and ignoring it carries real consequences. If one parent refuses to follow the schedule, withholds the children, or disregards decision-making provisions, the other parent can file a motion for contempt. The show-cause motion costs $200 to file.

Disobeying a court order is contempt under Ohio Revised Code 2705.02.¹² Penalties escalate with repeat violations:

First offense: up to a $250 fine, up to 30 days in jail, or both
Second offense: up to a $500 fine, up to 60 days in jail, or both
Third or subsequent offense: up to a $1,000 fine, up to 90 days in jail, or both

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Courts don’t impose jail time casually. But the threat is real enough that most parents comply once a contempt motion is filed, and the violating parent looks terrible in front of the judge, which matters enormously if the other parent later seeks to modify custody.

Tax Questions Your Plan Should Settle

Shared parenting creates tax issues that catch many parents off guard. Two matter most: who claims the child as a dependent, and who qualifies for Head of Household filing status.

Claiming the Child as a Dependent

Generally, the parent who has custody for the greater part of the year claims the child. If parents want to alternate years or let the noncustodial parent claim the child, the custodial parent must sign IRS Form 8332 to release the claim.¹⁴ A divorce decree alone is no longer a valid substitute. Form 8332 transfers the Child Tax Credit and related credits, but it does not transfer the Earned Income Credit, the Child and Dependent Care Credit, or Head of Household filing status, which always stay with the custodial parent.

Your plan should specify which parent claims each child in which tax year. If the plan is silent, expect a fight every April. And if the noncustodial parent claims a child without a signed Form 8332 on file, the IRS can disallow the credits during an audit.

Head of Household Status

Filing as Head of Household gives you a larger standard deduction and more favorable tax brackets than filing as Single. To qualify after a divorce or separation, you must have paid more than half the cost of maintaining your home for the year, and the child must have lived in your home for more than half the year. In a true 50/50 shared parenting arrangement, only one parent can claim Head of Household for a given child. If the parents can’t agree, the IRS applies tie-breaker rules.¹⁵ Parents with multiple children sometimes split the claims, with one parent taking Head of Household based on one child while the other parent claims based on another.

1
Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Code 3109.04 – Allocating Parental Rights and Responsibilities for Care of Children – Shared Parenting
2
Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Code 3109 – Children
3
U.S. Department of Labor. Qualified Medical Child Support Orders
4
Medina County Domestic Relations Court. Medina County Domestic Relations Court – Forms
5
Medina County Domestic Relations Court. Medina County Domestic Relations Court – Standard Long-Distance Parenting Time Schedule
6
Justia. Medina County Domestic Relations Court – Standard Parenting Time Schedule
7
Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Code 3119.24 – Shared Parenting Order Child Support
8
Medina County Clerk of Courts. Court Fee Schedule
9
Supreme Court of Ohio. Form 20 – Civil Fee Waiver Affidavit and Order
10
Medina County Domestic Relations Court. Family Court Resources – Families of Children United in Support
11
Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Code 3109.051 – Parenting Time – Companionship or Visitation Rights
12
Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Code 2705.02 – Acts in Contempt of Court
13
Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Code 2705.05 – Hearings for Contempt Proceedings
14
Internal Revenue Service. About Form 8332 – Release/Revocation of Release of Claim to Exemption for Child by Custodial Parent
15
Internal Revenue Service. Filing Taxes After Divorce or Separation