2023 Ohio Parenting Time Report
The 2023 NPO Ohio Parenting Time Rules Report shows continuing progress in Ohio courts toward shared parenting schedules. This report evaluates and grades each county on its statutorily-mandated local parenting time rule. While the majority of Ohio courts still employ an outdated and scientifically unsupported default schedule that marginalizes one parent in the children's lives, numerous courts have adopted parenting time schedules that encourage or at least facilitate more equal parenting time. Every Ohio court that has changed its rules since the publication of the original 2018 NPO Parenting Time Report has improved its rule. As a result of the changes since 2020, more than a million Ohioans are no longer subject to default parenting time schedules of the old "every other weekend and one evening a week" variety.
In the 2023 NPO Ohio Parenting Time Rules Report:
7 counties received 'A's
1 county received a 'B'
18 counties received 'C's
45 counties received 'D's
0 counties received 'F's
17 counties have multiple schedules with no default, 11 of these have at least one schedule with equal parenting time
2020 Ohio Parenting Time Report
National Parents Organization has completed the 2020 NPO Ohio Parenting Time Rules Report. This report, which updates the 2018 NPO Ohio Parenting Time Report, analyzes and evaluates the parenting time guidelines of each of Ohio’s 88 county domestic relations courts. Since the publication of NPO’s 2018 report, eight county courts changed their parenting time rules—all of these counties improved their rules. Three created equal parenting rules and four others followed a multiple-schedule strategy offering at least one option that is an equal parenting option. As a result of these changes, more than a quarter million additional Ohioans are now subject to equal parenting rules and more than a half million Ohioans are subject to rules that offer equal parenting as an option.
In the 2020 NPO Ohio Parenting Time Rules Report:
6 counties received ‘A’s
1 county received a ‘B’
11 counties received ‘C’s
58 counties received ‘D’s
0 counties received an ‘F’
2018 Ohio Parenting Time Report
The Ohio Revised Code requires each Ohio Court of Common Pleas to adopt “standard parenting time guidelines” for dividing children’s time between parents when the parents live apart. A 2018 NPO study of these parenting schedules uncovered extreme variations in these rules, with many allowing children as little as four days a month with a parent while providing children in other communities as much as equal time with both parents.
The report found that 64 of 88 Ohio counties have a default parenting arrangement that allows the children less than 20 percent of regular (non-holiday, non-vacation) time, despite compelling research that shows equal time with both parents is best for a child’s health and wellbeing.
In the 2018 NPO Ohio Parenting Time Report:
3 counties received ‘A’s
1 county received a ‘B’
13 counties received ‘C’s
63 counties received ‘D’s
1 county received an ‘F’