What the standard possession order is
The standard possession order, or SPO, is the Texas Family Code’s default schedule for the parent a child doesn’t live with most of the time: first, third and fifth weekends, Thursday evenings in the school year, alternating holidays, and 30 days each summer when the parents live within 100 miles.
Texas orders say conservatorship, not custody, and the SPO rests on two roles. One parent holds the exclusive right to designate the child’s primary residence: the primary parent, in plain terms. The other is the possessory conservator, called the possessory parent from here. The SPO is that parent’s schedule. That holds even when both parents share rights as joint managing conservators.
The code presumes the SPO gives the possessory parent reasonable minimum possession and is in the child’s best interest (§153.252). How that right gets decided is on the firm’s page on child custody in Texas; this post is about the schedule.
Weekends and Thursdays within 100 miles
If the possessory parent lives 100 miles or less from the child’s primary residence, weekends run from 6 p.m. on the first, third and fifth Friday of each month to 6 p.m. the following Sunday (§153.312). During the regular school term there is also a Thursday period, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., unless the court finds it isn’t in the child’s best interest. Count Fridays, not weekends: a month with five Fridays puts the fifth weekend and the next month’s first weekend back to back.
Spring break and summer within 100 miles
Spring break alternates. The possessory parent has it in even-numbered years, from 6 p.m. on the day school lets out until 6 p.m. the day before school resumes, and the primary parent has it in odd-numbered years.
Summer is 30 days. Give written notice by April 1 and you choose the dates, in one or two blocks of at least seven days, between the day after school dismisses and seven days before it resumes. Miss the notice and the default is July 1 to July 31, 6 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Holidays alternate by year
Holiday periods override any weekend or Thursday they collide with, at any distance (§153.314). Christmas break splits at noon on December 28. In even-numbered years the possessory parent has the first half, from 6 p.m. on the day school dismisses, and the primary parent has the second half through 6 p.m. the day before school resumes. In odd-numbered years the halves swap. Thanksgiving, from 6 p.m. on the day school dismisses until 6 p.m. the following Sunday, goes to the possessory parent in odd-numbered years and the primary parent in even ones.
A weekend that touches a school holiday gets longer
If your weekend coincides with a student holiday or teacher in-service day on a Monday during the school term, it ends at 6 p.m. Monday instead of Sunday. If the holiday falls on the Friday, it starts at 6 p.m. Thursday. The same applies to a federal, state or local holiday on a summer Monday or Friday (§153.315). The child’s school calendar decides which days count.
The expanded standard possession order
Expanded standard possession is not a separate order. It is a set of choices, called elections, under §153.317 that move start and end times to the school day: weekends beginning when school is dismissed on Friday, ending when school resumes after the weekend, or both, and the Thursday period running from dismissal until school resumes on Friday, which turns a two-hour dinner into an overnight. The court has to grant the election unless it finds it isn’t in the child’s best interest. Within 50 miles of the child’s primary residence, the court applies those school-day times without an election, unless one of the exceptions the code lists applies (§153.3171).
When the parents live more than 100 miles apart
Distance changes the order (§153.313). The possessory parent chooses between the regular first, third and fifth weekends and one weekend a month of that parent’s choosing, from 6 p.m. on the day school recesses to 6 p.m. the day before it resumes. That option has to be chosen in writing within 90 days of the move, with 14 days’ notice before each weekend. There is no Thursday evening over 100 miles. Spring break goes to the possessory parent every year. Summer grows to 42 days: your dates with written notice by April 1, or June 15 to July 27 by default.
You can agree to something different
The standard possession order Texas courts start from is a presumption, not a ceiling. Parents agree to week-on, week-off schedules, extra midweek nights, or a custom holiday split, and courts regularly sign agreed schedules. In the mediations I run, the SPO is often the skeleton, with times moved to fit school, work and distance.
Before you talk to a lawyer or a mediator, print next year’s school calendar, mark the first, third and fifth Fridays, and note the holidays and in-service days. That one sheet shows what the standard order of possession looks like for your child. Keep it, expand it, or replace it.
