First off, welcome to Fluther. Secondly, the short answer is yes. Unless they live in a state in which the age of majority is 16, the parents can do this. Parents have responsibilities to their children. Legally they have to support their children which is food, clothing, housing, etc. But they are also given the right to make important decisions about their childrens’ lives. What doctor to go to and when, what school to send them too, where they will live, etc are all decisions that parents can make. There are a few things that play into those decisions, however, that the parents cannot control. For instance, with the high school you mentioned…they can pay to send the child to the H.S. but might have a hard time getting them to participate, study, pass classes, etc. Other things that might happen is that the child might become a disciplinary case, acting out in class, brewing a bad attitude at home, etc. Being a good parent is a tricky business. You have a very important job to do…raise a child. You are given no training, no experience. You have the authority to make decisions that could be great or horrible for your child. Oh, and no two children are alike, so if you have more than one, what might work for one, won’t necessarily work for the next. In the situation you describe, there might be valid reasons for wanting to move a child to another school. It might be that the school they are currently in is the problem. Violence on the upswing, the child has fallen in with a bad crowd, the education they are getting is miserable…a lot of things could play in there. It might be that the parent believes the new school will bring something to the child that they might otherwise be lacking. In your example it might be a dose of religion. I’m not going to go into the religious aspect much other than to suggest that it doesn’t hurt to open up to new ideas. Sometimes, growing up as a child, it can be beneficial to open up to new ideas so you can make informed decisions about those ideas. But if there is a good relationship between parent and child, there will be open lines of communication. We sometimes hear things we don’t want to hear, but the open communications at least allow all opinions to get out onto the table to be heard. The only other legal option open to a child that is being sent to a school they do not wish to attend would be to petition the courts for emancipation. Emancipation is a legal term which means the child would legally be allowed to make their own decisions about their life. The courts would take the responsibility of support away from the parents, meaning the parents would no longer be obliged to provide food, shelter, etc. but would also take away their authority over the child. Effectively the child would be viewed as an adult. The downside to this course is that (a) it takes money to go to court and (b) it takes time to go to court. Until the courts rule on the case, the child is still considered under their parents decisions and so would have to go to the new H.S. for instance. And I have no idea how long an emancipation case could take, but at 16, the child might be an adult anyway before it is decided.