<p>Seems there should be an excused box for "I am attending school outside of the area" but there is not.</p>
<p>Local rules allow for 2 postponements for 6 months max.</p>
<p>Does a college kid really need to serve during the week or two she is home for the summer or holidays?</p>
<p>You really have to follow the rules where you live. Some localities are more lenient than others. But, yes, they can require a college student to defer to a period of time when they will be home. Often when you do appear, some are released immediately, some are selected for possible juries, and some are released at the end of the day. If selected for a possible jury, part of the questioning would usually outline the length of the trial and one of the questions would be if this would be a hardship for any potential juror, but it is up the judge’s discretion as to acceptance of the reason presented. The positive of appearing is that usually satisfies your responsibility for several years. </p>
<p>Boston is notorious for requiring even college students whose primary address is out of state to appear for jury duty in Boston. I am not sure what roll they get their names from, but I have seen posts from students and parents whose college student has voter registration, car registration and other documentation all for out of state unable to get a release. They can get a deferral to a different date, so most end up selecting a date just after final and hoping to get released for cause after appearing. </p>
<p>Reschedule jury duty for Christmas or Easter break.
Fulfilling their civic duty, so gotta do it.
Keep a record of their juror number, dates of service in case they called to serve again too soon. </p>
<p>This is not for the mom to do. Your child needs to contact the court that sent the summons. In my experience with our local courts they’ve been very lenient and family member never got called again. </p>
<p>I handled it for my child. They were away, and I had to stay on hold for about 25 minutes to get to someone who could handle the problem. We just rescheduled it for a vacation time.</p>
<p>I would NOT recommend doing this! But…when DD, who was in college 3000 miles away, got a summons, we wrote in red ink on the reply thing “she is in college in CA and won’t be home until June 15” and mailed it back. We never heard from the court again.</p>
<p>You can almost always reschedule. I used to reschedule for the summers when I was teaching. In our state, there is a spot for rescheduling and for reasons why. Never an issue.</p>
<p>Our about to graduate son just got the first jury questionaire. It turns out they actually allow someone else at the address they’ve mailed it to to fill it out. I hope by the time they put him in the system, he’ll actually know where he’ll be living permanently. He’s working in Boston this summer and it would definitely be inconvenient to do it then.</p>
<p>Rescheduling for the week before Christmas, or between Xmas and New Year’s, is generally a good idea because new cases are unlikely to start then. </p>
<p>Agree that your kid should handle it, if at all possible. When D1 was last called, she was halfway around the world and was unable to call the jury folks to ask for a deferment. </p>
<p>@bhmomma - it’s not just Boston but seemingly Massachusetts. S1 attends school in Amherst and was summoned for jury duty in Northampton - never mind that his permanent address is out of state. </p>
<p>D had this happen. There was a box for full time student BUT it required that you give dates when you could serve, so D gave one specific week and she will be serving. It is for the county where we live.</p>
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<p>Voter registration and driver’s licensing are typical source of names and addresses for jury summonses. I got a jury summons in college while registered to vote there.</p>
<p>At the suggestion of the jury clerk - we now write - Return to sender, not currently residing at this address - on the envelope and stick it back in the mail.</p>
<p>Or, put in the Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years or long weekend as your available dates. Lawyers and courts tend to do a lot less during these time frames.</p>
<p>It’s unfortunate that so many people see jury duty as a hassle to “get excused from if at all possible”. S was an alternate on a jury for 2 weeks last summer. He found it all very interesting and made $400 too.</p>
<p>Hereabouts you make $20 a day, but even at $40 a day that’s going to be less than some students may be making at summer jobs…and they’re unlikely to have their employers paying their regular wages during their service. </p>
<p>sylvan, if your son were home for only two weeks during the summer, would he have been so enthused about spending both weeks at the courthouse? :-)</p>
<p>This JUST happened to my son who is IN state and he was able to postpone. He was scheduled for jury duty in the middle of finals week - of his last semester of senior year. He got online and saw that in our county/state, they allow for college students to delay serving. He submitted a copy of his schedule along with a copy of his student ID. Surprisingly, he received a note back stating that college is NOT an excuse. He then copied the link and page that was on THEIR website stating that it WAS a reason to delay serving. Again he heard back from them via mail AND a phone call. They apologized for their error and asked when it would be suitable for him to serve and have already scheduled him for that time. Good luck. And to sylvan, it’s not always that people don’t want to serve, it’s that the timing is sometimes at a VERY poor time. In my son’s case, if he had missed his finals, he would NOT have graduated on time - his professors already said that there were NO excuses to miss finals or delay them. He has already lined up a job that is dependent on his graduation. No diploma, no job! I’m glad it was such a great opportunity for your son, but as you said, his jury time was for SUMMER - when school isn’t always in session.</p>
<p>DH and I have server jury duty no problem (I was excused once when I was 8 1/2 months pregnant though). Our kids would gladly serve as well. However, DD is at college 6 hours away. We believe in doing our civic duty, but I would not hesitate to have DD ask for a postponement to a time when she would not miss class and not have to do the extra traveling back and forth. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask for a postponement in a situation like this. Missing two weeks or more of classes in college could mean having to withdraw from and repeat some classes - not an inexpensive proposition! </p>
<p>I filled out the form for my D and noted on the form that she was out of state for college.</p>
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<p>Where is this?</p>
<p>In some places, when you get a jury summons, you can choose to defer until a date of your choice within a specified range in the near future, with no need to give a “good reason”.</p>
<p>I was able to defer until I was home for Christmas. Because it was right before Christmas (I think I had to start calling in 12/20), I never had to actually appear. I’ve never been summoned again. The court lady did get a little snippy with me when I called, saying “college is NOT an excuse.” I told her I didn’t want to be excused, just postponed until I could reasonably appear without commuting 420 miles each day. 8-| </p>