How to Make a Parenting Plan in Alaska — DR-475 Walkthrough
What DR-475 Actually Requires
Alaska's official parenting plan form — DR-475 — is a structured template that the court requires in every custody case. Whether parents file jointly or one side proposes a plan in a contested divorce, the document must cover four categories: communication protocols, decision-making allocation, the parenting time schedule, and financial issues.
The form itself is blank lines and checkboxes. It tells you where to write your answers but doesn't explain how to think through the decisions behind them — how to structure a holiday rotation that actually works, how to handle weather delays on bush flights, or how to split the Permanent Fund Dividend. That gap between the blank form and a plan a judge will sign without modification is where most parents struggle.
Section by Section: What to Draft Before You Open the Form
Communication Rules
DR-475 asks how parents will communicate about the child and with the child. Specify the allowed channels (text, email, a co-parenting app like OurFamilyWizard) and set a response window for non-emergencies — 24 to 48 hours is standard. The plan must also guarantee the child's right to private, unmonitored phone or video contact with the other parent during their off-time.
Standard court provisions prohibit both parents from disparaging each other in front of the child, questioning the child about the other parent's personal life, or involving the child in legal disputes.
Decision-Making (Legal Custody)
State whether legal custody is joint or sole, then define how major decisions are made in four areas: education, non-emergency healthcare, mental health services, and religious upbringing. If joint, the plan should include a tiebreaker mechanism — most parents specify mediation, then a court motion if mediation fails.
Day-to-day decisions (bedtimes, meals, routine discipline) belong to whichever parent has the child at that moment. Either parent can make emergency medical decisions, with notice to the other as soon as possible.
The Parenting Time Schedule
This section requires a specific weekly calendar with exact pickup and drop-off times and locations. Overlay that with a holiday schedule (typically alternating years), summer vacation blocks, and school-break rotations. Transportation responsibilities and costs need explicit assignment — who drives, who pays for flights if parents live in different communities.
For parents in different parts of Alaska, weather-delay provisions are essential. A solid plan specifies when the traveling parent must notify the other of a delay, who covers rebooking costs, and how lost parenting time gets made up during the next major break.
Financial Issues
The plan must integrate the child support calculation from Civil Rule 90.3, naming the obligor, the monthly amount, and the start date. It must also allocate the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend — which parent files the child's application each year, and how the funds are managed (commonly deposited into a savings account or 529 plan for the child).
Tax dependency for the federal child tax credit gets allocated here too. Under AS 25.24.232, a parent behind on child support by more than four times their monthly obligation as of December 31 is barred from claiming the credit that year.
Filing the Finished Plan
In a joint dissolution, both parents sign DR-475 and submit it with the dissolution packet. In a contested case, one parent files the plan as a formal proposal — the judge evaluates it against the nine best-interests factors under AS 25.24.150(c) and can modify it before signing the final decree.
The Alaska Custody & Parenting Plan Guide includes worksheets for each DR-475 section — overnight tracking, child support projection, PFD allocation, and weather-delay clauses — so parents can draft their plan with confidence before filling in the court form.
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