. . . Or Not

Imagine my surprise . . . no, that's not just a clever turn of phrase, I actually want you to imagine it . . . as I drive up to my house last night from the train station to see my wife standing on the front porch.

I quickly did a self-assessment, found that I had not recently done anything that would have put me in the proverbial or literal dog-house, and so I sauntered up to the steps.

"Hi," I said, cheerfully.

"Ok, so Justice . . . " and that's how the story began.

Justice does not like to read. I mean, the girl really, really, with a cherry on top, does not like to read. She'll go into caterwauls the likes of which most animals find too high pitched to stand, lasting far, far longer than it would have actually taken for her to read the book, assess the character flaws, and devise a potential solution.

Yeah, something like that.

But, to our credit, I like to think, she came a long way last school year, and went from Basic, essentially a C-average for you old-skoolers, to . . . whatever is just above that. She certainly wasn't Advanced, but that's ok. She loves math, and so I'm alright with her not being steller in all subjects.

I was horrible at math.

Still, it is necessary, in this world, to be able to read at least on a 4th grade level.

Which is what grade Justice is in.

So there I was, reading over Justice's progress report, and seeing that she was getting a Below Basic in reading. Not quite a failing grade, but on the ranks of a D.

Justice claimed that she missed three questions out of ten on some test, but further discovery showed that the progress report was dated 10/3, as in October 3rd, so we know that she has no clue what she's babbling about in this case. The note scrawled on the bottom of the page like some dying man's last attempt to point out clues toward his murderer read:

Justice appears distracted like her mind is on something else.

To which my first, literal response was, "Duh."

So now Lil and I need to get in touch with the teacher, find out what we can do, and try to implement something.

In the meantime, October 18th, the latest court date, hangs over our heads and casts a shadow on everything we do. We have no idea if we need to prepare for the short term outcome (Justice is taken away) or the mid-term outcome (Justice is taken away, but in a couple of months) or a longer term (Justice stays through the school year). It's hard to want to do something long-term, when at any moment the sword is gonna fall.