I'm so sorry, Laura.

I'm sorry about Zoe, Laura.

Here's a parenting quandary. It looks like Casper has managed to fail math for the quarter (she could have a miracle if bonus points come through, but I'm not betting on it.) I pulled all the grades out of Powerschool and dumped them in a spreadsheet, and if she'd gotten 100 on the 7 assignments she didn't do (mostly homework online, which you can get a 100 on if you're willing to do all the problems until you get them right), she'd have an 81. I think if she'd done even one of the assignments she skipped, she would have passed.

So that happened. She can pass the year by getting a C in the 4th quarter and a C on the final exam, but the odds of that are obviously not good. If she fails the year, she can do summer school. She won't be able to do her dream summer job if that happens (which she interviewed for but doesn't know if she's been offered.)

My question is, can I as a parent in good conscience take her out of school for two days in May to attend a pop concert in Chicago? It was her Christmas present. She has friends who wanted to go whose parents have said no because it's during the week. I feel like I look like a chump and bad parent if I take her, although we never said anything about going to a concert being contingent on passing math or anything. (Tickets go on sale Saturday, so we haven't yet committed financially to this concert.)

I feel like I'm the one failing, here.

My parenting instinct is that the concert is unrelated to the math issue. It wasn't like it was a reward for school performance. Now, doing what it takes to pull it out before end of year can have a new set of reward/punishment options.

Am so very sorry, Laura. I'm tearing up just thinking of her and you and your family.

I would have no qualms about still going to the concert if it didn't involve missing school to do so. The gift was not this particular concert; it was A concert in 2019. So we could find a summer concert or a concert that's on a weekend to go to. (But she wanted this act the most.)

If the concert was a gift and not contingent on good grades, I'd say take her if she agrees to do all homework assignments for the 4th quarter.

Since you haven't bought tickets yet, I think you can swap out a summer/weekend concert without any guilt.

Also, thanks for reminding me to check Campus Parent, because apparently my 6th grader has only turned in half of his "engagement" assignments this quarter in ELA. (Which is his favorite class EXCEPT for doing the !$%(!!@%! work because he thinks the assignments are dumb. And they might be! But still!)

Oh Jess -- I'm reading this book and flipped past the references, and there was your DH! He must have quoted from one of his articles.

Oh, cool! I wonder if he knows? (It's his birthday today.)

My boss walked in my office before I had a chance to say -- flea, I think you could fairly do either thing, and that is a shitty situation for you to be in. But I probably wouldn't buy the tickets.