What should I wear to court with my daughter tomorrow?

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It's not court where I have to dress to impress the judge. This is just truancy court. It's that no child left behind crap which all about money. She's a senior and an A student and even tutors the other kids but I've sent too many parent notes which means a couple days when she was sick she didn't go to the doctor because she didn't need to go and just took OTC meds and stayed in bed. I sent parent notes. This was last year and they gave me a $162 fine. I forgot about it completely and now tomorrow we have to go so I can tell the judge I forgot and that I'll get it paid within the next couple months. I'll put it on the calendar this time. There's no big legal problem unless you count the complete uselessness of the NCLBA which causes all this crap and doesn't do anything at all to help kids but only focuses on school funding, which makes the school focus more on their funding than they do on the students.

So, I'll go retro of course but I can't decide which style. Here are my top choices right now.

1. black pencil skirt with small white polka dots and a red sweater twin set with black kitten heels with wavy tousled updo
2. beige high waisted wide legged Katherine Hepburn style pants with a winter white silk blouse that buttons up the back with Victory Rolls
3. mid-calf grey wool skirt with a green long sleeve button up shirt and a grey wool vest and grey wool blazer with a Gibson Girl updo
4. high waist black cigarette pants with red and white checked button up shirt tied at the waist and a Rosie the Riveter head scarf with curls and bangs

So, what do you think? I'll wear it all day but I just can't decide which look I want for tomorrow.

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I'm giving it another shot. We will see.
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Solid, dark skirt suit; plain, black pumps (or kitten heels)----no prints, no pants, no RED. No "decade look"----you wanna be taken seriously----the courtroom is no place for "fad". Also, wear your hair down----brushed NEATLY.

I would say something similar to Campin_Cats suggestion, but from your list:

I wish my husband could just handle this and I didn't have to go, because he's going to be there this morning but for other reasons. They are remodeling it and his company is doing the electrical work and since it's here in our town and we are in the middle of nowhere, he got assigned this one instead of the big one at the hospital in the city. He's not good at handling this kind of stuff and plus he's busy with the work. He asked about it the other day after we got the postcard in the mail about having to go, when they were all eating lunch over at the drugstore, and Judge Jimmy was over there eating with them cause all the boys were talking football, and Judge Jimmy said it was just about the fine, no big deal. It's routine. But I'll go with my daughter, tell him how I forgot, give them $40 today and get the rest paid off by the end of March.

You should see some of the people who come to these things. You see big fat women there in shorts with those rolls of fat behind the knees and big loose tshirts with no bras and greasy hair in ponytails and no teeth. You also see folks in just regular clothes and very occasionally you see somebody overdressed and they do get funny looks like I do when folks who aren't used to me see me. I usually wear some sort of "look" every day. I have normal clothes but I rarely wear them, or when I do I kick it up a few notches and do something unexpected. For an actual court date or something like that, I go to the trouble to dress nice and normal and because Judge Jimmy knows me and knows what to expect from me, he noticed and appreciates it. He usually comments on my retro stuff when I wear it. He likes it actually. He commented on my white gloves and my hat I wore to court once, years ago. He said he wishes ladies still wore that.

_________________
I'm giving it another shot. We will see.
My forum is still there and everyone is welcome to come join as well. There is a private women only subforum there if anyone is interested. Also, there is no CAPTCHA.

The link to the forum is http://www.rightplanet.proboards.com

It's ridiculous that they're fining you for your daughter being sick for a couple of days. It's a travesty, really. You sent the note--what's the problem?

This would not have happened in the "old days."

Wear whatever a 3rd-grade teacher might wear if she taught in a Catholic school run by Attila the Nun, and she did not want to risk losing her job.

I too find it absurd that you are being fined for your child's truancy. What a cash grab. Jimmy should be ashamed of himself for enforcing this at all.

Go with dark solids.

It's because of the No Child Left Behind Act. What this does is base the schools funding on how many students attend at least a certain percentage of the school year. This means that they will count the children for funding if they attend x number of days, and if they attend fewer days then they want the school to have proper documentation to show why they weren't there. That sounds good because it cracks down on kids skipping school.

The school is allowed to decide how many absences a student can have without having a dr's note or other official type excuse instead of a parent note. They are allowed ten parent notes, and this would be plenty but they don't count it per incidence of absences, such as a two or three day absence covered by one note, they count it per day. They are allowed to use their judgement in accepting more parent notes and make case by case exceptions but this school will not do that at all. They insist on a dr note and they take you to court and fine you if you send too many. They are within their legal rights to do so. It causes huge problems and parents pay all sorts of outrageous fines over it down here. A couple of years before the NCLBA was passed, I had lots of trouble with my oldest son skipping school and the school wouldn't do anything at all to help me. They didn't care how many days he missed, the most they would do is fail the child for too many absences.

A few years back when my oldest daughter, who was a straight A student, an office aide, tutored other kids, won awards for grades and behaviors and was a teachers favorite, started having stomach problems, the nurse practitioner who is the "pediatrician" for this town, couldn't find anything wrong with her. She was throwing up every day when she woke up and was sick to her stomach for hours. She wasn't sexually active so pregnancy was ruled out and the nurse simply decided she was faking it and diagnosed her with "school-itis", REALLY. When the school nurse called her to find out about my daughter's absences and health, this piece of work told her that she was faking it and it was 'school-itis'. THey took us to court and even though my daughter had dr's excuses and parent notes in her locker that she forgot to turn in, and produced them, they refused to accept them after three days and marked her down as unexcused. She was put on probation and we were fined.

I fired the nurse practitioner and took her to another doctor and he began a series of tests which showed that she had gallbladder problems and she ended up having her gallbladder out. He sent a note saying that she didn't need to go to the dr everytime she was too sick to her stomach to come to school or when she came late because of it, and that she was under his care and to use that letter as an umbrella dr excuse. That worked for the year but they refused to accept another one for her the next year even though she was still sick in the mornings. Some days she was throwing up every few minutes and couldnt go, yet still maintained a straight A average. She was on probation every year and we paid fines every year and my husband missed work every two or three months to go to truancy court about her just to check in. For her junior year the judge even said that when she was too sick to come to school from throwing up constantly that I was to bring her to the school so the school nurse could check her and make the decision to keep her home or not. I flat out refused to do that. He could have held me in contempt and put me in jail, but he knew better. He knew I'd raise a stink so bad it would have every eye in the state, if not the country focused on this backasswoods county and their ridiculous practices. I should have anyway but she didn't want the media attention focused on her. We even refused to bring her to probation visits because when she got upset her stomach bothered her more.

She's in college now, graduating this year and at times she still has that stomach problem. She doesn't get s**t from the college about it though.

The trouble with my younger daughter started a few years back when they all had chicken pox. I had taken my son to the dr and he got the dx and I was told don't bring the other kids into the office for a visit because it will just spread it to other people and there's really nothing that the dr can do about it. So, I kept them home like I was told. They were home for about a week with that and I had already sent about 7 or 8 parent notes that year and the 5 notes to cover the week they were home with the pox pushed me over the limit. Oddly enough, I had one note for the last day they were absent which was a Friday, where I had taken them to the ER because of the itching. The dr gave them phenergan to knock them out and stop the scratching and wrote a note that they had chicken pox. They went back on Monday but the school couldn't use common sense, even though their brother came back with a dr note saying he was out all week with chicken pox, and I had called the school to get the girls' work and told them that they had it, and the note for the last day said they were seen in the ER for chicken pox and MY NOTES SAID they were home with it, but that was too many and so therefore I got a fine, she got probation and my blood pressure got higher.

Right now I'm so sick of this s**t I don't know what to do. I hate it. Everybody hates it. It's all about this backassward school going overboard to make sure they get their money, which they would STILL GET even if they accepted more parent notes from kids who obviously don't skip school and who are great students.

Anyway, I'm back from going up there. I spoke to the judge and he told me how sorry he was to hear about my mother dying, that he had thought she was such a nice lady and he just wanted to tell me again even though he posted a condolence on my FB wall when she died. I told him I had forgot about the fine and he said thats fine, just pay it off, and I said thanks and I went and paid a little and we left. No big deal. Also no need to dress up because nobody there was dressed up. The judge was wearing an Auburn sweatshirt under his robe today as this was his only court to do and it was just a paperwork day mainly, in his office. He saw about 30 people this morning and just reminded them to pay.

He knows how I feel about this, and he can't really say how he feels about it but he's a real nice guy and has sense unlike a lot of judges so I'm pretty sure he doesn't like it.

When my youngest daughter graduates this year, I'm going to blow the lid off this bs. I'm going to go to the media and have such intense scrutiny focused on this county it's not funny. It's not just that they are being unfair and causing undue hardship on families and kids because they won't accept more parent notes as dependable information and excuses, which they could choose to do and still get the funding, but they are forcing parents to take kids to the doctor when they don't need to go and could be treated at home. That wouldn't be something that would cause public outrage, but about 75% of the kids in this county are on either Medicaid or AllKids which are government provided healthcare plans and so the taxpayers are paying for unnecessary dr visits simply to doubly cover the schools ass to make sure they will be paid for the child. It's not needed because the school can choose to accept a parent note, they have discretionary power to do so. So, tens of thousands of dollars are being paid to the emergency room and our doctors office down here every year just so that parents can get a school excuse. I've spoken with the people in the ER and at the dr's office about this. They get parents every day bringing their child in and telling them it's just a cold or bug or cramps or what have you, and that they are treating it themselves at home but that they need an excuse. The dr's have told me that they waste time seeing patients that don't need to be seen and the parents know they don't need to be seen either, but they have to see them to provide a school excuse.

On top of all the fines, ridiculous unnecessary dr visits and probation that the kids get put on, they also have to attend whats called "attendance recovery" after school and on weekends, simply to pass. This is literally a "butts in the seats" type thing. They don't do school work, they don't do anything at all. usually they read or do homework and when they go on Saturday (its' called Saturday school) the put the kids who are doing credit recovery and making up work and learning what they missed and going because they couldn't pass the class, in the classrooms with a teacher, but they put the attendance recovery kids in the lunchroom and turn on the big screen tv in there and the kids are free to sit there and talk quietly, watch tv, read, do homework, put their heads down and sleep, etc. They stay for 4 hours per saturday and they have to make up every single hour they miss. They have it after school as well until 5 or 6. Kids have missed work because of that stupid s**t.

So, this NCLBA is really the "No Families Left Unharassed". I'm going to make a stink as soon as my youngest is out of school, because trust me, they will take out their anger at my actions on her. She's graduating this year. Then all hell's going to break loose in the media about this. Trust me on that one. When this happens, everybody here will know who I am because I'll be talking it up all over the place, and I'll really get my grassroots PAC going, which is called "Parents for Common Sense in Education".

This does piss me off. I want that act overturned, and I'm going to do everything I can to see that happen, or at least I want to see our county school embarrassed in the public eye for their ridiculous actions, and forced to use common freaking sense.

_________________
I'm giving it another shot. We will see.
My forum is still there and everyone is welcome to come join as well. There is a private women only subforum there if anyone is interested. Also, there is no CAPTCHA.

The link to the forum is http://www.rightplanet.proboards.com

I hope the court hearing went well for you and your daughter.

I'm sorry about everything the school's done to harass you. They just want their stupid eight* dollars. (*I don't know how it elsewhere, but my school gets eight dollars every day for each student in attendance.)

Years ago I represented a young person as a lay advocate on a driving charge for which the loss of licence would have been devastating to his prospects, though I managed to charm the judge into delivering a sentence that wasn't even within the sentencing prescription and was much to my young client's advantage.

I dressed very carefully: black suit, medium court shoes, discreet makeup.. you need to look serious, no polka dots, nothing that seems at all frivolous.

PS The little bugger I represented was not very grateful because I made him remove his earrings before we went into court! He couldn't see why appearances should make any difference! But they do, they do...