October 6, 2022

It was on a cold April morning, I received an email from my niece’s school informing me that she was on the verge of failing her English class. If no immediate intervention happened, she would not graduate on time.

I was in disbelief: Why was I now hearing about this? Why didn’t I receive any communication on her struggles and poor performance or her English teacher’s unmet expectations? How could she pull herself out of the scorching hot water when it was so near to the end of the game? I knew, mathematically, that if she received one F in her gradebook, it would take at least 90 perfect scores to bring her grades up. What could we do realistically at this point?

After a long conversation with my niece, I learned that it all started with missing a winter break reading without any makeup opportunity. Being an international student who was still struggling in English, she didn’t hear about the winter break reading. She certainly didn’t expect to take a test on the first day after they came back.  

That night, at the dinner table, she told me what happened, and I remembered that she…