Casey at Colonial High

[snow_walker]

I think there are times when CA just gets tired, and quits trying so hard with her family. Probably KC was intercepting communications between school and home, and forging marks and such. CA may well have known this, or suspected it, but just didn't have the strength or focus necessary to take the action she should have taken.

When your fighting to keep a roof over everyone's head, and hubby and kids are all following their own agendas, the breadwinner can't always cover all the bases, sometimes important stuff gets lost in the shuffle. And as usual CA simply shifts the blame from her own shoulders to someone else's, in this case the school's.

 

[cecybeans]

The FL school system is ranked almost dead last of all the states. I've taught there and know. Even parents who cannot afford tuition try to get their kids in private schools. The decent public ones are so crowded it's not funny. My daughter's high school had two shifts - she went from 7 in the morning until noon and then was out for the day. No after school program, no nothing - they just let high school kids loose at lunch time. It's hard to believe that a state with no taxes and a great lottery can fund its schools so poorly, but they do. Tenured teachers are barely above poverty level.

And I almost didn't get to walk because I had an overdue library book. I found out about it the day before graduation. And I went to school in a state with fabulous public schools. But my parents instilled in me initiative and the concept that my education was my own responsibility - as well as the fact that if I did not take advantage of the opportunity it would make life much more difficult later.

The fact that CA had already made confrontative appearances at the school regarding grades, and that teachers describe her as a helicopter parent leads me to believe that she was involved at any opportunity. By the time KC was in high school, she was probably already an inveterate liar and could intercept the mail. I don't think we can interpret the fact that KC was able to b.s. them about graduation any particular way in terms of her parents' involvement.

 

[affinity]

Many questions and answers lie in this whole high school debacle. This is where KC "lost it". The whole "half a credit" doesn't seem plausible to me. It sounds like another Anthony myth-- one produced to "save face". George states in his FBI interview that he didn't understand why KC didn't do the work to solve the "half a credit" problem retroactively. If it was a "half a credit" then one summer school class after graduation would have rectified the situation. Why was KC fired from her job at Universal? Could it have been that they discovered that she falsified education history? Possible.

This is conjecture (of course)..but these things seem most likely to me:

KC was left to her own devices starting at an early age. Both parents gone for huge chunks of the day and night.

I have a gut feeling that during senior year KC began skipping classes. This is a common problem with families where no one is home. KC discovered that she could do this and get away with it--no one paid any attention and she was able to stave off discovery. She snowed her parents into believing this half a credit story and to this day they may believe it over whatever truth there is. We've seen the level of their ability to reinvent history. The A's no doubt feel shame that their daughter didn't make it through HS. We haven't seen KC's attendance records or her grades. The A's always want to shift blame and they blame the school for not telling them about KC not being able to graduate--but KC was the person getting the phone calls and mail. It's classic child neglect. CA and GA "too busy" to know KC not in school.

 

[Openmyeyes]

Does anyone know if this was during the time when GA was living with his folks in Ft Meyers, and the CA/GA rough patch? If we can come up with a logical reason why this issue fell thru the cracks, then we can put it to rest. Otherwise, it doesn't make sense.
I can't recall anyone (Kio, the neighbors, LA) commenting on KC being a normal high school senior.

I've always felt (no direct evidence) that this period holds one of the secrets the A's are trying to protect.

 

[Openmyeyes]

Many questions and answers lie in this whole high school debacle. This is where KC "lost it". The whole "half a credit" doesn't seem plausible to me. It sounds like another Anthony myth-- one produced to "save face". George states in his FBI interview that he didn't understand why KC didn't do the work to solve the "half a credit" problem retroactively. If it was a "half a credit" then one summer school class after graduation would have rectified the situation. Why was KC fired from her job at Universal? Could it have been that they discovered that she falsified education history? Possible.

This is conjecture (of course)..but these things seem most likely to me:

KC was left to her own devices starting at an early age. Both parents gone for huge chunks of the day and night.

I have a gut feeling that during senior year KC began skipping classes. This is a common problem with families where no one is home. KC discovered that she could do this and get away with it--no one paid any attention and she was able to stave off discovery. She snowed her parents into believing this half a credit story and to this day they may believe it over whatever truth there is. We've seen the level of their ability to reinvent history. The A's no doubt feel shame that their daughter didn't make it through HS. We haven't seen KC's attendance records or her grades. The A's always want to shift blame and they blame the school for not telling them about KC not being able to graduate--but KC was the person getting the phone calls and mail. It's classic child neglect. CA and GA "too busy" to know KC not in school.

I think there might be a juvie record in there somewhere, but we'll never know that for sure.

Then again, it could all be as simple as you describe. What keeps running thru my brain is CA saying (I'll paraphrase here) 'KC has lied before, but when we talk about it, we've gotten to the truth'; followed by: "It is not a crime to lie". :banghead:

This gets more convoluted the more I think about it. Poor Caylee never had a chance.

 

[ButForFortune]

I also do not understand (or believe) the "half a credit" story. While I don't claim to know how Florida schools work, here in California each semester class in high school is 5 units (or credits) for a total of about 200 units by the time you graduate after four years. There are no "half credits", you either earn 5 or none per class depending on whether you pass or fail.

Why would you need to go to summer school to earn a "half credit". This has me perplexed.

Perhaps they were trying to say half a class - meaning one semester failed in one class.

Just guessing here.

As always, just my opinion.

 

[affinity]

I also do not understand (or believe) the "half a credit" story. While I don't claim to know how Florida schools work, here in California each semester class in high school is 5 units (or credits) for a total of about 200 units by the time you graduate after four years. There are no "half credits", you either earn 5 or none per class depending on whether you pass or fail.

Why would you need to go to summer school to earn a "half credit". This has me perplexed.

Perhaps they were trying to say half a class - meaning one semester failed in one class.

Just guessing here.

As always, just my opinion.

One of the reasons I don't think we see any revelations from classmates is because her classmates didn't know KC. One of the reasons her classmates might not know her could be because she wasn't attending. Once a student goes down that avenue (skipping) they forgo regular school activities like dances and proms because no one from the same school is in touch...or cares! Out of sight, out of mind. This makes a lot of sense to me...that she might have stopped going to school. Of course, we don't know why.

KC avoided the whole school/graduation thing just like she avoided the whole pregnancy thing.

 

[CapsDeej]

I also do not understand (or believe) the "half a credit" story. While I don't claim to know how Florida schools work, here in California each semester class in high school is 5 units (or credits) for a total of about 200 units by the time you graduate after four years. There are no "half credits", you either earn 5 or none per class depending on whether you pass or fail.

Why would you need to go to summer school to earn a "half credit". This has me perplexed.

Perhaps they were trying to say half a class - meaning one semester failed in one class.

Just guessing here.

As always, just my opinion.

I don't know how Florida works either - but when I entered my senior year of high school, I only needed 1.5 credits to graduate. Here each class per semester is worth .5 credit. I took 3 classes for first semester only (.5 credit per class) and had the 1.5 credits I needed to bring me up to the number needed to graduate. Then I had the entire 2nd semester of my Senior year free - I worked full time and attended graduation in May with the rest of my class. This is a common occurrence here.

 

[cecybeans]

I think there might be a juvie record in there somewhere, but we'll never know that for sure.

Then again, it could all be as simple as you describe. What keeps running thru my brain is CA saying (I'll paraphrase here) 'KC has lied before, but when we talk about it, we've gotten to the truth'; followed by: "It is not a crime to lie". :banghead:

This gets more convoluted the more I think about it. Poor Caylee never had a chance.

That's interesting you bring that up. Wasn't there something in the interview at LE when KC made the detour on the way to jail (IIRC) and somebody told her that LE was already "familiar" with her or something to that effect? I remember thinking at the time about the ZG22 story and how that might relate; now that that is of less probability, could that mean they were making an oblique reference to her being in some kind of early trouble that may have been expunged?

 

[travelgal]

I am having second thoughts about agreeing with the "helicopter parent" designation for CA. When I was teaching I dealt with the "heli-parent" frequently but the worst ones we called "swoop & attack" parents. These were the ones you rarely had contact with, didn't follow thru on requests such as reading with their child (these were kindergartners), rarely showed up for parent conference or open house, etc. But when their child received low marks that parent would swoop into the classroom and confront the teacher as to why their child was singled out to fail. I can see CA doing this much more likely than hovering over KC. There was a time months ago when I agreed, but now that I have seen CA in action I don't believe she had a clue as to what was going on in KC's life. Nor did she care until a "situation" came up: not graduating, pregnancy, no Caylee for 31 days, etc. and her way of dealing with it is to bury her head in the sand until it has to be dealt with - strong-arming the school for the 1/2 credit, denying pregnancy until confronted by others and the decomp smell in the car. To me, this is a much more dangerous parent than the hover type. ("Hover types" are a whole different story.) Lord only knows what life was/is like at HopeSpring Ln. MOO

 

[OneLostGrl]

Many questions and answers lie in this whole high school debacle. This is where KC "lost it". The whole "half a credit" doesn't seem plausible to me. It sounds like another Anthony myth-- one produced to "save face". George states in his FBI interview that he didn't understand why KC didn't do the work to solve the "half a credit" problem retroactively. If it was a "half a credit" then one summer school class after graduation would have rectified the situation. Why was KC fired from her job at Universal? Could it have been that they discovered that she falsified education history? Possible.

This is conjecture (of course)..but these things seem most likely to me:

KC was left to her own devices starting at an early age. Both parents gone for huge chunks of the day and night.

I have a gut feeling that during senior year KC began skipping classes. This is a common problem with families where no one is home. KC discovered that she could do this and get away with it--no one paid any attention and she was able to stave off discovery. She snowed her parents into believing this half a credit story and to this day they may believe it over whatever truth there is. We've seen the level of their ability to reinvent history. The A's no doubt feel shame that their daughter didn't make it through HS. We haven't seen KC's attendance records or her grades. The A's always want to shift blame and they blame the school for not telling them about KC not being able to graduate--but KC was the person getting the phone calls and mail. It's classic child neglect. CA and GA "too busy" to know KC not in school.

Many parents like these simply don't care.. they blow it off as they blow off everything else that is happening right before their eyes and blame the rest of the world for not "handling" their bundle of joy the proper way.


I think this is just another situation that shows Cindy has lived in an alternate reality long before Caylee went "missing". IMO Cindy knew long before grauation time that Casey wasn't gonna be graduating, she just ignored it and hoped it'd go away.. kinda like the pregnancy she ignored until she couldn't anymore because she was confronted by her brother.

This is "normal" behavior for mothers like this, sadly. Ignore and distort the truth.. when that doesn't work, play victim and blame the world.

 

[biggirl]

Would the SA be able to call a school rep to the stand to testify as to why KC was not allowed to graduate?? Maybe to show that the parents were notified and KC intercepted and lied?? Just thinking that it would show this has been her MO for many years.

 

[OneLostGrl]

One of the reasons I don't think we see any revelations from classmates is because her classmates didn't know KC. One of the reasons her classmates might not know her could be because she wasn't attending. Once a student goes down that avenue (skipping) they forgo regular school activities like dances and proms because no one from the same school is in touch...or cares! Out of sight, out of mind. This makes a lot of sense to me...that she might have stopped going to school. Of course, we don't know why.

KC avoided the whole school/graduation thing just like she avoided the whole pregnancy thing.

ita! Mommy taught her well, didn't she? :sick:

 

[OneLostGrl]

Would the SA be able to call a school rep to the stand to testify as to why KC was not allowed to graduate?? Maybe to show that the parents were notified and KC intercepted and lied?? Just thinking that it would show this has been her MO for many years.

I don't think they are worried about it for trial or whatever but it would be nice if other parents could learn something from it!

 

[TotallyObsessed]

I am in Alabama, and while it has been 2 years since my youngest graduated high school, I know that beginning in their sophmore year their credits are reviewed, and especially in the junior year when college applications are beginning to be considered, the guidance counselor usually keeps up with credits needed, etc. to graduate.
I am fairly sure that KC knew well in advance that she was short, and she probably chose to tell Cindy the day of graduation (as stated in CA's depo) that she would not be walking with the class. Trying to avoid all the drama, I would imagine. CA or GA said that KC enrolled in summer school to make up that 1/2 credit to be able to get her diploma, but I don't think KC gave a rats a$$ to tell you the truth.

 

[sleutherontheside]

I just had a thought regarding the "half" credit.* In Florida schools, there are a MINIMUM number of hours required for the students to attend.* Sometimes this is frustrating because the week before winter break my kids are "treated" to basically movie days, game days, read ins, etc...* They are not doing ANY instruction but have to have the kids there.* The schools keep diligent records regarding tardies and absences.* An excused tardy (such as an AM Dr. appt.) is not counted against the hours, but an unexcused absence (overslept) is.* An absence due to illness must be documented but a skipped day is not.* If a family goes on vacation and their child is out of school, it is unexcused unless the child submits a one page summary of what they did and what they learned.* When mid semester reports go home there is a spot that indicates if absences are going to affect promotion.* Likely KC had a number of unexcused absenses and CA was unaware of them.* We have seen CA "buck the system" so she may have been aware of absences but didn't agree with the policy.* KC would have had to make up real hours to earn that half credit.* This may not be the case, but it is somethign to consider.* HTH

 

[Searchfortruth]

What struck me was Lees account (in the depo with the state) about how the news that Casey wasn't graduating really went down. He said that Cindy had prepared a grad party for Casey and friends and at the last minute Casey told her mother not to bother because she wasn't graduating. True to form Cindy and George transferred the blame to the school for not notifying them about Casey's lack of credits. Privately I don't know how they acted with Casey about this, but publicly they sure didn't lay any of the responsibility on her shoulders. They made sure to go into detail with investigators about how the school had done them wrong, no wonder Casey doesn't accept blame for any of her actions...she was well taught.

 

[ExpectingUnicorns]

Waddya bet all the relatives who got graduation announcements and sent gifts never knew she didn't graduate? Bet they know now!!

 

[OneLostGrl]

What struck me was Lees account (in the depo with the state) about how the news that Casey wasn't graduating really went down. He said that Cindy had prepared a grad party for Casey and friends and at the last minute Casey told her mother not to bother because she wasn't graduating. True to form Cindy and George transferred the blame to the school for not notifying them about Casey's lack of credits. Privately I don't know how they acted with Casey about this, but publicly they sure didn't lay any of the responsibility on her shoulders. They made sure to go into detail with investigators about how the school had done them wrong, no wonder Casey doesn't accept blame for any of her actions...she was well taught.

amen!

 

[RR0004]

That's interesting you bring that up. Wasn't there something in the interview at LE when KC made the detour on the way to jail (IIRC) and somebody told her that LE was already "familiar" with her or something to that effect? I remember thinking at the time about the ZG22 story and how that might relate; now that that is of less probability, could that mean they were making an oblique reference to her being in some kind of early trouble that may have been expunged?

There was mention of past trouble early on...we thought it may have pertained to the fradulent checks...but maybe not.