My stepdaughter is 18 years and 9 months. She walked out of our home 6 years ago and went to live with her mother, as her mother had/has no rules. We've been paying child support but are not paying through FRO as the mother didn't want to wait for them to process the money. We've never missed a payment and pay guideline amount.
The "child" is now in her 5th year of high school. This is not a victory lap issue, it's a failure to launch. She has been taking only 3 to 4 credits per semester but then failing or dropping 1 to 2 credits - or more - each semester.
When she lived with us, she was an A/B student and had near perfect attendance. When she moved in with her mother, she immediately dropped to a C/D student and was going to just over half of her classes. Children's Aid was involved with the mother previously and they told us the mother wasn't pushing the child to go to school.
The mother has only an 8th grade education and one of the child's brothers never finished high school.
Our issue is that apparently since March the child has not been going to high school full time. She was supposed to be graduating in June, but the first week of the semester she dropped a Guitar course and didn't pick up a replacement course - so, at that point she wouldn't be graduating. Then she tells us that after March Break she was supposedly ill for 3 weeks and 2 of her classes dropped her. She says she brought them a doctor's note but they wouldn't let her back in class.
We have no proof of this. We received her mid-term report card and it only shows 1 class - a class she takes at home. She is currently failing that single class with a grade of 45.
Since she is in the middle of a term but not taking anything close to a full 4 credits, or even a court amount of 2.4 (60%) credits, we are now checking with an attorney to make sure we can drop the child support until she returns to a full time schedule.
We expect she will return to full time in September (her 6th year of high school) because her mother will be pushing her to get the child support back. My question is, is there a way we can go to court before the beginning of the new term and ask the court to help us require this to be the last time we pay for this repeat term? We want to incentivize the term, hoping to get her to finish her high school diploma.
A bit of additional information, the child has been working two jobs. One pays $15/hr. At one point in Jan/Feb, she and her boyfriend were actively applying for apartments together, but they broke up.
The "child" is now in her 5th year of high school. This is not a victory lap issue, it's a failure to launch. She has been taking only 3 to 4 credits per semester but then failing or dropping 1 to 2 credits - or more - each semester.
When she lived with us, she was an A/B student and had near perfect attendance. When she moved in with her mother, she immediately dropped to a C/D student and was going to just over half of her classes. Children's Aid was involved with the mother previously and they told us the mother wasn't pushing the child to go to school.
The mother has only an 8th grade education and one of the child's brothers never finished high school.
Our issue is that apparently since March the child has not been going to high school full time. She was supposed to be graduating in June, but the first week of the semester she dropped a Guitar course and didn't pick up a replacement course - so, at that point she wouldn't be graduating. Then she tells us that after March Break she was supposedly ill for 3 weeks and 2 of her classes dropped her. She says she brought them a doctor's note but they wouldn't let her back in class.
We have no proof of this. We received her mid-term report card and it only shows 1 class - a class she takes at home. She is currently failing that single class with a grade of 45.
Since she is in the middle of a term but not taking anything close to a full 4 credits, or even a court amount of 2.4 (60%) credits, we are now checking with an attorney to make sure we can drop the child support until she returns to a full time schedule.
We expect she will return to full time in September (her 6th year of high school) because her mother will be pushing her to get the child support back. My question is, is there a way we can go to court before the beginning of the new term and ask the court to help us require this to be the last time we pay for this repeat term? We want to incentivize the term, hoping to get her to finish her high school diploma.
A bit of additional information, the child has been working two jobs. One pays $15/hr. At one point in Jan/Feb, she and her boyfriend were actively applying for apartments together, but they broke up.
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