Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean of Arts and Science,
I am appealing to obtain a ¿¿Credit Standing¿ in STATS 263, which I took Summer 2012.
Explanation of Extenuating Circumstances
I took STATS 263 as an online course during a time of intense family problems which resulted in a deterioration of my already fragile psychological state.
Events
During the Fall of 2011 and Winter of 2012 I began experiencing depression. I failed three of the four midterms I took. I saw a counsellor weekly at Health Counselling and Disability services, Gail Easton-Smith, during the Winter term. She helped me pull through to achieve B¿¿s and C¿¿s in my Winter 2012 Term.
When I returned home, I was supposed to begin studying for my STATS 263 course. However, I didn¿¿t know that my brother was depressed and also put on anti-psychosis medication while I was away at school.
Although I knew my brother had ¿¿met a girl who loved him and his life was going to be okay because of her¿ (as he told me in January 2016) I didn¿¿t know that this girl was a teacher at my brother¿¿s high school. The teacher was eventually charged with statutory rape. The horrible emotional and psychological damage of the whole situation seriously harmed my brother and was the beginning of my brother¿¿s current alcohol and drug abuse patterns.
My brother found out that my parents and the school principal knew about the teacher¿¿s relationship with him two days after I returned from the Winter 2012 term. Instead of studying for my STATS 263 course, I was emotionally and psychologically traumatized as my brother exploded on my parents that evening. My brother had a mental breakdown and ran away from home.
The situation became very serious and violent. My brother went missing several times. He stopped taking his anti-psychosis medication and experienced frightening symptoms. I was terrified. He was eventually arrested. Police took him to a mental institution. At one point my brother told me he was planning to kill my mother in the morning in order to protect the teacher. The teacher had been pressuring my brother to make sure my parents and the school didn¿¿t find out because the teacher didn¿¿t wish to lose her job.
After months and year things calmed down. My parents began a 15 000 statutory rape law suit in 2013 and my brother was paid by the school in January 2015.
Effects of these events on your academic performance and steps taken to deal with the extenuating circumstances
The effect of this situation on my STAT 263 coursework was absolutely devastating. May and June 2012 I couldn¿¿t eat or sleep. I was living under my brother¿¿s violent threats and the stress, pain and anger of having someone I loved raped. I started seeing a counsellor myself. Stephanie Kuiack did a risk assessment in May 2012 and told me that my mental health was so fragile she wanted to book me the next day. She emailed me a ¿¿safety plan¿ May 22nd that she usually gives to children with abusive parents to help prepare me in case of more violent altercations with my brother. I hope this gives some sort of an idea of how impossible it was at the time to study for STAT 263. I was under constant physical threat. I have enclosed the email she sent with the ¿¿safety plan¿.
During the months of May and June 2012 my stomach was constantly in pain from stress. I was crying all the time. At the worse point during these events I had a mental breakdown and walked across Toronto. I called a mental health helpline and was able to calm down. Eventually the situation with my brother started to calm down as well.
When my brother was released from the mental hospital and was getting treatment he moved in with a friend of his from his hockey team. The situation stabilized and I was able to begin studying again.
My counsellor, Stephanie, encouraged me to put distance between myself and the situation in order to recover my mental health and study for my midterm. I decided to leave Toronto. I had nowhere to go but an empty half-renovated rental house in Kingston. I decided to write the STAT 263 midterm there.
The internet of the half-renovated rental house was not set up. I used a USB phone-connection device (an early version of data phone plans). The device didn¿¿t work properly and cut out. I had to rewrite the STAT 263 midterm twice after finishing the whole thing (see attached emails). If I¿¿d known the device wasn¿¿t going to work I would have gone to the library but I couldn¿¿t at that point because I¿¿d already started the midterm and only had 3 hours. I failed.
I was not able to recover my grade from the effect of the failed midterm. I got zero on almost every single STAT 263 quiz because my depression didn¿¿t go away immediately. It improved slowly over the summer and it was August 2012 by the time I was able to function normally.
Around the beginning of August 2012 my mental health returned to where it was before I left Queen¿¿s. I studied as hard as I could the last few weeks of the STATS 263 course and passed the class with a ¿¿D-¿¿. There was no way I could do well in the course after failing the midterm and getting ¿¿0¿ on almost every single quiz during May, June and July.
Unfortunately the only supporting documentation I have is an email from my counsellor, Stephanie Kuiack, dated May 26th 2012 stating that she had to reschedule one of my appointments and her explanation in August 2013 of why the company policy will not allow her to support my appeal.
Please consider my appeal.
Thank you,
Lianne