Book about smart girl whose mother drowned in the ocean

Question

This was a book I read in primary school (first read to me when I was 8 yrs old in 2014 in Australia) and the only thing I remember about the cover was that it was pink. The copy that my school had was kind of beat up so I couldn't tell how old it was. It was a paperback book and was about same the thickness of the book 'Soon', I think. The book was in English and I don't remember if it was a stand-alone book. I think that the book was targeted to teens or preteens and was maybe set between the 2010s to the 1990s at the latest.

The story is about a girl who is smart and is moved up a grade but doesn’t fit into her class due to that. Her dad, I believe, was a garbage man and who, I think, ended up with her teacher because I remember a part about them going on a date and him saying he ‘even scrubbed behind his ears’ or something along those lines. In some part of the book the girl is at a pier at the ocean and she fall into the ocean (I think) and I remember her saying something about how the salt water stung her eyes. She gets saved by a man who was there and that’s all I remember.

Answer 1

I have done some research on the information in the comment above and I have found the book that I was looking for! It is called Someday Angeline by Louis Sachar, although this is the cover I'm familiar with. This was the description from Oldfriendsbookends, via @schweppz's help:

Angeline has it tough. Her mother died when she was three and she lives with her garbage truck driver father (though she loves the garbage truck and wants to ride on one). What's worse, she is a genius. She remembers things that happened before she was born and at eight years old, knows more than her sixth grade teacher. The teacher, Mrs. Hardlick, and her classmates resent her intelligence and make fun of her for things like sucking her thumb and crying too much.

Angeline meets a boy at recess who is also an outcast at school. His name is Gary, though the other kids call him Goon. Gary has a habit of making corny jokes, which Angeline always calls the funniest she's ever heard (she also laughs too much).

Gary, unlike Angeline, has a good teacher, Miss Turbone, whom he calls Mr. Bone (because the names sound the same - I didn't get it at first). Miss Turbone invites Gary and Angeline to set up her classroom aquariums, and they all get to be friends.