Two Schools Teach Pregnant Teens. Only One May Survive

By Amy Jeter, The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va.

Mar. 18–NORFOLK — As a pregnant ninth-grader at Booker T. Washington High School, Shantel Wood would fall asleep in geometry, leave for a McDonald’s run between classes or even walk home and skip the rest of the day.

She was failing all of her courses but one, until she transferred to Norfolk’s Coronado School, which is devoted exclusively to pregnant girls and teen mothers. There, Wood said, she made the honor roll for the first time.

When she returned to Booker T. after having her first child, her grades fell to Cs and Ds. “It was not as much help as Coronado,” Wood, now 19, said.

Dozens of girls give similar glowing accounts of the school, which is unique in the region.

But some officials are questioning whether Coronado provides enough for these students, both academically and otherwise.

Coronado has no full-time nurse, no library and no gym. Half of the teachers are part-time, and several of them don’t fit the federal definition of “highly qualified.”

A school division tally of students’ Standards of Learning test performances between 2001 and 2005 shows Coronado girls passing the tests at much lower rates than other girls in Norfolk.

Yvette Williams, who has headed Coronado for three years, says the school should be given the same resources as others.

“You want the kids to do a good job, then you give me the supplies that I need,” she said.

Since the passage of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, school divisions have been required to offer pregnant and parenting students an education comparable to that provided for other students. Programs specifically for expectant mothers must be voluntary.

Norfolk’s school opened in the early 1980s, in the former Coronado Elementary School on Widgeon Road. Previously, pregnant students who chose to leave their home schools had been scattered among six locations, mostly churches and neighborhood centers.

By 1989, Coronado was considered a standard for Virginia centers for pregnant girls because it featured transportation, two full-time nurses, a full-time guidance counselor, hot lunches, a library and a nursery.

Since then, some sources of money have dried up, and annual enrollment has fallen from about 300 students in 1983 to 160 last year.

Over the years, the School Board has mentioned closing Coronado at least three times — most recently in November, after a school division committee flagged deficiencies there.

Last month, school administrators announced that Coronado would stay open for at least another year while officials evaluate its offerings and whether to keep the program at the school or move it.

“There are going to be some challenges, if we’re going to stay there, that we’re going to have to address,” said Michael Spencer, the school division’s chief operations officer. “How we’re going to do that, I don’t know yet.”

Some studies have shown that separate school settings generally don’t provide teen mothers with the same education they would have otherwise received, according to research by Wanda S. Pillow of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

South Hampton Roads school divisions have varying approaches to educating expectant mothers. Chesapeake offers assistance and a special class for them, and Virginia Beach has the Princess Anne Center, which operates out of five trailers at Princess Anne High School but is slated to move. Portsmouth’s program closed years ago, and Suffolk’s stopped in 2004, after it lost funding.

In Norfolk, which has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the region, expectant mothers can stay at their home school or transfer to Coronado. School officials don’t keep an official count of the pregnant girls who don’t transfer.

Many Coronado students have histories of attendance, discipline or academic problems, Williams said. “This is time to make up what you’ve lost and move on,” she said. “It’s a choice school.”

Coronado offers all the general education courses, such as algebra and English, plus some extras such as Spanish, leadership development, some vocational classes and drama. Students are required to take a parenting class, and those who enroll in A dvanced P lacement courses are bused to their home high school for those classes.

Other perks include monthly “empowerment sessions” with guest speakers, access to a social worker, transportation to medical appointments, and child care.

T he school, however, falls short in some important areas.

For example, when a girl started going into labor during her English class on a recent morning, Williams had to summon a nurse from nearby Norview Elementary School to take her to the hospital.

If students want to do library research, they must make do with twice-monthly visits from the Norfolk Public Library’s bookmobile. L unches come from nearby Norview High School and may require warming in a microwave.

The school’s 15 teachers are certified in the subjects they teach, Williams said. M any of them, though, do not meet the federal requirements for a “highly qualified teacher,” which means having a bachelor’s degree and a teaching license and demonstrating knowledge in their subject area.

They also are stretched thin through the day, teaching up to five different subjects to keep up with the needs of students at many levels. Teachers in other secondary schools normally are not asked to prepare for more than three subjects in a semester, although they often teach more than three classes.

Gloria Webb teaches U.S. history, government, two levels of world history, and a sociology course called Dimensions of Living. She wanted to work with at-risk students.

“If you are not committed,” Webb said, “you don’t belong here.”

It’s hard to determine how much learning is happening at Coronado.

On last year’s Standards of Learning tests, Coronado students posted pass rates of more than 80 percent on high school reading and writing and on some math tests. T heir pass rates on six different science and social studies exams dipped below 60 percent.

According to the school division’s numbers, between 2001 and 2005, they also did worse on the SOLs while attending Coronado than while they were attending their other schools.

“It may be because they have a newborn child that they’re responsible for,” Spencer said. “But it may be something else, and that’s what I want to make sure that we’re addressing.”

Williams said her students often are retaking SOL tests that they have failed previously. Additionally, a low number of students taking the tests means one poor performance can bring down the pass rate.

The school division’s statistics show that Coronado girls fared better when their course pass rates were scrutinized.

Students say the smaller class sizes and individual attention make a big difference.

“The teachers helped me,” Wood said. “I understood it. If I didn’t, I stayed back, and I got help.”

Some girls said they liked the single-gender environment, and they felt more comfortable away from a school where their condition made them an oddity.

“It’s like you’re poison because you’re pregnant,” said Ayana Harvin, 18. “We’re all in the same predicament here.”

Coronado teachers take it upon themselves to look after the students, even volunteering to do home visits, Williams said.

A student’s stay at Coronado is supposed to last until the end of the semester or year in which she gives birth, but there is no formal process for deciding when each moves on. Some, like Harvin, stay a year or longer after their babies are born.

After the 2005-06 school year, 59 percent of Coronado students remained at the school. Of the others, 21 percent returned to their home schools and 17 percent stopped showing up.

Generally, school-age mothers graduate at a lower rate than their peers.

Wood is months away from bucking that trend.

She returned to Coronado in fall 2005, after she became pregnant with her second child. She was 17, in the 10th grade, and wanted to improve her grades again.

Now, Wood expects to graduate this spring and hopes to enroll in classes that lead to a career in crime scene investigation.

“I sat up front, didn’t talk to nobody, and did my work,” said Wood, who believes she would have dropped out if not for Coronado. “If they feel that you’re doing good, they let you stay.”

— Reach Amy Jeter at (757) 446-2730or amy.jeter@pilotonline.com.

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Copyright (c) 2007, The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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