Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 2, 1994 TAG: 9406240042
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Beth Macy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Pictures were taken, hands were shaken. What was described to me as a gorgeous cake - with colors representing Fleming, Patrick Henry and the Alternative Education school from which the teens came - was donated by the women of the Mary and Elizabeth Project, a statewide outreach program of First Baptist Church.
School principals, the superintendent, the superintendent of social services, volunteers, teachers, social workers - all lined up to recognize for the first time what incredible hurdles these young women had jumped:
Getting up at 5 a.m. to get the babies fed and packed, arranging day care, riding a city or school bus, doing homework, holding down part-time jobs, getting up in the middle of the night with sick children, missing school and then somehow squeezing in make-up work.
Last fall, jobs teacher Robin Bullard told me the story of a Patrick Henry senior who lived alone with her child. She waitressed at night and went to school during the day:
``Last week, she was tired. She'd been up all night, took her baby to the emergency room for an ear infection. The next day she had a government test, and she hadn't studied for it. ... I sat there and she cried and cried. And I just told her everything would be all right.''
Finally, as of last week, it was. On the graduation program, that student listed as her immediate goal just one word: Shoney's.
Three others listed nursing school, seven are aiming for community college, and two wrote down as their goal ``domestic engineer.''
One of the teens, a 17-year-old with two children, positively beamed throughout the reception, I'm told. She's been accepted into a community college in Florida, and she can't wait to leave.
Parenthood isn't easy for any of us, but for these teens it's especially rough. Most lack help from a partner or spouse. Many lack family support. Only one parent, a mother, attended the program at all.
It's worth pointing out that these 13 graduates have accomplished what most teen mothers don't: They stuck it out in school, despite the hurdles.
And it's worth pointing out that each and every one of them said they couldn't have done it without social workers and teachers pushing and prodding them, giving them special help along the way.
``You could see there had been some real struggles between the girls and the staff,'' recounted June Poe, one of the Baptist volunteers who helps motivate teen moms. One of Poe's functions this past year has been to photograph the teens with their babies and give them the pictures - a small token, but a meaningful one, considering that some of the moms had no pictures of their children.
It's also worth pointing out how hard I've seen social workers Debbie Henderson, Sharlene Hodges and Beth Evans work this past school year to make the event happen at all.
Hodges made me put the reception on my calendar weeks ago: ``We need to get the word out about the positive things these girls are doing,'' she said. ``We need to recognize these girls and show the rest of them it's not impossible to make your life better.''
And so we were invited, photographer Victor Vaughan and I. But you'll notice from all my quotes and recounts, we weren't there. Social workers were told to strike our names from the invitation list.
Which really didn't surprise me. Last fall, after the first installment of our ``One Out of Every 10'' series on Roanoke's teen-pregnancy rate, Fleming principal Alyce Szathmary banned us from taking pictures and doing interviews at her school.
Vehemently opposed to negative publicity of any kind, Szathmary felt wounded by previous stories that she said made Fleming look too black, too poor, too crime-ridden. Articles on teen pregnancy, she said, ``give people the impression that we're not doing our jobs.''
You can't fault school officials for wanting to protect their students. But trying to hide the problem only exacerbates it.
And trying to hide the small victories - like the 13 young mothers who graduated last week - only belittles their feat.
Szathmary, for the record, told us we could have come to the reception -- but not until six days after the fact. Bullard, who later acknowledged disinviting us, claimed it was "over concern for my students," who feared being misquoted, she said.
``We've got to get over the fear of talking about a problem,'' social services superintendent Corinne Gott said. ``Hiding is no way to get at the solution.''
Thirteen young mothers were honored in a special graduation reception in the William Fleming High School cafeteria last week.
I can't tell you what it looked like or who said what.
But after all that's been said, I thought you should know.
Beth Macy, a features department staff writer, has covered teen-pregnancy issues since last fall. Her column runs Thursdays.
by CNB