THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 3, 1996 TAG: 9611010204
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 18 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: COVER STORY
SOURCE: BY JO-ANN CLEGG, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 182 lines
TUCKED AWAY on the far side of the Princess Anne High School campus, beyond the spot where last year's fire damage is still being repaired, stands a row of seven well-used portable classrooms.
The trailers house more than 40 seventh- through 12th-graders who spend their school day studying equations, elements, adjectives and childbirth.
Known as the Princess Anne Center, it provides a place where pregnant teen-agers citywide can keep up with their regular studies while avoiding the crowded halls, rigid schedules and large classes of their home schools.
Girls may choose to attend the program anytime during their pregnancy but must return to their home schools within six weeks of delivery. During this school year alone, an estimated 150 young women will receive part of their education at the center.
As the isolated location and temporary structures would suggest, the program has had both a low profile and a low priority since it was started in 1973 in a nearby church. But it has offered a safe haven for girls struggling to stay in school during the most traumatic period of their young lives.
``These girls need so much help in understanding what's happening to them,'' said Susan Vierra, the school's nurse, who also is a certified childbirth educator and lactation consultant.
She, like all the center's staff, is acutely aware of the special needs of the 12- to 19-year-old students who are still coming to grips with the demands being made by what's growing inside them.
The help provided by the center is appreciated not only by the students but also by their parents.
``This has given her and the rest of the girls a great opportunity to finish their education,'' said Charlotte Angel, whose daughter, Amber, is currently attending classes at the center.
``When they get down and out it would be so easy for them to quit and say, `I don't care because nobody else does,' '' Angel said. ``But at the center the staff makes them feel like they're still important, still worthwhile.''
In the center's early days, reactions to an out-of-wedlock pregnancy were fairly predictable. Parents were shocked, embarrassed and disappointed. The baby's father would either distance himself completely or marry the girl.
A visibly pregnant girl in a public school classroom was a rarity.
``As I recall most, if not all, received homebound instruction back then,'' said Wiley French, principal of the Career Development Center and a longtime Virginia Beach Public School administrator.
As the social upheaval begun by young adults in the 1960s trickled down to school-age youngsters in the 1970s, things began to change.
While parents still experienced shock, embarrassment and disappointment and teen fathers still had a way of disappearing, many girls went public with their pregnancies and decided to keep their babies rather than placing them for adoption.
Still, many of those who made that decision dropped out of school. Because withdrawals due to pregnancy were not documented at that time, no one is quite sure how many young women had their education interrupted. One thing that groups working with school-age parents did know was that too many of them went on welfare and remained there.
Providing a school that could better meet the girls' physical and emotional needs while allowing them to keep up with their studies was a starting point for keeping them in the educational system.
Anna Griffin, now 31, was a student at the center 14 years ago.
``I had just turned 17 and I was 5 1/2 months pregnant when I started,'' she said. ``They were more than just teachers. They were there for you to confide in.''
Griffin delivered a stillborn baby just six weeks after starting at the center and never went back. But she remembers being grateful for the program.
``No one was looking at you, talking and gawking about being pregnant like they did in a regular school,'' she added.
Today's students give similar reasons for preferring the school.
``Everyone here understands,'' said Susie, a student who asked that her real name not be used. ``Teachers in regular schools discriminate. Here they don't treat you like a lower life form because you made a mistake.''
The school's eight teachers are certified to teach all basic middle and high school courses. Special education and certain elective courses are taught at neighboring Princess Anne High, allowing students to continue any classes they were taking in their home schools.
What makes the center's curriculum unique, though, is the requirement that all students take child development and parenting courses. They also learn about available resources through scheduled speakers from community agencies whomake regular presentations during study halls and other free times.
Although classroom accommodations and equipment are spartan, staffing the school is an expense that bothers those who question the wisdom of providing a special setting for school-age women who have chosen to bear a child.
Those connected with the center justify the low student-staff ratio by explaining that teachers must handle six separate grade levels for all subjects.
And, they add, the cost - $2,093 per student per year for administration, staffing and supplies - is more than justified when compared to what it costs to support a high school drop-out and her child on welfare.
According to a study prepared by the Virginia Beach Better Beginnings Coalition, an interagency collaborative network for teen pregnancy prevention, it costs $299,000 in public assistance to raise a child born to a teen-age mother. The total, based on 1993 statistics, assumes that the mother remains on welfare until the child reaches age 18, which is far more apt to be the case for a mother without a high school diploma.
Nationally, 50 percent of teen-age mothers drop out of school. The figures for 1989 through 1992 show that only 25 percent of those who attended the Princess Anne Center dropped out.
While the program goes a long way toward keeping the pregnant students in school, those who work with teen-age mothers both before and after they deliver agree that one important element is missing.
``We need child care,'' said Maryellen Browne, a member of the Better Beginnings Coalition and coordinator of the Resource Mothers program, which matches young mothers with older women who have child-raising experience.
Most teens depend on family members to care for their infants.
``All the people who live in my house will take care of her,'' said 15-year-old Stephanie Johnson of her daughter, Adrieauna, who was born in September, six weeks early and weighing just a little more than 3 pounds.
While child care may not be a problem for Johnson, it is for most teen mothers, even those like 15-year-old Cory Davis, who lives in her father's home with her 17-year-old husband.
Her mother-in-law will be caring for the baby initially, but Davis is realistic about the four years of school she has ahead of her.
``If I do have to drop out, I want to get my GED and maybe go to school for electronics or something,'' she said.
Jo Ann Andrews, the center's health and human services teacher, is adamant about the need for the kind of child care that would assure Cory's education.
``I'm not giving up until we get it,'' said Andrews, who has spent 2 1/2 years working on grant proposals.
``We'll start small,'' she said confidently, ``in one of the portables.'' She has worked through transportation, insurance and staffing issues. ``We'll have student nurses and early childhood education students,'' she explained, ``and the babies can ride on the special ed buses we already use because they have seat belts for the car seats.''
She also plans to involve the babies' fathers and to make home visits to reinforce what the young women will learn about child care in the school setting.
``They'll have positive role models (in the child-care center). Some of the mothers may even learn job skills. We will graduate productive citizens,'' she said.
Anderson and Carol Crosby, who is in her sixth year of teaching history and social studies to pregnant teens, have both developed a great affection and respect for their students.
``A lot of these girls are real survivors,'' Crosby said. ``I'm not sure I'd do as well as they do.''
Not surprisingly, adult responsibilities that arrive too soon take their toll on the young women.
Said Davis, the married eighth-grader: ``I don't even feel like I'm 15. I feel older than that. A lot older.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos including color cover by D. KEVIN ELLIOTT
Tricia O'Rourke, 17, holds her day-old daughter Rhyan Elizabeth
Downing in the maternity ward at Virginia Beach General Hospital.
LEFT: Tammy King, 17, stands outside one of the seven portable
classrooms used for the Princess Anne Center for Pregnant Teens.
Girls may choose to attend the program anytime during their
pregnancy but must return to their home schools within six weeks of
delivery.
``All the people who live in my house will take care of her,'' said
15-year-old Stephanie Johnson of her daughter, Adrieauna, who was
born in September, six weeks early and weighing just a little more
than 3 pounds.
Cory Davis, 15, left, watches Jo Ann Andrews work on a seam on a
baby outfit during a clothing class at the Princess Anne Center.
Davis lives in her father's home with her 17-year-old husband. Her
mother-in-law will care for the baby initially. Andrews is the
center's health and human services teacher.
Cory Davis is realistic about the four years of school she has ahead
of her. ``If I do have to drop out, I want to get my GED and maybe
go to school for electronics or something,'' she said. Added the
married eighth-grader: ``I don't even feel like I'm 15. I feel older
than that. A lot older.''
Susan Vierra, the school nurse, interviews a student at the Princess
Anne Center. ``These girls need so much help in understanding what's
happening to them,'' says Vierra, who also is a certified childbirth
educator and lactation consultant.
Amber Angel, 17, relaxes during a cooking class at the Princess Anne
Center for Pregnant Teens. ``. . . the staff makes them feel like
they're still important, still worthwhile,'' Amber's mother,
Charlotte, says.
KEYWORDS: TEENAGE PREGNANCY UNWED MOTHERS by CNB