Fire Robs High School Girls of Care for Babies

San Diego High School officials Monday said they were worried that some of their students with small children may be forced to drop out of school because a fire has destroyed a free day-care center on campus.

The $300,000 fire on Sunday destroyed a two-bungalow building that housed a nursery for about 21 infants belonging to girls attending the high school.

“For most of them, if they don’t have this, they can’t be in school,” said Jane Stein, director of the nursery. “These girls have accepted the responsibility of raising and caring for their children. But they also want to finish school. Many of them are asking what they are going to do; they can’t afford anything else.”

Stein said that nearly three-quarters of the mothers who used the nursery are on welfare, and many either live away from their parents or have parents who work and could not baby-sit for them.

On Monday, a temporary nursery had been set up in the school’s writing laboratory, and six infants were being cared for, Stein said. The other girls were able to find grandparents or friends to baby-sit or had to pay for a baby sitter, Stein said.

“We called all of the mothers yesterday (Sunday) and told them what the situation was,” Stein said. “We told them to try and find someone to leave the children with and, at last resort, if nothing else could be found, to bring the children in today. The first concern is that they continue to come to school.”

Sylvia Johnson, 17, a senior with a 14-month-old girl, found temporary care for her child with Johnson’s grandmother. Johnson, like several of the mothers, said she did not know what would happen if the nursery remained closed for a long time.

Cynthia Adams, a 16-year-old junior, has two children, 22-month-old David and 2 month-old Elizabeth. She has used the school nursery since David was born.

On Monday, Elizabeth was with her mother at the makeshift school nursery, while David had been left with a neighbor. Cynthia lives with her mother, a branch supervisor at a credit union, but she expressed doubts about being able to afford a permanent baby sitter.

“It costs $50 a week for a baby sitter for just one child,” Cynthia said. “For two, it would cost about $100, and we can’t afford that. The main thing is that I get my diploma. If the nursery didn’t exist, it would have been a lot harder. I would have missed a lot of school. I don’t know what is going to happen next semester.”

Robert Amparan, San Diego High principal, said the lack of nursery space would not be critical over the next two weeks because students begin their Christmas break on Friday. When school resumes, there will be only four weeks remaining in the semester.

But not having the nursery next semester, which begins in February, could create problems, Amparan said.

Two other city schools--Lincoln High School and Garfield Learning Center--offer nurseries. Mothers from San Diego High who wanted to continue in school might be asked to transfer to one of these schools, Amparan said, adding that there is a possibility that San Diego High could convert a trailer into a nursery for the remainder of the school year.

Amparan said that city school officials and state Department of Education officials were already meeting to discuss long-range plans for rebuilding or replacing the facility.

“There is no room to house a day-care facility in the high school building itself,” Amparan said. “We are relying on the district to come up with the funds we would need for another building.”

The nurseries are run through a state Department of Education program called School Age Parenting and Infant Development, which has existed as an experimental pilot program for 11 years. Mothers (or fathers) who enter the program must work with counselors and must spend part of the school day working in the nursery and learning “child-care and development skills,” said Bertha Ann Heath, director of consumer and family studies for the San Diego Unified School District.

“The two goals of this program are to develop parenting skills and to assist these girls in developing a (academic) major or an area of interest that will allow them to further their education,” said Heath.