2 Schools Keep Teen-Age Moms in Learning Lane : Child Care, Special Classes Provide Alternative to Dropping Out, Welfare

Eighteen-year-old Roberta Contreras couldn’t linger too long after her high school graduation last week. After all, her two children and the baby-sitter were waiting at home for her, so the graduation festivities--like the usual frivolities of adolescence--would have to take a back seat.

“I knew I would graduate,” said Contreras, who intends to take business classes at Oxnard College. “I had to. I have to be the sole support of my kids.”

The school that kept her and 44 other pregnant or parenting girls on an educational track is Gateway Community School, a collection of five remodeled Quonset huts near Camarillo Airport. It’s one of two schools in Ventura County that offers free child care so teen-agers can bring their babies to class.

On June 15, four mothers graduated from Gateway, which primarily is a school for problem students from throughout the county. The Simi Valley Adult School, the other Ventura County educational facility with a full program designed for young mothers and mothers-to-be, will graduate six mothers Friday.

One Simi Valley mother has been accepted at USC. The others won’t attend schools so prestigious, but some eventually will take classes at local community colleges or get vocational training in a variety of fields. All will have an edge over the hundreds of Ventura County pregnant teen-agers who annually drop out of school, winding up as welfare clients and dooming their children to the same dismal status.

Ventura County teen-agers had 1,038 babies in 1985--one for every 23 teen-aged girls, according to Planned Parenthood in Ventura. Ventura County’s teen-age birthrate ranks 13th among California’s 58 counties, according to state figures.

Yet the two programs in Ventura County with day care this year logged an attendance of only 65, despite openings in each. Transportation is a perennial problem for teen-agers in the sprawling county, program organizers say. And the harried life of young mothers, who are often from poor backgrounds and broken homes, does not make an easy fit with academics.

“It could be problems at home--they might get married, move away or get an apartment with their boyfriend in the Valley,” said Ruth Dempsey, a Simi Valley instructor. “Many grew up in that environment. They think everything’s going to be just fine.”

Such optimism hasn’t snared Michelle, a 16-year-old junior at Gateway who gave birth in April.

Saddened by Plight

Thinking about her boyfriend, who she says is drifting around the Bay Area looking for work as a recording engineer, saddens her.

“I think maybe I met the wrong person,” she said. “He has nothing. He has two suitcases. He’s living in a dream world of marijuana. I tell him I need diapers and clothes. I tell him if we can’t feed one person three times a day, how are we going to feed three of us three times a day?”

Gateway--which students attend one day a week--attempts to answer such questions. With the help of texts and videos, the women study such standard subjects as English and math at home and use their day at school to tackle more pressing problems.

In some classes, they are taught the skills that new parents twice their age often learn in similar classes. They compare the practicality and efficiency of cloth and disposable diapers; they delve into the nutritional needs of newborns and learn what to do about problems ranging from infants’ nightmares to accidental choking.

Meanwhile, they grapple with their own negative feelings. Counselors guide them through discussions about how to deal with parents and boyfriends. They talk about marriage, sex, birth control and plans for life after high school.

“My sister was pregnant and went to a regular Camarillo high school,” said Penny Nall, 18, a young mother and senior at Gateway. “It was really hard on her. They made a big deal out of it. At Gateway, they make you feel welcome. Kids can talk to one another. They can talk to other moms.”

One of the most urgent problems they face is whether to place their newborns up for adoption. Most of them decide against it.

For many teen-agers, a baby means security and instant adulthood.

“I never considered abortion,” one teen-ager said. “I didn’t want to give him up for adoption. I carried him for nine months. I felt him kick. I wanted someone who would love me for the rest of my life. I know he will.”

At Gateway, pregnant and parenting students hardly ever cross paths on campus. Pregnant young women go to class on Tuesdays. Parenting students go to class on Thursdays.

“It makes sense to have them on their own day,” said Gail Henniger, a Gateway instructor. “It protects the ones who haven’t made a decision yet.”

Keeping babies is a fairly new phenomenon, said Jackie Goldberg, a member of the Los Angeles Board of Education and an advocate of child care in the schools.

“Some of the stigma is changing,” she said. “They’re not a slut if they’re having sex. For a number of women, pregnancies were not unintended. They wanted to have a baby. They have these idealistic, Cinderella-like notions.”

Gateway takes some of the glitter out of such notions. Part of the curriculum deals with how to get on waiting lists for low-cost housing and subsidized child care.

“We feel good about providing this school,” Gateway Principal Phil Gore said. “I try to eradicate reasons for students to drop out.”

Simi Valley Adult School aims to do the same.

Students there go to school each weekday for four hours. The 23 women enrolled for spring semester took turns caring for the babies in one room--a sun-lit, carpeted area strewn with toys, highchairs, couches and rockers--while the their peers study on their own in another.

“It’s a good school for girls in trouble if they want to finish school and stuff,” said a pregnant 16-year-old whose boyfriend works at a local car wash. “It’s better here. You can go at your own pace. You won’t get hounded by homework, and you get ready to know how things are going to be with the baby.”

Some Ventura County schools attempt to duplicate the independent-study style of Gateway and Simi Valley Adult School. Most fall short because they lack on-site child care.

“Unfortunately, we’re way ahead,” Gateway’s Gore said. “It’s a compliment to be in the forefront, but I would want to have company.”

The Oxnard Unified School District wants to provide it. The district had 90 pregnant or parenting students in the spring semester. Students did their schoolwork at home and met Fridays for group classes in an Oxnard church.

“We had to teach 15 girls in a class with 15 babies,” said Joanal Beck, an instructor for the program. “Essentially, we don’t get anything done.

“It’s difficult because we don’t have child care,” she said. “We have two playpens. We’re working on getting some day-care facilities.”

At Ventura High School, lack of funding killed a teen parent program in 1984, when the number of pregnant teen-agers dwindled, Principal Bob Cusar says.

Now, if Ventura High students get pregnant, they continue with schoolwork through independent study. Referring students to Gateway is a last resort, Cusar says. “The district’s attitude is we want to take care of our youngsters.”

School districts also try to keep their enrollments up because state funding is based on the number of students who attend, said Jean Varden, health coordinator for the Ventura County schools.

That’s what leads schools to another option--transfer pregnant students within the district to continuation schools, which are designed for students who have had problems attending regular schools.

So far, no regular Ventura County school has established child-care facilities, as have high schools in a number of Los Angeles County school districts. Even Santa Barbara, a county with half as many births by teens as Ventura, has a teen-parent program at Santa Barbara High School.

“It took a long time to get to this point--10 years,” said Lois Capps, director of the school’s PACE program, which offers on-site child care for 25 babies. “And it was not without controversy.”

But a little controversy would be worth it, some Ventura County educators say. They credit day care with making the difference between a dropout and a diploma.

“I see advantages for every school to offer some kind of program for pregnant or parenting students,” Varden said. “It can make a real difference. Our next generation could be stronger because parents would know about parenting.”

Such programs, she said, “provide a learning environment much more suitable for many kids. I know many kids who have succeeded who wouldn’t have in regular high school environments.”

That was the case with Candice Banforth, 17, who wound up in Simi Valley’s program.

“It was too hard to go to six classes and walk across campus five times and carry all those books when you’re pregnant,” she said.

Candice is ready to return to Simi Valley High School, she says, now that her son, Jonothon, is 1 year old.

She’s lucky she can. Jonothon’s father, a Marine who’s now engaged to another woman, pays her child support--enough to enable her to pay for day care.

“It will be fun,” she says. “All my friends are going to be in the same classes.”