WESTSIDE COVER STORY : Parenthood 101 : Santa Monica High Program Gives Teen Mothers Some Lessons in Real Life and a Push to Succeed

Kelly Snyder needs a new dress for the prom. She also needs a baby-sitter.

Kelly and her prom date, Robert Sanchez, both Santa Monica High School seniors, are parents of a 9-month-old baby boy. At 17, the couple has taken on responsibility for a baby--long before, they know now--they are ready to handle it.

In some circles, it is fashionable to condemn teen-age parents like Kelly and Robert, or at least to consign them and their apple-cheeked child to the slag heap of lost causes. But, though they had to grow up fast, Kelly and Robert are hardly a lost cause. Nor are they, or any other pregnant teens, viewed as such by the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District.

“What are we going to do--throw them away?” asked school board Vice President Margaret Franco. “Even Richard Nixon got a second chance.”

The 2,500-student high school offers redemption by way of a program called Student Age Parents and Infant Development. Headquartered on campus, the program offers high school moms--and a few willing dads--a second chance at education while their babies are cared for in a nursery.

“It’s an appropriate response of a 20th-Century, almost 21st-Century, high school,” said Principal Sylvia Rousseau.

True, Rousseau acknowledges, the program has its critics--those who fear the presence of cute little babies will entice more teens to want one.

But the statistics show otherwise. And in the eight years since the program began, its record of discouraging teen pregnancies has earned it the unflagging support of the school board.

In the $115,000-a-year program--one of 60 funded primarily by the state--scared teen-agers are taught the realities of parenthood and how to be a good mother or father. During the course of the class, which lasts as long as the girls are in high school, young moms become realistic, but hopeful, about their futures--more hopeful, in most cases, than they were before they got pregnant.

“Before I got pregnant, I didn’t think about college or even high school,” said Ana Escalante, 16. “Now I want to go to college.”

The change--from the fantasy to the reality of what being a parent entails--comes to young mothers as they recover from the shock of having a baby and deciding to assume responsibility for their choice.

This reckoning does not come automatically, but flows from the nurturing of Marilyn McGrath, director of SAPID. She urges the girls to achieve, and with the help of a social worker, shores them up when their goals seem impossible.

It works.

In the SAPID program, babies flourish and mothers get high school diplomas and move on to college or trade school. In 1993, of 11 girls who graduated from Santa Monica’s SAPID program, 10 received their high school diplomas--six went on to college, two to trade school, one became a construction worker and another entered the military.

“We graduate just about everyone who comes in here as a junior or senior,” said McGrath. “The mentality here is different than everywhere else. They are not labeled. They are not looked at as ‘at-risk’ kids.”

Unlike teen mothers in other high school programs, those at Santa Monica High do not attend a separate school. And McGrath believes this approach contributes to their success because students are not stigmatized by being segregated. At the main high school campus, they can be on an academic track, avail themselves of other school programs and know that a high priority is placed on their achievement.

The SAPID nursery, at the northeast end of campus, is meant to lighten the child-care load. The door is gaily painted in a rainbow of colors. “Enter with a happy heart,” it says. The room is filled with babies and child-care workers. The mothers, indistinguishable from other girls on campus, stream in and out all day to check their babies. Sometimes they nurse or feed the babies during lunch hour.

A stack of backpacks is heaped in the corner of the diaper-changing room. Cribs and high chairs line the walls. There are baby swings and rocking chairs and a bulletin board display filled with photographs of the moms with their kids that says, “Happy Mother’s Day.”

Toddlers are cared for at a separate SAPID facility called the Cottage, located a few blocks from campus.

On campus, there is talk and support, as the students compare stories of life with a crying baby, interspersed with chats about their progress in school.

As impressive as the SAPID students’ graduation rate is their low rate of second pregnancies. It is consistently under 10%, compared to the 25% rate for teen mothers generally. McGrath attributes the low rate to birth-control counseling and efforts to raise the girls’ self-image, which are both an integral part of the curriculum.

Kelly Snyder, who expects to earn her high school diploma next month, preaches the gospel of birth control. Describing one friend who is having unprotected sex with her boyfriend, she says: “I can’t wait to get Norplant in her arm.”

Before having a baby, Kelly admits she did not use birth control during a years-long relationship with Robert. “I wanted to have a child,” she said. Still, when she became pregnant, Kelly recalled, “it was quite a shock.”

She and Robert and the baby, Robert Jr., live with her grandmother in Santa Monica, who provides room and board. Robert goes to school and works part time for his father. Kelly’s mother is paying for the prom dress; the traditional teen rite of passage will be a rare night of youthful frivolity for a pair immersed in the work of caring for a baby.

Contrary to a stereotype, Kelly--like most mothers under 18--is not on welfare.

“We take responsibility,” said Kelly. “I do not want my child to be raised on welfare for the rest of his life.”

Although a baby is born to a California teen-ager every 7 1/2 minutes, welfare officials said just 7,217 mothers under age 18 in the state receive a monthly welfare check. That is less than one-third of the new teen-age mothers in Los Angeles County alone in 1993.

In the main, experts say, most pregnant teen-agers avoid welfare because their parents and other relatives help them financially, as is their legal obligation. If a teen mother is estranged from family members or they themselves are on welfare, public assistance is available, state officials said.

But teen mothers who do not start out on welfare may end up there: The state legislative analyst recently calculated that families begun by teen-agers ultimately cost taxpayers $5 billion to $7 billion a year in welfare, health care and food stamps.

Moreover, there is no comprehensive approach to teen parenthood, said Samantha Jannke president of the nonprofit group California Alliance Concerned with School Age Parents. The present system, she said, is “a patchwork quilt.”

The Santa Monica program, for example, has room for 24 babies and toddlers, although there are 40 children born a year to teen-agers in one Santa Monica ZIP code alone--90405--in the Pico neighborhood.

While not advocating abandoning teens who already have babies, Gayle Nathanson, executive director of the Youth and Family Center in Inglewood, said said teens must be taught that “it is unacceptable to have a baby or to expose yourself to sexually transmitted diseases.”

Toward that end, State Sen. Bill Lockyer (D-Hawyard) held hearings in Sacramento last week on a teen pregnancy-prevention program he hopes can reverse the state’s dubious distinction of having the nation’s highest teen pregnancy rate.

Lockyer’s proposal would target students before they became sexually active and would include a media blitz modeled on a statewide anti-smoking campaign.

Pregnancy prevention is a part of McGrath’s program, too.

Recently, a group of her SAPID students spoke to classes at Lincoln Middle School. Their accounts of what it is really like to care for a baby are meant to puncture the fantasy of parenthood that experts believe accounts for many teen pregnancies.

“They got pregnant because they wanted something of their own--to create the idyllic family they did not have,” McGrath said. “More than 95% keep their babies. Adoption is a difficult sell.”

Most girls in the program eschewed abortion on religious or cultural grounds.

At a regular session of the parenting class, the young mothers shared their stories. Some became pregnant in reaction to an unhappy family life, they said.

Like Elisa Lopez, 17, mother of Jessica, who said she got pregnant as an act of rebellion against her parents. “I did it to get away from them,” she said. “I had a big vision: ‘I’ll move in with him. He’ll support me.’ It’s the other way around.”

Or 18-month-old K.C.’s mom, Kim Martinez, who ran away from home at 14 because she did not feel wanted. She ended up pregnant and in an abusive relationship with her older boyfriend. The relationship has since ended.

Or Ana Escalante, who “tried and tried and tried and tried” to get pregnant, and ultimately succeeded at 13. She figured, she said, “If I was pregnant, I would be immune to all these problems I was having.” Her son, Danny, is almost 2.

Finally, Nina Davis, 16, who is struggling to take care of 8-month-old Luis while working and living with her older boyfriend. (About 70% of teen mothers are impregnated by males older than they, studies show.) Nina said she knew she would get pregnant as a result of having unprotected sex, but cannot explain what stopped her from using birth control.

“I can’t tell you why,” she said. “Now I stay at home with my son and take care of him. . . . There’s so much responsibility I didn’t realize was going to be there. I get through, but it’s hard, real hard.”

That is what two of the newest mothers in the program are finding out. At the ripe old age of four weeks, their tiny sons, Anthony and Andres, just began “high school.” Swaddled in soft blankets, the boys arrived at the campus nursery in the arms of their teen-age mothers, who bore the harried look of new, sleep-deprived parents.

Anthony’s mom, Corrina Cazares, 18, was out of school for much of her pregnancy--and bored.

“I missed learning,” she said. “You don’t know what you have until you lose it.”

At the daily parenting class, which covers everything from toilet training to career development, a lively discussion was prompted by a student who wasn’t even there--Andres’ mother, Heidi Sines, 17.

It seemed Heidi’s own mother insists that her daughter assume all responsibility for her tiny son; the girls in the class were divided on the subject.

Some thought Heidi should get more help, but others said she would be better off in the long run not to lean on her mother.

Though she did not weigh in with her opinion at the time, McGrath agrees with Heidi’s mom. In an interview, McGrath said a key element of her program is establishing that the new teen mother is the one in charge of the baby.

“It was a battle to move (the nursery to the campus), but this is where it clearly belonged,” McGrath said. “When they can bring their babies on campus they really take over the reins of child-rearing, rather than leaving it to the grandmothers.”

It is through this process, said program social worker Stephanie Blau, that teen mothers develop an identity, self-esteem and the extra motivation needed to complete educational and career goals for themselves--and for their children.

“I want to show society, ‘Hey, you’re wrong. I made it!’ ” said Brenda Reyes, 18, whose son Angel is 2 1/2.

Started in 1988 with help from Family Services of Santa Monica, a social service agency that provides Blau’s services to the program, SAPID’s best advertisements are its graduates.

“If it hadn’t been for SAPID, I would have had to drop out and work at McDonald’s,” said Danielle Weatherman, 20, who graduates from Santa Monica College this year and will enter a paralegal program at UCLA Extension in the fall.

Dolores Sandoval, 19, really beat the odds: She had three children by the time she graduated from SAPID, but is now a Santa Monica College student. The college has a program for mothers that enrolls many SAPID grads.

“Marilyn (McGrath) always told me, ‘Don’t give up. You can do it. I’m going to read about you in the paper someday.’ ” said Sandoval, who hopes to get into a nursing program and would like to go to medical school. For now, she is getting along with help from her boyfriend.

Though the school board wholeheartedly supports the SAPID program, it is not universally popular, its fans concede.

“There are those who see it as an encouragement to other young men and women to have children,” said principal Rousseau. “Others see it as a deterrent. It may be both, (but) the positives outweigh the negatives.”

McGrath sees the program as providing a sobering look at parenthood to others on campus. It was dubbed “the cure” by high school students who work in the nursery for service credits.

“I have never met a teen who came into the program and said, ‘I got pregnant because you’re here,’ ” McGrath said.

In a report to the school board, McGrath quoted one student worker as saying, “If you think you want to have a kid in high school, come into the nursery every day and you’ll change your mind in a hurry.”

Or as one of the teen mothers said recently to a boy who casually said he was thinking of becoming a father soon: “No! No! No! Wait till you’re 40.”