Schools

Babies and Bubble Tests

At the Burke Academy, new moms and their pregnant classmates cram for the California High School Exit Exam—just like everybody else.

It's the day before the California High School Exit Exam, and Cynthia, 18, is sweating it. She leans deep into an algebra problem, probing her teeth with her tongue as she scribbles notes into her binder.

A year ago, Cynthia was floundering through San Lorenzo Unified School District's independent study program, an 11th grader with fewer than 15 credits. She'd just turned 17, and she was fighting to keep up with her schoolwork while caring for her newborn daughter.

That's when she turned to the Burke Academy.

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Burke Academy and its sister school in Oakland's Fruitvale district provide nearly 100 teen parents and their pregnant peers with a place to finish their high school education. Both programs are run through the California School Age Families Education (Cal-SAFE) program and the Alameda County Board of Education.

"I have 132 credits now," Cynthia says, smiling. "This school has helped me a lot. It’s helping me with my daughter, it’s helping me with my diploma."

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Cynthia is one of 30 students currently enrolled at the Hayward campus, which serves students from San Leandro to Union City. Her daughter, Eveny Marie,  is one of 24 infants and toddlers occupying a coveted spot in the school's Early Head Start program.

She's also a one-woman recruitment team for the school, pulling in peers in an area where more than 6 percent of girls will become pregnant before they turn 18. 

"I helped a lot of girls come to this school. They were dropping out," she said. "I asked them, where are you going to school? What are you going to be doing when you’re at home? Nothing."

Some of the girls will graduate here. Others are just passing through. 

"We get you through your pregnancy, make sure you’re going to the doctor, your health is good, you’re eating right," Principal Carolyn Hobbs says of the students she reflexively calls children, although most of them have at least one child themselves.

"Then you have the baby and you go on maternity leave, and we give you work to hand in once a week, and then after the baby has had the shots at 8 weeks, you bring the baby in and you’re back.

"The ideal is to get them transitioned back to a mainstream school."

That's the idea for Maria, 14, whose daughter Itzel is 3 months old. She'd just started her freshman year at San Lorenzo High School when she found out she was pregnant.

"When I was six months [pregnant] I was still getting periods and I wasn't showing," Maria said. "I'll probably stay here until next year, and then go back to high school."

Maria tells of fleeing from home to her sister's place when she first told her parents she was pregnant. She describes her baby's father, 18, as a gangbanger in and out of jail, hardly the man she imagined herself raising a family with. 

"I didn’t want that to have a kid with him, but it happened," Maria said. "He's a part of her life."

Her story illuminates many of the stumbling blocks for young mothers, extending far beyond the infant: Family life can be tenuous; support may be fleeting; fathers bring drama, and second pregnancies all too often follow first ones.

Just ask Monique, the other girls say. Monique knows.

"A lot of people do ask me questions," said Monique, who lives in Hayward. She's tall, almost imposing, with a tight poof of curls she wears at the top of her head, far from baby's hands. "A lot of the pregnant girls, if they’re pregnant for the first time, they’re not going to know anything."

At 17, Monique knows the ropes. Her older son, De'Shawn, is almost 2. The younger one, Malachi,  is 6 months old. (He does not attend Early Head Start because of complications from his premature birth.)

When Monique got pregnant at 15, her mother kicked her out of the house. She gained 70 pounds in her first pregnancy and had to go on bed rest early. Though her baby's father contributes money for clothes and diapers, she's mostly on her own. Because of her experience, she's become a sort of a den mother, shepherding first-timers through the process.

"It’s not as bad as everybody makes it seem to have two kids—you just gotta have the patience," she said. "I do it all by myself."

In short, algebra is the least of their worries — but that doesn't mean these teens won't learn it. 

Teacher Susan Jensen, who has been involved with the  program since 1989—before any of her current students were born—will make sure of that. It's an uphill battle. She thinks the schools failed her girls long before any of them turned up pregnant.

"Most of these students have fallen through the cracks one way or another," Jensen said. "More than half of our students have not been going to school regularly."

The average student at Burke arrives barely performing at fourth grade level in English and math. Many struggle to read and write, can't subtract or multiply, and get stumped by True/False questions on a bubble test. These are the best ones.

"The students who come here are just a tip of the iceberg as far as teen pregnancies are concerned," Jensen said. "Our students are really motivated."

With the Exit Exam looming, she does her best to stay positive, working to motivate the girls who have yet to pass. She crawls through algebra drills, breaking down each step into its simplest parts, reminding students of where they might trip. Jensen said she doesn't even send math work home with students on maternity leave—it's just too easy to mess up.

"It is deadly to do a problem wrong," she said.

This group is younger than the one that graduated in January, and she worries the ones who haven't passed yet aren't scholastically ready for the test, part of a constellation of exams that—as with all public schools—help determine funding.

"I think we’re successful if they’re healthy and they’re good parents," Jensen said. "Of course we want them to graduate and get a job, but that’s number one."

After algebra, parenting

Every day during lunch, the moms file out of the classroom to collect their children.

The normally sleepy building where students cuddle plush baby blankets and Winnie the Pooh dolls rattles with delighted shrieking. Bigger toddlers plow into smaller ones just learning to stand. Food is thrown, and spit, and mashed. Inevitably, someone poops.

"You're going to miss being pregnant," Cynthia admonishes A., a 17-year-old foster youth, 26 weeks into her pregnancy, who could not be named in this report.

The staff likes to rib A., the group's outspoken class clown, about her "denial." She's says she's "with child," not pregnant. Savvy and goal-oriented, she Googled her way here, determined that a pregnancy not derail her future. 

Prior to landing at Burke, A. had transferred to a continuation high school with the aim of graduating early and cementing college plans before she emancipated at 18.

But pregnancy hit her hard. For weeks, she'd told herself it was just the flu.

"I cursed at the lady because I was so surprised," A. said. "I went to the Children’s Oakland clinic, and that’s when they told me, you’re not sick, you’re pregnant."

When she finally admitted her condition, her former foster mother asked her to move out. Now she and her social worker are fighting to keep her in the system, searching for a spot in transitional housing where she and the baby can  find their feet.

"I thought, 'If I got pregnant, why'd I have to get pregnant now?" A. said. "I want to go to college, but part of me knows I can’t be in college the way I want to because I have to support my daughter."

Despite the challenges, the young women seemed optimistic about their futures and the opportunities the Burke Academy has given them. Several were on track to graduate in the fall, and talked animatedly about college. All of them expressed pride at what they had accomplished, in spite of the odds.

"I feel so happy and so excited," said Vanessa, 18, who commutes with her baby Divena, 3 months, by public transit from Union City every morning. "Everything that I've been through is all worth it, because I still went to school even with having a baby and going on the bus and waking up at 5 in the morning."

She smiles, arching a painted eyebrow. "I think that’s a good look."


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