Young mothers who return to R.D. Parker to pursue high school education after having a baby now have their own space in the school to do their homework and watch their child play.
The R.D. Parker Parents and Me Room opened in December, and held an open house in February for community members to come by and learn about just what this new room - a renovated storage room - has to offer.
"We encourage our girls to have childcare prior to enrolling with us," explains Melissa Wakeling, a teacher in the teen moms program. "We find that they are more successful in general if they have childcare set up - but with young kids, there's always days when childcare either isn't available or the child's sick, or they've had an appointment in the morning. It gives the kids somewhere to go when they've brought their baby to school with them, and maybe they'll go to class for the first two minutes to get the lesson, and then they've got a quiet place where they can go to do their work, and the child finds it comfortable for them."
The teen mom program has been in place at the school for many years, but the room came together very quickly. "We envisioned it far in the future." says Wakeling. "We didn't see it coming this year."
Part of the reason it came together so quickly was the hard work of community partners such as Futures, who leaped headfirst into the project. Though the room is used by other community groups such as Baby's Best Start and Families First from time to time, there is always a Futures counselor present whenever the room is open.
"What we're doing is what we call a soft-service support," explains Futures program co-ordinator Lorise Cablik. "It helps them to come to a space that they feel safer in. We're still dealing with teenagers - they don't want to be in the hallways seeing the other girlfriends, seeing the ex-boyfriends, seeing all that kind of stuff, they're still in that drama. They come, they spend that time in here, and they stay focused on their academics and focused on the life of being a parent."
"Last year we started without the room, with 17 young parents," says Cablik. "We just did the academic program. We had 17 parents graduate - young parents that came back to school. To me, that's a huge number."
"We've been working with the young moms, trying to get them in school and keep them in school," says Larry Howe, another teacher in the program. "We made a partnership with Lorise, and we were hoping to get a room like this, and it's four years ahead of where we hoped - because of the support from the school board and other administration, and hard work from those people, we now have this where the community's into our school."
The R.D. Parker staff are into it too. "The staff are interested in making sure that all of our parents feel welcomed coming back to school, and that they are making in effort to be in school," notes Wakeling.
"The district's been very supportive," adds R.D. Parker principal Ryan Land. "People in our building have been really supportive too, and this just seemed like the natural next step."
"Our teachers have been remarkable," he continues. "We've had teachers who will say 'well, childcare isn't available today, you're bringing the kid with you.' I walked into a classroom - and I think all parents have been there - where your child's making more noise than you'd like them to, and you feel bad about that. It was really seeing that that I thought 'here this young mom is working on it.' Even though they have every excuse to not be there on that given day, they're working on it, and what more can we do? That's when we were approached with the community parent room, and we weren't quite sure what it would look like, but we had the space and thought it was a good use of the space. It was a way that we could make that community partnership concrete." Howe adds that those community partnerships ensure that the program will remain in place even if one or two of the most involved partners leave.
The room itself consists of a table and chairs, small kitchen - lunch is provided every day - sitting and working area with comfortable chairs and a couch, and a play area for kids.
"When my son came here, he knew it was a safe place for him, and there were toys for him," says Kaitlynn Burton, who returned to R.D. Parker after having her son because she thought having a completed high school education would help both her and her son."
"It's remarkable, particularly for young women, what a life-changing and life-altering event having a baby is," notes Land. "For them it really can be that turnaround moment where all of a sudden education is about something much more than yourself."
