O.C. Schools Offer Desks, and Day Care, to Teen-Age Mothers

LOS ALAMITOS —  As the bell rang for the next class, 19-year-old Yolanda Valdez put her baby in his crib, kissed his forehead, grabbed her books and rushed for the door.

“I got to go. . . . I got to go to my P.E. class,” she muttered to herself.

Soon she was lost among the students hurrying from one class to another, just another teen-ager trying to get through the school day.

That she is back in school seven weeks after giving birth surprises her; that she can take Michael along is “amazing,” she said.

But thanks to a new, on-campus infant care center at Laurel High School, Valdez is getting a chance to earn her high school diploma and a brighter future for herself and her son.

“This is great. If it weren’t for this program, I wouldn’t be here,” said Valdez, adding that she now hopes to go to college and be a child psychologist.

Concerned about the growing number of teen mothers, several county school districts have opened facilities similar to those at Laurel High. Programs range from on-campus baby-sitting at Brea Canyon High School to full-day care for teen-age parents and some graduates of Orange’s Richland High School.

In Huntington Beach, there is a 19-crib facility at Huntington Beach Adult School, and in Garden Grove, Lincoln Continuation School offers a two-room nursery for infants and toddlers.

Educators say providing child care for teen mothers is more necessary and acceptable today than ever before. Though the county offers no such programs or funding for them, individual school districts are winning funds from a variety of sources to press ahead with such services.

“We started this because there was a need,” said Michelle Raffoni, an English teacher at Laurel High who began the program. “A lot of these girls were dropping out after having babies. They would have been on welfare and a drain on society.”

The idea for the infant center, which opened this week, grew from a parenting class that Raffoni began teaching two years ago to the school’s pregnant teens and young mothers. But because there was no funding available, she and her students solicited donations from local service clubs, with the teen mothers themselves making fund-raising speeches.

“It had a snowballing effect. Once we got the word out, the donations never stopped coming,” Raffoni said.

The Los Alamitos Unified School District provided the site, which used to be a preschool, while a grant from the Los Alamitos Education Foundation was used to buy equipment. Several social service clubs, including the Seal Beach Rotary Club, helped pay the salary of the center manager, Raffoni said.

The center is run cooperatively, with the student-mothers taking turns caring for the babies, who are as young as seven weeks, Raffoni said. There are seven babies cared for at the center, with plans to expand to accommodate 12 by year’s end.

At least two other centers, the Lincoln School facility in Garden Grove and the Richland High School center on the premises of the Parkside Career Center in Orange, receive funding from School Age Parent Infant Development, a state program for the benefit of teen mothers.

Marlene Angelo, who oversees the child care program for Richland, said the program received $67,000 from the state this year for the care of 14 infants and toddlers, along with $500 to provide prenatal counseling for 10 other pregnant Richland students. In addition to teaching parenting skills, the center provides job training for the teen mothers, Angelo said.

The Garden Grove Unified School District, which runs one of the largest day-care programs in the county, provides services to 78 teen mothers and pregnant students, as well as 32 infants and 28 toddlers. The district gets $130,000 in state funds to pay a staff of one full-time and four part-time teachers.

In Huntington Beach, Kerry Clitheroe, coordinator of the day care center at Huntington Beach Adult School, said their funding comes from grants as well as from the district and adult school budget.

Clitheroe said the center serves about 45 teen mothers, who come on a two-day-a-week schedule. In a year, about 70 to 80 babies are brought to the center, she said, pointing out that some mothers drop in and out of the program as they are able to find day care elsewhere.

Clitheroe said the center provides practical solutions to the student-mothers’ problems and an environment for academic support.

“The girls got a little detour, but it does not mean their dreams are over,” she said.

At Laurel High, the program has allowed 16-year-old Sarah Dunlap, a junior, to return to school on a regular basis. She brings her daughter, 7-month-old Brittany, to the center daily. Previously she came to school once a week.

“It’s allowed me to come to school more often, like I’m supposed to,” she said, adding that with her new schedule of four classes daily, she can graduate in a year.

Shawn Wallace, 20, who is expecting a child next month, said she hopes to return to school six to eight weeks after the birth. “This is definitely an opportunity for all of us. I can’t expect to land a good job without finishing high school, at least,” she said.

School Principal David Bishop said about 20 students enrolled at Laurel are either pregnant or have babies. Most live with their parents and child care is not a problem.

But to the girls who have no other alternative, the center “is the difference between staying on welfare or out of it,” Bishop said.