READING, WRITING AND PARENTHOOD

For most teen-agers, math and motherhood are worlds apart, but through a pilot program at Poly Technological High School, teen parents are returning to the classroom for a lesson they’re not likely to forget.

An on-site day-care facility at the high school allows teenagers to attend classes while their babies receive the health care and attention often missing from their young lives.

Many times, teen-agers really want to be good parents, but they simply don’t know how, says Nina Jackson, coordinator for the Fort Worth Independent School District’s Adolescent Pregnancy Services.

Consequently, babies born to adolescents are often malnourished and abused. A 14-year-old mother who is home all day with a squawking infant, might throw the baby on the floor in an attempt to silence him. Often, young mothers are really children themselves, says Jackson, and have no idea what to feed the baby, when to seek medical care or how to stimulate him.

The day-care program, which evolved from a Tarrant County Youth Collaboration (TCYC) Task Force, is a perfect example of how community services can work together to provide a needed service, says Joan Katz, co-chairman of the task force. Through the combined efforts of the City of Fort Worth, the YWCA, the McFar-land Trust and others, she says, teen-agers who usually drop out of school are able to complete their education.

Perhaps more importantly, the girls develop parenting skills that could improve their childrens’ quality of life.

By providing day care on a sliding scale ($5 to $40 weekly), participants hope to make the program accessible to young mothers. At the same time, Katz says she doesn’t believe the convenient location and low price will encourage other girls to become pregnant on the assumption that motherhood is easy.

A girl can’t dump her child at the facility and forget about him all day, says Stephanie Rorie, director of YWCA Children’s Progam. Instead, each participant must feed the baby at noon, enroll in a YWCA teen-parent support group and attend a FWISD homemaking class.

Since the program began in September, Katz says, the girls have been enthusiastic about learning parenting skills. “But they’re still very naive,” she says. “They still think of the baby more like a doll-a doll that keeps them from going to football games.”

If the program, which is being considered as a nationwide model by the Academy of Excellence, is successful, it could take a load off taxpayers, as well as promise a better life for adolescent parents.

Last year in Fort Worth, 20 percent of all teen-girls became pregnant, says Rorie. Many will have second babies before they reach 20, and most will become dependent on welfare.

“But if we can get them while they’re young,” says Katz, “we may be able to break a pattern passed from one generation to the next.”