Three years ago, Kasey Hughart was part of the team launching a model program new to Tulsa schools aimed at preventing teenage parents from becoming dropouts.
Instead of sending expectant and parenting teens off campus for services, she would be their on-site case manager. Her primary goal has been getting them to graduation, but Hughart is also focused on helping students with accessing child care and health care and with career planning.
The Strong Tomorrows program, which had been operating at Hale and East Central high schools, has expanded this year to also serve students at Central and McLain high schools, and it has a presence in the junior high schools feeding into those schools.
Funding for this growth comes from $327,000 provided by the United Way of Tulsa and the George Kaiser Family Foundation.
“We’re confronted by all kinds of situations, and each student has their own unique struggles,” Hughart said.
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“We do our best to connect them with as many resources in the community (as possible).
“It’s validating when students after graduation come back and share with us what their lives are like, because graduating high school has so many more opportunities for socioeconomic options.”
Traditionally, girls who were pregnant or had children received social service case management away from their home schools — a model similar to the Margaret Hudson program, which recently announced its closure after operating for nearly 50 years. It had served about 170 girls each year in Tulsa and Broken Arrow.
Those off-site programs were created in times when pregnant girls often were not allowed to stay in school.
But Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibited gender discrimination, including pregnancy and parental status. But societal norms and school structures didn’t accommodate the needs of parenting teens for decades. It took court cases starting in the 1980s to assert equal treatment.
Oklahoma is No. 2 in the nation in teen pregnancy, behind Arkansas but just ahead of Mississippi.
Teen pregnancy is a leading cause of high school dropout, according to the Tulsa Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. About 51 percent of teen mothers get their high school degrees by age 22, compared to 89 percent who are not young mothers.
In Tulsa, the Strong Tomorrows program began after the George Kaiser Family Foundation commissioned a study examining the services available to parenting youths in the city. Researchers found that the New Heights program in Washington, D.C., schools was a good fit for Tulsa. An evaluation of New Heights released in June found that it increased school attendance by 28 percent, credits earned by 99 percent and the graduation rate by 50 percent.
An initial obstacle with developing a local program is knowing where teen parents attend school. School districts don’t track that information, and the Health Department has only ZIP code data.
Omare Jimmerson, coordinator of Strong Tomorrows, said GKFF committed to a pilot of the program at Hale High School, then at East Central, because of some largely anecdotal information about students there needing services.
With the launch, officials reached out to the existing off-site programs, including Margaret Hudson, to work together and avoid service duplication.
“We were never competitors. I like the idea of having options,” Jimmerson said. “Gone are days where we are pushing students away. We need to meet students where they are. (But) the option to go off site should be an option for those who choose to do that.”
Children of Strong Tomorrows students get priority enrollment for Educare and Head Start programs, which are nationally accredited early childhood programs. The students also receive referrals for health care and have parenting classes at school.
Among Strong Tomorrows’ partners is a program called JAMES — Just About Mothers Excelling in School — operated by Alisa Davis-Bell, which helps the students transition into school or work after graduation.
The average Strong Tomorrows caseload at the high schools has been 20, but Jimmerson predicts that it will be closer to 25 this year. The junior high schools have had one or two students in need of services.
Last year, 15 of the program’s 16 seniors graduated on time.
The goal is for a case manager to be in every Tulsa high school. Implementation depends on the need, so Jimmerson is depending on school counselors to contact her when a student may need services.
“By knowing where the students are in the schools, we can prioritize where to place case managers,” she said.
An interesting side effect of Strong Tomorrows has been pregnancy prevention among the friends of teen parents, who get to observe the unglamorous reality of parenthood. Jimmerson said the notion that seeing teen mothers will encourage other teenagers to become young parents doesn’t pan out.
“Our students do a great job of sharing their own life experiences and what it really looks like,” she said. “Students are smart enough to know parenting is more than a one-time baby shower. We tend to underestimate students. They see what their friends are going through.”
The Strong Tomorrows program is adding a fatherhood coordinator with an evidence-based curriculum to guide boys who are fathers into understanding their responsibilities to the child.
Hughart has a busy room each day with a revolving door of students coming to talk to her about their struggles. She’s part social worker and part counselor.
“Students are working so hard, and the school staff does their best to advocate for them and be respectful and responsive to them, as well,” Hughart said. “It’s been a team effort.”
