Washington Post: Living with their choices

Teenage sisters sought freedom in pregnancy, but one found confinement

...Angela, 17, who dropped out of Montgomery Blair High School even before she became pregnant, has put off taking classes toward a GED until her baby is older. Edelmira, a 16-year-old sophomore, says she is determined to graduate. But she missed so many days of school last year that she didn't get full credit, and this year she has already been absent 15 days...

...Edelmira never found schoolwork as excruciating as her sister did. But her attendance has long been sporadic. "It's not that I don't want to go. I like school," she says. "It's just we wake up too early. Sometimes I wake up, take a shower and, once it's time to leave, I'm like 'Nah, I'm just going to sleep.' "


When Edelmira does go to school, it's like a brief excursion to an exotic planet. At Montgomery Blair, the banks of gleaming Dell computers give many classrooms the look of Mission Control. Students who are into drama get to perform in "The Merry Wives of Windsor" and "The Mikado." Students in the science-oriented magnet program learn how to measure the molecular mass and pressure of various gases before the end of freshman year.
Yet as Edelmira wades through the packed halls, she is only dimly aware of these undercurrents. She doesn't belong to any after-school clubs. In her science class, she is just beginning to learn that matter can exist as a gas.
At home, she doesn't have a computer. She almost never opens a book. When she says she's doing well in a class, she means she's not failing it. She doesn't worry about how she'll do on the PSATs or SATs. She has no idea what the tests are for...

...When Edelmira started Silver Spring International Middle School already several months pregnant, one of the counselors made a point of alerting the teachers and making sure they worked with her to help her make up any lessons she might miss due to doctor's appointments. Similarly, Eastern Middle School, to which Edelmira switched halfway through the year, arranged for a private tutor to teach her at home for a month after she gave birth.
Edelmira credits the extra help with motivating her to stay in school. But, in many ways, doing so has only heightened her initial misgivings over having her daughter at such a young age...