Baby steps for students

Kadesha Morgan is like thousands of high-school students across the city who anticipate picking out their prom dresses and tossing their caps at graduation.

She also is like every parent who hopes to provide a better life and a stable home for their children.

What distinguishes this 19-year-old mother of three from many people is that she is trying to do both at the same time.

Morgan participates in the Education Leading to Employment and Career Training program at Audenried High School, 33rd and Tasker streets. The purpose of ELECT is to help pregnant and parenting teens stay in school and graduate, then assist them in finding jobs.

There are ELECT Teen Parent Centers in 22 high schools in the School District of Philadelphia. Since 1991, the state departments of public welfare and education have funded them. The school district administers the program in conjunction with Communities in Schools of Philadelphia.

Last year, 300 student parents graduated high school with help from ELECT. There are 50 students enrolled in the program at Audenried, and that only represents those teen parents who have volunteered to participate, said ELECT social worker Janis Durald.

On Tuesday, ELECT held an open house and a First Book event. First Book is a national nonprofit program that provides children of low-income families with a new book every month. Audenried was the first school in the city to distribute books to children of students when ELECT started the program three years ago, Durald said.

"If you start reading to a child at an early age, they get familiar with the books," Durald explained. "Especially for the young parents, it is very easy to put them in front of the TV. You have 59 channels for cartoons, but that is not how you spend quality time with your child."

About 30 students and their children attended the event — some of whom already participate in the program, a few baby-faced girls with bellies bulging and a small sampling of student fathers.

Among those to speak were Audenried’s principal Millage Holloway and Communities in Schools executive vice president Treena Reid — once a teen mother herself.

Morgan, who gave birth to son Nafis a month ago, is in the process of re-enrolling in Audenried’s twilight school, which offers classes from 3-6 p.m. Monday-Friday. The student also has a daughter, Myesha, 3, and another son, Baceem, 2.

She needs to complete one more year of school to earn her diploma, she said, and is confident she will finish while raising her children alone.

"Once you have your mind set, you can do anything," she said. "If you concentrate on going to school and taking care of your kids, you can do both. You just got to be motivated. You just got to have the right family around, nobody that wants to bring you down."

Morgan has no family of her own left. Her mother Kesha Morgan died of AIDS last year, and she said she has not spoken with her father since she was 9. Myesha’s father has been out of the picture since the girl was born. Morgan lives with the family of the father of her two sons, but he was jailed two months ago.

Seven fathers participate in ELECT, including two who came to the open house on Tuesday. One has fathered five children with various girls, and another father of three had two of his kids since graduating last year.

ELECT is a hard sell to fathers, which is why Males Achieving Responsibility Successfully was created, explained program manager Kevin Brown. Two new recruits showed up Tuesday, leading MARS to declare the day a success. Throughout the school district, 107 fathers participate. Brown attributes the fathers’ reluctance to a lack of services directed at them.

"The fathers just have been viewed as the cause of the problem, not a part of the solution," he said.

So Brown has organized some male-centered events, like recent trips to the Poconos and a football game on Temple University’s field. The MARS program also has partnered with UPS to provide the fathers with well-paying jobs that provide benefits like medical insurance.

Brown has found that teen fathers often do not help raise their children because they are unable to contribute financially. If they have a job, he theorized, they would be more likely to stick around.

Morgan believes becoming a parent has made her wiser to the world. She shakes her head as if to say "been there, done that" to a group of girls at a table across the room who only have one child apiece.

"They think one baby is easy. One leads to two, two leads to three. It is not fun and it is not cute," she said as the mothers across the room talk about buying outfits at Baby Gap and styling their kids’ hair.

"It is not all about that," Morgan added. "Once you are low on money, ain’t none of that going to matter. You are going to wish that you didn’t buy all that expensive stuff."

Senior Shahdeena Craig can vouch for that. She has a 7-month-old son named Saddim and enrolled in the twilight school so she can work in the deli at a Center City Wawa every weekday from 7 a.m. until 3 p.m. She also works weekends serving food at the University of Pennsylvania.

"The hardest part is getting up in the middle of the night [to take care of my baby] and knowing I have to be at work at 7 a.m.," she said.

Morgan needs a job now that she has given birth to Nafis. She can stay with her boyfriend’s family for now, but said she has to pay her own way.

Having enough money means no more bouncing from house to house, like she said she has done numerous times in the last four years. It means being able to pay her bills and stability for her kids.

"These days, it is all about money. If you don’t have it, you can’t go nowhere," she said. "I know what I want for my kids, and it is not this life, not for them to see me struggling trying to get them whatever, wherever."

Morgan feels having a high-school diploma in her hand when she looks for a job will move her closer to that goal. More importantly, she said, her mother always wanted her to graduate from high school.

"She wanted to see me do that, and I am going to do it," Morgan said. "There is a void when you don’t graduate high school. You feel like something is missing in your life."