I can't really think of any "good" way to find out your teenage daughter is pregnant, can you? But the shenanigans at one charter school in Louisiana certainly ranks up on the list of "worst ways" to discover you're about to be a grandmother. When officials at the public school suspect a student is pregnant, they force her to get a pregnancy test.
Oh, and if she refuses or if she tests positive, the poor kid is kicked out of the Delhi Charter School. Pardon the rather crass response here: but are these people friggin nuts?
I'm going to say it again: I don't want my daughter ending up a teen mom. I would like her to have the advantages that come with being a grown woman with a career before the baby fairy comes a callin'.
But life happens. Kids happen. And if it came to pass, here's how I would want it to go down: I'd want her to take the pregnancy test at home ... not with some judgmental physician chosen by the school (part of Delhi's rules) hovering just outside the bathroom stall. She's sure to be under enough stress finding out she's pregnant; she doesn't need more.
What she would need is me, her mom, there to comfort her and help her start to plan our next steps as a family. And you had better believe that plan would include doing everything possible to ensure she stayed in school and got her high school diploma.
Pregnancy still ranks as the number one reason teenage girls drop out of school. The burden high school dropouts put on the economy is extraordinary -- by some estimates it's as much as $8 billion on the shoulders of the American taxpayer -- and then you have to add in the emotional costs. It's bad for the teen, bad for her baby, bad for the community. And yet, surveys of those who dropped out have shown the majority would have stuck with it until graduation if they'd just had some adult support to make sure it happened.
What's happening in Delhi, Louisiana right now is being challenged by the ACLU for its likely illegality because the school receives public funding. But this type of discrimination against public teens shouldn't be practiced anywhere -- even private schools -- unless the message we want to send our kids is "we wish you the absolute worst in life." Who really wants to tell their kid that?
What would you do if your kid's school forced her to take a pregnancy test?
Image via hairgeek/Flickr
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Comments 133
i agree with you 4mutts
Yeah maybe we should just put more into discouraging teen pregnancy to begin with? Teen moms SHOULDN'T be in the normal school, apparently they can't keep their legs closed, so why let them in there with the rest of them? Not to mention Charter schools have much different rules than public schools, she should be doing her class WORK, not her class MATES. She SHOULD be worried about what people are going to think, did SHE think before she decided to have sex as a kid?! Probably not, which is the problem, kids don't think, why are we letting them do all this shit, they're not adults, stop letting them act like adults. KID means kid, you're a child, you don't NEED a child. Fine, maybe it shouldn't be put out there for ALL to see, personal business is personal business, but I'm all for her being removed from the school, I don't want my daughter having to see that kind of crap or getting ideas.
I don't see how the school could do this. I guess it is just like th lockers and cars---once you are on school property we (the school) can do what ever we want. I think it is total BS, it is the parents job to raise their children not the school system. For them to force a girl to have a pregnancy test if they suspect---I think first they should call the parents and raise some concern. If anyone ever gave my daughter a pregnancy test that was not me, heads would roll.
@ Ranting Syko---Why is it that the girl gets to be the outcast. You are all for kicking a pregnant girl out of school because she is pregnant. That is one reason why they just drop out. And if you raise your daughter that right way then seeing someone pregnant in her school should not give her ideas. That starts at the home with the movies and tv shows we let our kids watch as they get older not to mention the affection we show our spouses (as in kissing and cuddling). It takes two to tango. So if the girl should get sent to a different school then the guy or guys (if she don't know who the father is) should also be punished. Sending a pregnant girl away is just like sending someone with a disable away which is just wrong. I am so sick and tired of hearing people bad mouth the girl in the situation and not the guy. Just like MTV's Teen Mom---Why not have it Teen Parents. Yeah it is more of a struggle for the girl because society as a whole thinks being a teen mom is a taboo but says nothing about a teen dad. It is not only the girl who should worry about birth control.
Maybe kids will be too scared to have sex in school this way. So they arent embarrassed in front of everyone having to take a test. But then again I would be furious if they submitted my daughter to one and she wasnt even sexually active. So idk. It shouldnt be in schools thats for sure.