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?
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Comments 133
Maybe it would actually discourage some CHILDREN from having sex and/or getting pregnant. The only thing i do not agree with is how do they suspect a girl is pregnant. What if the poor girl put on a few pounds, which is totally normal, she would be so embarrassed and feel horrible about herself. And why doesn't anything happen to the boy!? His butt should be kicked out too!
@rightside How is teen suicide contagious, even in a metaphorical sense. I don't know any high schoolers who glorify suicide, in addition to those who put pregnancy on a pedestal so much that they wish to emulate it and try to get pregnant. There is such a thing as teen pregnancy because there is teen sex, not some infectious notion that pregnancy is some awesome thing to attain. If you are a good parent, your kids should have no problem with these things you absurdly think are catching....Pinstripes
Yeah, I wasn't being literal. If you know any school administrators, ask about how a single suicide or pregnancy impacts a student body, and you'll understand my comments better.
Here's a link regarding suicide contagion: http://www.nasponline.org/resources/principals/Suicide_Clusters_NASSP_Sept_%2009.pdf
And one for pregnancy: http://pphsinc.wordpress.com/2011/08/12/the-contagious-effect-of-teen-motherhood/
Plain and simple, turn them in and switch schools. If it becomes standard and somehow BECOMES legal I'd just home school alll of my children. This is ridiculous.
On suicide - http://m.aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/154/2/120.full , which refutes the findings on the study you cited. This proves at the very least, there is dissention on the issue in the scholarly community and policy based on one far-less-than-unanimous conclusion that would hurt more than help would be stupid to implement.
Moreover, the study you cited about pregancy is about teen sisters who become mothers, so that has nothing to do with school, but rather the home and family.
That can't be legal? What do they do to the boy? both parties are equally responsible for the pregnancy. and I don't think a school is a proper setting for a pregnancy test. I can't believe they expell them for it :/ that's just terrible
Okay, while I think this is a weird rule, it is a rule the school has that you know before enrolling. I don't think that, if you understand and agree to the rule prior to enrollment, you can really challenge it. If they're not telling parents, then that's a different story, but someone else said in the comments that they even have to take one before coming to the school?
I don't know. This all seems weird to me. I can understand charter schools are different, but I don't get why they're so special they have to kick out pregnant teens. That just sends a bad message. I don't care about the privacy or embarrassment of the rule, I care about the message it sends. It makes it out to be like, well, now you're pregnant and you're not good enough for this school.
To me, instead of funding things like this, there should be more programs to help pregnant teens stay in school. Wouldn't that be a good way of taking the "burden" of them off the economy?
Ranting Syko, I'm glad you're moralistic views are so important to you that you forget pregnant teenagers are still teenagers and still people and as much as you'd like to think so, I'm sorry to say you and your daughter are not better than teen moms. I sincerely hope your daughter doesn't get that same judgmental attitude you clearly exude.