Support the Ensuring Success in School Act (ESSA): Help Teen Parents and Victims of Domestic or Sexual Violence Succeed in School

Teenage parents who apply for or receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) in Illinois are required to participate in the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) Teen Parent Services (TPS) program. Teen parents in low-income households who are not on welfare are encouraged to participate in TPS on a voluntary basis. TPS assists them in enrolling in and staying in school to obtain a high school diploma or General Educational Development (GED) certificate. Many of these teens have serious barriers to educational success. They suffer from homelessness, lack of child care, health problems, lack of family supports, low literacy levels, and domestic violence and sexual assault issues. TPS case managers strive to help them overcome these obstacles and succeed in school so that they may ultimately become self-sufficient and economically independent. This often involves advocating for them in situations where there may be institutional barriers to obtaining services. For instance, TPS provides welfare advocacy to assist teen parents through the daunting steps and requirements of the IDHS intake process to obtain TANF.

I worked in the IDHS TPS program for the last twenty years, planning and providing services to teen parents and advocating policies and resources to meet their needs. These young parents are usually school dropouts when they first enter TPS, although “dropout” is often a misnomer. Many did not leave school voluntarily but were disenrolled due to excessive absences or academic failure. In many cases, the disenrollment could have been prevented if the student had been informed about the availability of home/hospital instruction, encouraged to continue in school, and referred to existing service providers in the community for additional help.

For example, a 17-year-old woman contacted me at TPS to ask for help finding a GED program. She had missed six weeks of high school to have her baby and was shocked to find that her locker had been emptied during her absence because she had been officially disenrolled from school. School staff advised her to pursue a GED. Certainly her pregnancy was a factor, but it need not have led to this outcome. If someone at school had paid attention to this young mother, there are many ways this tragic result could have been avoided.

Chicago elementary school students who become pregnant are sometimes told that they cannot continue to attend their neighborhood school. They may be referred to Simpson Academy, a school that specializes in serving pregnant and parenting students. But because Simpson can accommodate only 300 students, it has a waiting list. In one TPS case, the mother of a pregnant 11-year-old girl told us that the school principal told her to take her daughter home and then enroll her at Simpson where they could better meet her needs. The mother did not feel it was safe for her young child to travel far from her home on public transportation and wanted her daughter to remain in her neighborhood school. When she was unable to persuade the neighborhood school to allow her daughter to continue to attend classes, the mother, together with her daughter’s TPS worker, decided to apply for home/hospital instruction since the pregnancy was now advanced and high risk. Actually getting home instruction took several months. The physician’s statement had to be submitted twice, as the first time it was misplaced by the school. Even after the Chicago Public Schools’central office approved the services and a teacher was assigned, there were additional delays at the local school level. It literally took daily advocacy to obtain the services so that this elementary-school student could continue her education during her pregnancy.

Across the state, the most difficult task of a TPS case manager is to find an elementary or high school that will immediately reenroll a pregnant or parenting student who has been disenrolled, especially if the youth is too old for elementary school but lacks an eighth-grade diploma. In Chicago some of these students are served by the Achievement Academies, but other students have reported encountering multiple difficulties in trying to enroll there as well.

For example, I recall one student and her mother who were sent to three different schools in an unsuccessful search for the student’s school records. One elementary school assumed that the girl had transferred and sent her records to another, but the girl dropped out and never actually transferred. The receiving school said that they sent the records to the neighborhood high school because of her age. Eventually the Chicago Public Schools told the TPS case manager to go to a storage facility on Pershing Road, where the records were finally located and the student was admitted to the Achievement Academy. Faced with such barriers, many pregnant and parenting students grow discouraged and drop out of school permanently.

Domestic and sexual violence is reported all too frequently among teen parents, and young people in general. Young people who are the victims of domestic or sexual violence also face school challenges that hinder their academic success and school completion. While working at TPS, I frequently encountered young women who had dropped out of school to avoid boyfriends who abused and/or stalked them at school. Other victims of domestic violence reported being blamed by school officials for the violence they experienced. On occasion, victims of sexual assault have been expelled, and, in some instances, schools have refused to honor civil protective and no-contact orders. For these students, safety concerns often trump the desire to remain in school.

My experiences at TPS have shown me both the benefits of a high school education and the difficulties that many students encounter as they try to obtain one. For these reasons, I am working with the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law to promote House Bill 3615, the Ensuring Success in School Act (ESSA), which is pending in the Illinois House of Representatives. ESSA promotes the school success of Illinois students who are expectant parents, parents, or victims of domestic or sexual violence. ESSA provides specifically for

• immediate enrollment or reenrollment of expectant or parenting students and victims of domestic or sexual violence;
• inclusion of pregnancy-related medical appointments, fulfillment of parenting responsibilities, and addressing circumstances resulting from domestic or sexual violence as valid cause for student absences;
• establishing a statewide working group to develop resources to assist school districts in promoting success and safety for all students;
• training of key school personnel to understand, give information and referrals, and address issues concerning pregnancy, parenting, and domestic and sexual violence; and
• greater awareness of and access to home/hospital instruction.

Young people who are expectant parents, parents, or victims of domestic or sexual violence are at great risk of not completing their education and living in poverty. I saw the consequences firsthand at IDHS. I have worked with countless teens who left school in eighth or ninth grade but still read at a third- or fourth-grade level. These young parents will never get a high school diploma; they will likely never get a GED either. These teens—and indeed their children—deserve something better. Educational achievement is a predictor for almost every facet of success and social well-being. ESSA will promote the long-term social and economic prosperity of these young families by helping them remain and succeed in school. I encourage you to join me in supporting the efforts of the Shriver Center, in coalition with other organizations, to advocate on behalf of these young people in Illinois so that they may stay in school and complete their high school education.

Learn more about H.B. 3615 here, where you will find fact sheets about the bill and view a growing list of the bill’s supporters. 

Sally Polasek recently retired from the Illinois Department of Human Services after 37 years of service to the community. For more information, contact Wendy Pollack , 312.263.3830 ext. 238, or Aleeza Strubel , 312.263.3830 ext. 229.