Longfellow School reopened fall 2011 after a year closure
by Tesha M. Christensen
Lourdes Meza-Molina wanted a chance to graduate from high school, even if she is a teen mom.
The 19-year-old mother of two is one of over 100 students enrolled at Broadway at Longfellow School, 3017 East 31st St., an alternative learning program for pregnant and parenting mothers.
They all face challenges, but the benefit of Broadway is that they can face them together.
Broadway gives Carol Smith, 17, a needed support network she doesn’t think she’d find in another school. “We can all relate to each other,” Smith observed. The moms with older kids give advice to those who are pregnant and have recently given birth. They share stories about their kids. Each faces the same sort of challenges: childcare, baby daddy issues, balancing work and school, keeping a roof over their heads, and feeding their families.
Kiara Bryant-Campbell, 17, stayed at her high school when she found out she was pregnant, but “it didn’t work out.” She felt ostracized by fellow students, and discovered she didn’t have as much in common with them as she did before. At Broadway, “you don’t feel like the odd one out,” she said.
Keeping up with old friends isn’t easy when you’re a teenage mom. When she can’t go out because she doesn’t have a babysitter, some friends get angry, Bryant-Campbell observed. “They don’t understand how it is,” she said. “I’ve got a kid. They need to come up with things we both can do with my kid. A lot of people don’t understand that.”
Smith also tried to stay at her high school after learning she was pregnant, but it was hard to focus on studying when she was suffering from morning sickness and had to run out of class. She likes it that the teachers at Broadway don’t play the “sympathy card,” but instead expect the same of everyone.
“We want people to motivate us, not say, ‘You’ve got a baby so it’s okay if you don’t do your work,” agreed Bryant-Campbell.
Fa Vang, 18, pointed out that at Broadway, there isn’t the same focus on attendance you find at typical high schools, because staff understand when students can’t make it because either they or their child is sick. The mother of three-year-old twins appreciates both the independence and the camaraderie offered at Broadway.
“We’re all girls and we’re all in the same situation,” Vang said.
Classes at Broadway are offered as either seated classes or as blended-online classes, and they are completed at one’s own pace. Students work in a day-long advisory in the subjects they need to complete to graduate and prepare for college. They choose how they will accomplish their goals –with support of teachers and instructional support staff, through Project-Based Learning (PBL), small group projects and seminars.
The students at Broadway feel supported by the staff and teachers, both in their academics and personal lives. “If we’re feeling down about something, they give us advice,” noted Vang.
“Even though they are here to do a job, they have a way of making you feel comfortable,” Smith added.
The benefits go beyond the classroom. Students are eligible for childcare located within the building, and on Thursdays both staff members and students gather there to interact with the kids. They also get in-home visits from the school nurse, who not only does well-baby visits, but talks about post-partum depression and ways to get a dad more involved. Students can access free parenting supplies, such as cribs, clothes, car seats, and more.
Having childcare located in the same building as her classes was a big draw to Yessica Meza-Molina, 20. She likes being able to check in on her one-year-old child during her lunch break.
Last year, when Broadway was housed at North High School, only half of the children in daycare were located within the same facility. Although they were accessible via a 10-minute bus ride, it wasn’t the same, according to program director Diane Glawe. It’s been nice for both students and staff to have a home of their own this year, rather than sharing space with another school. The other programs housed at the Longfellow building support the Broadway program. Early Childhood Family Education (ECFE) classes and Special Education ECFE classes are offered there.
There is a health clinic, and in a portable unit out back, Hennepin County staff members meet with students to discuss childcare assistance, welfare needs, medical assistance and various other programs students can tap into.
Moving into south Minneapolis in the fall of 2011 from its long-time home in north Minneapolis hasn’t hurt the program, Glawe stated, despite fears it would. North-side students are still attending, in part because of the curb-to-curb service offered. Any student within the city of Minneapolis can take a bus to the school, and there are car seats already strapped inside to make it easier for the young moms and their children.
Many of the students now enrolled in the Broadway program had dropped out of school previously. “It’s a way of bringing them back to the fold,” explained Glawe.
Like most of the students at Broadway, Smith’s dreams and priorities have changed since she became a mom. Instead of living on campus at the University of Minnesota while she earns a nursing degree, Smith will go to a school that is more flexible, such as the Minneapolis Community and Technical School. “It will allow me to get my work done and at the end of the day go home to my daughter,” she explained.
Things also changed for Bryant-Campbell. Because she knows that she’ll need her family around to help care for her son, she has shelved her dreams of attending college down south. “It’s not just me, but me and my son,” she stated. “I am more focused on my son than me.”
Obtaining her high school degree didn’t used to be important to L. Meza-Molina. But now she wants to be a good example for her children. She wants to be able to tell them: “If I achieved that, you can too.”
Her sister, Y. Meza-Molina agreed. “You want to be a better person,” she said. “You want to be educated for your children. You want to give them everything you don’t have.”
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SIDEBAR
LONGFELLOW SCHOOL
Longfellow Community School, located at the corner of 31st Ave. and 31st St. was built in 1918. It was closed in 2010.
Broadway at Longfellow School moved into the vacant Longfellow Elementary School building in the fall of 2011. The program caters to over 100 teenage mothers up to age 21 from across Minneapolis. While the program itself isn’t new, the move from North High School (where it had been located since the district opted to develop its headquarters at Broadway High School, 1250 West Broadway Avenue) to Longfellow enabled the program to have a home of its own, rather than share space with another high school.
This story was printed in the March 2012 edition of the Longfellow/Nokomis Messenger.
