Date of Award
2002
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
EdD Program for Educational Leaders
Advisor
Karen B. Ruskin
Committee Member
Claudia Santin
Keywords
abstinence strategies, academic support, administrators, at-risk students, Black females, counseling, dropout prevention, dropout rate, female mentors, graduation rate, Grades 9-12, guidance department, high school students, intervention strategies, male mentors, middle schools, parent-teacher conferences, parental involvement, parenting workshops, pregnancy prevention, program evaluation, self-esteem, sibling intervention, study skills remediation, suburban high schools, teenage parents, teenage parenting program, teenage pregnancy, tutoring, weekly progress reports
Abstract
This report describ.es a program to ameliorate the cycle of teenage pregnancy among Black females in a suburban high school, thereby decreasing the dropout rate of these at-risk students. The younger siblings of childbearing teens were the targeted population for the pregnancy prevention program. Twenty at-risk siblings in Grades 9 through 12 participated in this program. An analysis of a survey conducted by the guidance department and the teenage parenting program indicated that 31% of the students at the targeted high school became teenage parents and eventually dropped out of school before graduating.
A major goal of this program was to reduce teenage pregnancy from 31% to 11%, a reduction of 20%. Planned solution strategies included (a) pregnancy prevention counseling sessions, (b) abstinence strategies, (c) parenting workshops for parents of. the teenagers, (d) tutoring, (e) self-esteem sessions, (f) weekly progress reports, (g) parent/teacher conferences, (h) study skills remediation, (i) male mentor group sessions, and (j) female mentor group sessions. These intervention strategies involved parents, teacher, students, administrators, and counselors.
The interventions of this practicum helped to reduce the number of teenage pregnancies by 100% and increased the graduation rate from 69% to 100%. The program successfully exceeded it's goal of a reduction of 20%. This program has been expanded to includes 8th graders from two middle schools.