Moms get second chance

Home

Osceola News

Osceola County

Other Sun Publications

FREE DELIVERY!
Get Free Delivery! Request your Osceola News Gazette Today.

Login Form

2013 Osceola Health

2013 Sexual Predator Sexual Offender List sexualpredatorcover13

Windows on the Classroom March 2013

School Calendar
2012-2013

View our other Special Sections

Moms get second chance

County News

Friday, 06 May 2011 14:50

News-Gazette Photo/Fallan Patterson
Rose Diaz, 16, holds her son Jordan Stacey, 1, at Project COPE, an Osceola County School District program for teenage parents

By Fallan Patterson
Staff Writer
Rose Diaz, of Kissimmee, has the next few years of her life planned out.
About to walk with her peers at the Osceola High School graduation May 27, Diaz wants to be a Federal Bureau of Investigation profiler. She’ll start at Valencia Community College, head to the University of Florida and then work as a police officer before, hopefully, moving to Virginia for FBI training.
Diaz’s life plan appears on track now, but she took a detour in eighth-grade at Denn John Middle School in Kissimmee when she discovered she was five-months pregnant. “I was scared,” the 16-year-old said.
Not wanting to sway from her dream and despite family pressure to have an abortion or give her child up for adoption, Diaz gave birth to her son, Jordan Stacey, in March of 2010. She never dropped out of school, preferring instead to attend Project Creating Opportunities for Parenting Education, or COPE, an Osceola County school for teenage parents that provides free daycare and and transportation by buses equipped with child safety seats.
The school aims to help teenage parents overcome the obstacles that often prevent them from graduating, Sheryl Alexander, principal of Zenith School, which houses COPE, said.
“These kids have a second chance. It’s very hard to find a daycare and it’s so expensive,” she said. “Many (students) say they want to graduate for their kids. We just want everyone to graduate.”

Kassandra Ortiz, 18, cradles 2-month-old Isaiah as his older brother, Elijah,1, gets shy for the camera. Ortiz attends Project COPE to finish high school as the program offers free child care and school buses equipped with child safety seats.

Currently, the 20-year-old program educates 61 mothers with their 54 children attending the program’s daycare.
“Fathers can come but we only have mothers (now),” Alexander said, adding new mothers, pregnant girls or teenage fathers enter the program every nine weeks. “We don’t have to advertise; they just come to us.”
The program allows teenage mothers and fathers to work at their own pace and possibly graduate early, like Diaz; her official last day of school was Wednesday.
Alexander said the program “absolutely” positively affects the School District’s dropout rate as some teenage parents may lack a support system at home or would have to get a job to afford daycare rather than attend school.
“It’s a wonderful program,” she said. “Students have the opportunity to earn their diploma while someone else is watching their kids.”
In April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that the U.S. saw the lowest teen birth rate in 70 years with a rate decline of 37 percent between 1991 and 2009. Teen births, from ages 15 to 19, accounted for 10 percent of the 4 million annual births in the country, according to the CDC.
According to the Florida Department of Health, 62 teen births occurred in Osceola County in 2009, up just two births from 2008.
Kassandra Ortiz also attends COPE while her sons, 1-year-old Elijah and 2-month-old Isaiah, are watched at the school’s daycare.
“It’s a lot easier for me to go to school now,” Ortiz said. “I haven’t missed a day since I got here.”
Ortiz, 18, recently moved to Kissimmee from Jacksonville and decided to pursue her education because she dropped out of school twice after her first son was born.
“It was really difficult. I didn’t have any baby sitters,” Ortiz said. “If I hadn’t moved back (to Kissimmee), I wouldn’t be in school.”
Just 15 credits shy of graduating, Ortiz said she hopes to complete the two-year EMT program at Zenith to become a paramedic after earning her high school diploma.
Both Ortiz and Diaz are still dating their sons’ fathers. The girls advise young couples to take precautions against getting pregnant and wait until after graduating school to have a baby.
“I love my sons more than anything in the world but I’ve missed out on a lot of opportunities,” Ortiz said. “I appreciate school a lot more now.”
Diaz’s son may attend her graduation, depending on a possible medical issue, however, his mother hopes Jordan grows up to learn from her mistake.
“Even though I did graduate, it was hard work,” Diaz said. “Maybe he’ll think twice about decisions he’ll make in the future.”