Concerns raised about Riverview's teen parent program

Oct. 17--A local advocacy group is raising concerns about the Sarasota County School District's management of teen parent program Cyesis at Riverview High School, spurred by the district's decision to quietly close the school's health clinic as well as what advocates call a lack of policy accommodations for pregnant mothers to graduate in more than four years.

The group, led by local obstetrician Dr. Washington Hill and Forty Carrots Family Center head Michelle Kapreilian, said that they had repeatedly voiced their issues to various district administrators, including Superintendent Todd Bowden, but had reached no consensus.

Until about three years ago, Hill said, Cyesis, a school for pregnant teens and teen mothers, operated its own health clinic with a nurse from the Florida Department of Health in Sarasota County. There, students could ask questions about contraception, receive pregnancy tests and have prenatal and postpartum checks, which eliminated the need for these students to travel to the Health Department for medical care.

But Hill noticed that the clinic had stopped operating that way. When he asked district officials what had changed, he was told a policy prohibited the district from operating a clinic at Cyesis, although it had been opened for that purpose.

Hill decided to raise the issue during the public comment period at the School Board's Tuesday meeting.

"The bottom line is, we have a facility and we have providers, and my feeling has always been that we should be able to come up with what we can agree on doing other than nothing," Hill said in an interview. "In my opinion, nothing is not an option."

School Board members did not reach an agreement on the issue Tuesday, but Bowden said he did not believe it was the district's job to operate a clinic. He said he would defer to the Health Department for an answer on reopening the clinic.

"I do not believe it's the function of the school district to operate that clinic, but if the Health Department had an interest in operating services and accepting that responsibility, we could have a facilities-use agreement that designates that area as a clinic where they would be responsible for any services that are provided there," Bowden said. "I want to make sure we're supporting the educational mission of Riverview High School and all working toward the same goal of making sure these young ladies are graduating from high school with healthy babies."

School Board member Caroline Zucker asked Bowden why the clinic had ceased. He said he didn't have the answer, but noted that it was "part of the history lesson" he was trying to "put together." He also said that he was not able to find a policy that prohibited the school district from operating the clinic, which is what Hill said he was told by the district several times.

Hill speculated that the district's reticence to operate the clinic came from not wanting to discuss sexual health issues at school. One administrator had suggested to Hill that the district could have a bus that took students to the Health Department. But he said that was not sufficient.

"That just doesn't work," Hill said. "I just came from a delivery of one of your students. As a part of their education, if a high school students comes in on Monday morning and says, 'I had sex on Saturday and I need a pregnancy test, and I need to know what to do,' what is wrong with asking that on school property?"

Kapreilian noted that teen parents without access to family planning services also are more likely to have another child soon after their first one, leading to a higher chance that their family will repeat the cycle of poverty if they are low-income.

Bowden said he would discuss the matter with the Health Department further to see if it had an interest in running the clinic.

He also decided to pull the student progression plan from Tuesday's board meeting to give district staff more time to review it. That may lead to a change in the requirements for students who may want to re-enter the school system after leaving school and having a child.

"These students are deserving of accommodations on time and they don't have an advocate for themselves, and that's what it would require in order to get to the next level," Kapreilian said. "They're not used to questioning. If they get told no, they don't come back and say, 'Well, why not?' What do I have to do to get back in school?'"

Bowden said he expected that district staff would have a decision by the end of the week.

"It's not about graduation rates," Bowden said. "It's about doing the right thing by those girls."

Cyesis was moved to Riverview's campus in 2008 after being run as an individual campus. North Port High School also has a similar teen parent program.

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