Current News
Student Spotlight (Young Moms Support Group)
Philadelphia Inquirer, Sunday, Jan. 13, 2008
Student: Lillian Abraham
School: Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School.
What she is doing: Abraham, 17, of Morton, and about six other teenage mothers from Delaware County and Philadelphia attend the Young Moms Support Group at the Eastern Support Center of the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School in Springfield. The group, which started meeting weekly in October, is the first of its kind within the statewide cyber-school program, counselor Michele Fecht said.
Abraham enrolled in the cyber school, which has nearly 8,000 students statewide in kindergarten through 12th grade, in September 2006, after giving birth to her daughter, Nadia. Abraham, who attended the Charter High School for Architecture and Design in Philadelphia before having her daughter, is scheduled to graduate this spring.
Question: Can you describe the Young Moms Support Group?
Answer: We just go there every week, every Monday, and [Fecht] talks about college and other things, mother stuff. We have talked about college, careers, personality tests, and things like that.
[Some talks are] more based on future type things, like rent and how to balance our budgets, stuff like that. And the kids all get to play with each other.
Q: What have you found helpful about the group?
A: Well, I like meeting with all the girls every week. I found out a lot of them live really close to me. [Fecht] just hooked me up with a college I want to go to. Because I want to get into interior design. And those types of schools don't run very cheap. . . .
She's helped me find schools, and financial aid, and information about subsidized day care and things like that.
Q: Why interior design?
A: I always liked it. You know, you explore careers, and you think, 'Maybe I want to be this.' But I've always come back to interior design. So I think it's just what I have to do.
Q: Why did you enroll in the cyber school?
A: When I found out I was pregnant, it was the best option . . . because I could do it from home, and the schedule thing. I didn't know when I was gonna be able to do school work.
CHAD [Charter High School for Architecture and Design] was down at Seventh and Sansom [in Philadelphia]. So I'd have to get on the train and get back, and it takes a lot of time to do that. And I'd have to enroll her in day care at 5 o'clock [in the morning], drive her to day care, go to school, come back, pick her up. And who has money for day care when you're going to school full time?
Q: When did you have Nadia?
A: August 17 [2006]. My [instructional supervisor at the charter school] actually called me the day I was having Nadia to schedule my classes. . . . She called me on my cell phone, and I was in the hospital. So I scheduled all my classes while in labor.
Q: How has the cyber school helped you?
A: It was really great [Nadia's] first year. Because they're so rocky with their sleeping schedule and they go through so many stages that you can't have like a set schedule. So sometimes I'd do [school work] at 3 in the morning. Sometimes I'd do it 6 o'clock in the morning and 9 o'clock at night. It just changes. But you get it done.
Q: What's your daily routine with school now?
A: I work from 7 [a.m.] to 12 [p.m.] and then I get home and I do about three hours of school work. I get done pretty fast. I go faster than most people. . . . We have five lessons then a quiz. Then five lessons and a final quiz. And that's one unit.
So that's pretty much what I do every day for school. And we have graduation projects. We have personal fitness where you have to exercise and log what you do. So I walk back and forth to work, so that takes care of me doing that pretty much.
They have online meetings. They have school nights and stuff like that where we have to go online. They have blackboards and things like that. So it's really like a real school, except everything's digital - it's online and from your home.
Q: How do you juggle everything?
A: I have a baby-sitter for Nadia, one of my best friends. All of my friends really help me with the baby a lot of the time. So he watches the baby while I go to work and while I do my school work when I get home. . . . Or I feed her, do my school work and she plays around. She has her down time, so that's when I do my school work.
What a counselor says: "Lillian is extraordinary," Fecht says. "She really takes charge of her own life. She comes to the group regularly. She gets her school work done. She has goals. She has ambition. She works part time.
"She's very sweet, very friendly, very outgoing. And she's a really good mom."
- Ed Mahon