Martinsville Bulletin, Inc.
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Martinsville, Virginia 24115
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| Kizner seeking programs to help girls, babies |
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Scott Kizner |
Thursday, February 28, 2008
By PAUL COLLINS - Bulletin Staff Writer
Martinsville has more than double the state’s teenage pregnancy rate, and the community needs to make sure the teens are staying in school and the babies are getting medical, social and day care.
That is according to Martinsville School Superintendent Scott Kizner, who said in a recent interview that school system representatives have been meeting with representatives of the community, the department of social services and The Harvest Foundation to discuss the problem and possible initiatives.
Officials hope to put together a program to help mothers to stay in school, possibly through flexible scheduling or evening programs; to maybe eventually go to college; and to provide quality day care and other services that the teens’ children need so that they will be ready to learn.
Kizner said Martinsville can be judgmental of pregnant teens or proactive. The community has to realize that if it is going to be economically stable and move forward, the last thing it wants is to have mothers who are unprepared educationally and unprepared for the work force, he said.
“The community has two choices: We can continue to have (a high teenage pregnancy rate) or do something about it — the community working together to help children and mothers,” Kizner said.
Kizner said that in Martinsville for every 1,000 females aged 15-17, 66 are pregnant (based on live-birth statistics). The state average is 27 out of 1,000. Henry County’s teenage pregnancy rate is 40 out of 1,000. He was quoting statistics for 2006 (the most recent available) from the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
Sixty-six percent of babies born in Martinsville have unwed mothers, compared with 34 percent for the state and 52 percent for Henry County, he said.
In his superintendent’s message in the school system’s Feb. 21 newsletter, Kizner wrote: “Martinsville leaders often discuss ways to improve the economy and the quality of life for its citizens. Solutions, such as a new downtown arena, investing in a local college, beautifying the uptown area and attracting new industry are often promoted as innovative ideas to turn Martinsville around. Although some of these ideas are good, I believe our policy leaders and those that control the money are missing a critical component in their quest to make things better for Martinsville and Henry County.
“You very rarely hear anyone discussing a crisis that has been around for many years and continues to occur in Martinsville and Henry County — teenage pregnancy and children being born in non-marital births and to mothers with less than a 12th-grade education.”
Kizner wrote that according to the Casey Foundation, Martinsville exceeds by 10 percent “the number of children born to mothers with less than a 12th-grade education.” That means that 25 percent of children born in Martinsville are born to mothers without 12-grade educations, he said Wednesday.
“Children born to children are high-risk children — high risk for abuse, medical and nutritional deficiencies,” as well as academic difficulties and other problems, he wrote in the newsletter. “The young mother is high risk for dropping out of school and having a lifetime income significantly behind her peers. The median income in Martinsville for a female-headed family is over $3,000 behind the state average, and the average per-capita income is $10,000 less than the state average.”
Kizner called teenage pregnancy “a very important issue that can no longer be ignored.”
“The number of children entering our schools living in the poverty range has increased by 10 percent in just five years (60 percent), and Martinsville is above the state average for children who are abused and neglected,” he wrote. “I doubt these kids will really care or can afford going to the new arena, or can take graduate courses at the New College or can visit nice restaurants in the uptown area.”
Kizner wrote these teens and their families generally cannot afford to leave Martinsville, as others have, “and chase where the jobs are or where better quality of life exists.”
He wrote that he suspects some people will think “this will encourage teenagers to have babies if we help them too much. Keep thinking that and maybe the problem will go away by just ‘tapping on ruby slippers.’ I believe that an educated child with hope and aspirations will avoid at all costs being pregnant. Now let us, as a community, invest in this hope.”
On Wednesday, he estimated that each year an average of six to eight girls drop out of the city school system or delay completing their educations because of pregnancy. He added that the school system has had girls as young as 13 get pregnant.
Kizner said teenage pregnancy is a problem that affects the whole community, not just the girls. “We can’t afford to let these girls drop out,” he said. |
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