Giving Compass' Take:

• Nowell Leadership Charter School explicitly helps teen parents graduate from high school and fully prepare them for college. 

• How can philanthropists or organizations partner with schools that have higher rates of teen pregnancy to offer support services? 

• Find out if low teen birth rates make teen parent programs obsolete. 

She’s only 17, but Gionna Martin works harder than many people twice her age.

Martin is a full-time high school senior and a teen mom. The sole provider for herself and her 11-month-old daughter, she works nights and weekends at a craft store in her hometown of Providence. And, as she’s graduating in June, she’s navigating the complicated and stressful college application process.

During conversations, Martin yawns frequently (which she apologizes for — she often works six-hour evening shifts). It’s exhausting, managing the economic and academic challenges confronting teen mothers: About half live in poverty, and the majority of those who have a baby before age 18 never earn a high school diploma.

Nowell Leadership Academy charter school, with campuses in Providence and nearby Central Falls, is one of the few high schools in the country dedicated to graduating pregnant and parenting students fully prepared for college, careers, and family life. The school’s 160 students — mostly transfer students and overwhelmingly female, with some male students who are also struggling to make up credits — have flexible schedules, personalized learning tools so they can work at their own pace, help with transportation, and support for raising their families, from parenting classes to home visits after they’ve given birth.

Read the full article by Kate Stringer about teen parents from The 74