Program helps teen mothers cope

Pittsburgh Public Schools’ ELECT effort serves students’ needs

Shymari Freeman gave birth at age 12, and shortly after the start of her senior year last fall, she and her daughter, Journey, now 6, moved into an apartment in the city’s West End.

Although happy to have a place to call her own, the Brashear High School student found herself without some of the essentials: towels, a vacuum, pots and pans. She turned to the school district’s program that provides free services for pregnant and parenting teens — the same team that sent her home with diapers and clothes for her baby when Ms. Freeman was a middle-schooler at Langley K-8.

Now 19, Ms. Freeman will graduate in June and plans to attend the Community College of Allegheny County to study nursing.

“It takes a lot of things off your shoulders and a lot of stress off of you. ... There’s no way you should drop out if you’re in the program,” she said. “If there’s no way, they’ll make a way.”

The district’s Education Leading to Employment and Career Training program, housed in the old South High annex building on the South Side, is led by Carolyn Rychcik, who started as assistant coordinator in 2001.

A similar program has existed since the 1980s but not nearly as coordinated or robust as ELECT, whose efforts are funded by the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services and overseen by the state Department of Education, she said. This year, Pittsburgh Public’s iteration, the state’s second-largest of 29, has so far served 219 low-income expectant or parenting teens.

Case managers, known as teen parent advocates, are assigned to high schools in the district and some also work with students in the middle schools. They plan events for teens and their

A Penn Hills woman whose twins went missing more than a decade ago was granted bond on Tuesday.

Patricia Fowler, who had several criminal counts against her dismissed this month, asked Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Thomas E. Flaherty to reconsider her bond after his decision to dismiss charges of obstruction of justice, concealing the whereabouts of a child and endangering the welfare of children.

Judge Flaherty released Ms. Fowler, 48, on nonmonetary bond, and she must report to pretrial services in person pending trial scheduled for July 17. She has been in jail since having her bond revoked when she failed to appear for a court date in January.

The twins, a boy and a girl who were born in 1998, have not been seen for at least 10 years.

Stephanie Strasburg/Post-Gazette photos Shymari Freeman, 19, walks her daughter, Journey, to their apartment in Crafton Heights on Tuesday after a dentist's appointment. She is on track to graduate from Brashear High School in June and plans to study nursing.

Ms. Freeman gave birth to Journey at age 12 and received help from a Pittsburgh Public Schools program for pregnant and parenting teens that first provided her with diapers, then household necessities when she moved into her own place.