A good idea is born

Cut pregnant teens some slack in school

Back in the day, just a whisper that a public school student was pregnant could set off a scandal. Sometimes, young women would simply disappear from the classrooms, forced by condemning people to hide the outcome of an encounter that happened whether anyone wanted to acknowledge it or not.

Conventional wisdom — and it is wisdom — is that teens’ emotional development hasn’t usually caught up to what’s happening with their bodies. Caring parents do what they can to guide their girls (and hopefully their boys) toward good decision-making and the knowledge necessary to respond wisely to the many challenges of adolescence.

Arkansas’ teen birth rate, however, shows it’s useless to pretend pregnancies are reserved for adults. The Centers for Disease Control ranks Arkansas next to last in the country when it comes to teen births. The state’s 27.8 births per 1,000 females aged 15-19 is exceeded by only one state — Mississippi.

Facing such realities is a mature, adult thing to do. Not that many adults handle teen pregnancies any better than the teens do.

We’re glad to see, though, House Bill 1161 in the Arkansas Legislature, a proposal that faces up to the reality of teen pregnancies and responds with maturity.

The bill, referred to as the Support for Pregnant and Parenting Students Act, would require school districts and public charter schools to establish attendance policies that basically cut pregnant girls some slack. If it’s approved by the Senate (the House already backed it), the bill would demand policies that excuse absences due to conditions related to pregnancy or parenting. That includes things like labor, delivery and recovery; medical appointments; the illness or medical appointments of a child; and legal appointments related to adoption, custody or visitation.

The legislation allows for at least 10 school days of excused absences for both a parenting mother or father after the birth of a child and prevents such absences from counting toward rules requiring the student to be dismissed. A student would be allowed to make up work after their absence(s). The bill also creates a requirement for accommodating a new mother’s efforts to pump and safely store breast milk while in school.

This is the kind of thing that shouldn’t necessarily take a state law, but it’s no surprise that it does. Too often, the adults in the room don’t fulfill the role very well. Treatment of young women, in particular, when a pregnancy happens can be demeaning and almost punitive. Nobody going through such a tremendously challenging time like that deserves to face policies that make their lives — and the lives of little babies — harder.

Let’s hope House Bill 1161 sails through and becomes law. It’d be nice to see a law add a little humanity to the situation.