Maternity leave sought for teen girls

[AGDee]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

In the districts where I've taught, kids can keep taking classes as many times as they want to until they get credit or until they turn 21, I'm pretty sure. There's absolutely no cost to the kid for classes taken during the regular school day and year or for going back for a fifth or sixth year of high school.

At my school if a young women got pregnant and didn't want to or couldn't return quickly, she could take whole year of maternity leave and just come back the next year in the fall. (Her parents might have to pretend they were home schooling to avoid truancy laws if she were younger than the legal drop out age, which I think is 16, but the school system wouldn't do anything punitive to her.)

Looks like we were posting at the same time. I think it's harder to "fake" home schooling than your post indicates. And, some of this may vary by state.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by AGDee

Looks like we were posting at the same time. I think it's harder to "fake" home schooling than your post indicates. And, some of this may vary by state.

There is very little oversight of home schoolers in Georgia, (and I think it's fine): http://www.doe.k12.ga.us/askdoe.aspx?PageReq=ASKHome

So here, yep, it'd be relatively easy to do.
But it'd be even better just to amend the truancy laws to allow girls to stay home with babies for up to a year without facing charges or actually her parents facing charges.

I know that special education students can get public education services until they are 21 under federal law, so I'd be kind of surprised if other states dismissed students for truancy or refused to allow them to re-enroll or retake classes if they were younger than 21, but of course, I don't know.

Are there any states that kick you out at a certain age or after a certain number of years in high school that we know of? I think we'd have heard if they did.

About the babies' dads, I think it would be great to make them responsible, but I think only the guys parents could make them, if they could. While the state can compel support from a parent, I don't think it can force custody on anyone who doesn't want it, and we wouldn't really want it too, would we?