HOLYOKE, Mass. (WGGB) — The Care Center, an alternative school for teen mothers, has earned a national honor.

 

Student Brendaliz Rivera, center graduate Tashia Davis and the center’s executive director, Anne Teschner, were at the White House on Wednesday to accept the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award for the school. First Lady Michelle Obama led the award ceremony.

 

“It was an awesome experience,” said Davis. “Once in a lifetime. I saw the Washington Monument, the treasury. I saw it all. I took a lot of pictures. It was a great experience.”

 

The White House, though, wasn’t exactly where 19-year-old Davis thought she’d ever be. The teen mother of two-year-old twins dropped out of school in 11th grade. She had plenty of company in Holyoke where the teen pregnancy rate is five times the state average and where half of the kids drop out of school. Everything changed when she went to the care center to get her GED, a school dedicated to teen mothers.

 

“There was this idea that if we just focused on the basics, we’ll lose people again,” said Teschner. “We’ll lose them educationally. They won’t want to be here.”

 

But rather than lowering the bar, Teschner said the center raised it.

 

“We kind of set up our program to look a lot like a prep school,” said Teschner. “So, students are working on passing their GED. But we’re also introducing pretty high-level, complex materials as well with the idea that that’s what’s going to spark them into wanting to learn and wanting to succeed.”

 

The center has GED courses but also classes in art, poetry, philosophy. It has activities including fencing, rowing. And it even has beginning college courses.

 

“The vibe and the teachers that I had, they were interested and they wanted to help me,” said Davis.

 

With a total enrollment of 100 teen mothers, Teschner said 70 to 85% of students who get their GED’s go on to college. Davis is now a freshman at holyoke community college. She had this to say to teen mothers out there.

 

“You can do it,” said Davis. “Anybody can do it. No matter who you are, you can do it. You just gotta put your mind to it.”