As a 16-year-old girl, with a life in her stomach, Kathy Sharp was lost.
On the cusp of motherhood and only a sophomore in high school, she decided to drop out.
Two years later, she wanted to change the direction of her life and enrolled in Polly Fox Academy in Toledo.
Once again she had hope, a second chance at life.
“I don’t know what I would’ve done without them,” she said.
As a 20-year-old senior she will be graduating this spring from the charter school with her eyes set on a nursing career.
But now Polly Fox, which opened 15 years ago as an alternative school catering to pregnant girls and young mothers in grades 7-12, is on the verge of shutting down. School officials largely attribute the looming closure to declining enrollment, which impacts the amount of state funding the school receives.
However school officials added the academy’s board has not made a final decision about closing.
In the fall of 2006, 148 students attended Polly Fox. Enrollment reached an all-time low this school year with only 51 students
“This is a valuable resource in the community,” said Diana Patton, the academy’s board president. “We serve not just students but moms.”
TPS sponsors the academy but has no financial obligation to the school, a TPS district spokesman said.
The school’s impending closure is likely a result of a changing landscape. Schools for pregnant teenagers have been gradually fading, partly because of dwindling rates of teenagers giving birth.
State data show a notable decline in the number of teenagers having babies in Lucas County over the last decade.
Among 15 to 19-year-olds in Lucas County, the number of births dropped from 843 in 2006 compared to only 369 in 2016, according to state data.
Teenage mothers struggle to complete high school. Only 53 percent of young women between the ages of 20 and 29 who were teenage moms received a high school diploma. In contrast, 90 percent of women who were not teenage mothers earned a high school diploma, according to a January, 2018 report released by the nonprofit research organization Child Trends.
Terahjia Tucker-Wiggins, a 2017 graduate of Polly Fox, said the school went “above and beyond” to accommodate her when her infant son was dealing with some medical issues. She, like dozens of other students, is certain she wouldn’t have graduated high school if it weren’t for Polly Fox.
“They were literally like family,” she said. “They are very dear to my heart.”
TPS employees have already been working with Polly Fox students to help them map out their future education plans, Jodi Johns, the school principal, said.
“We’re going to work together to find the best educational plans for them going forward. Hopefully, we’ll be meeting with students and parents to discuss some of the options,” she said.
If Polly Fox chooses to close, TPS will work with the students to help provide them with similar services they received at Polly Fox, said Linda Meyers, chief leader of K-12 education at TPS.
As a former teenage mother, Mrs. Johns said she was “very disappointed” when she learned that the school is likely to close.
“It’s really important to me that these girls are given the opportunity to succeed,” she said. “We must do everything humanly possible to give them the resources that they need to not only enrich their lives but the lives of their children.”
But the stark reality and likelihood of Polly Fox closing will devastate dozens of young women already coping with the everyday stresses of motherhood, Ms. Sharp said.
“They don’t know where they’re going to go and they don’t know what they’re going to do,” she said. “They opened their arms to so many of us when we needed them the most.”
Contact Javonte Anderson at janderson@theblade.com, 419-724-6065, or on Twitter @JavonteA.
First Published April 17, 2018, 10:07 p.m.
