Diplomas and Diapers : In an Emotional Ceremony, Young Mothers Graduate High School

SANTA ANA —  There was pomp, and there were Pampers.

In an emotional ceremony punctuated by whimpers, cries and the patter of little feet, 20 young women were honored Monday morning for earning high school diplomas despite becoming pregnant along the way. Cheerful tears flowed over wide lipsticked smiles as the graduates of Santa Ana Unified’s Teen Parent Program thanked their teachers for helping them stay in school and learn skills crucial to jobs and child-rearing.

“In the beginning, when I got pregnant, I thought I was never going to finish school. I was so disappointed in myself and I was desperate,” sobbed Graciela Trigueros from the podium, her voice giving way to tears that made her unable to complete her speech. “I will always treasure this program because it has been a big part of my life and always will be.”

Trigueros and her classmates--a couple in their final days of pregnancy, many with toddlers in tow and one who gave birth just last week--will officially receive their diplomas from Santa Ana’s four high schools Wednesday. Meanwhile, graduations from public high schools throughout Orange County begin today and will continue over the next two weeks.

On Monday, at an informal gathering with homemade cookies and punch, the girls each received a carnation, a poem and a strong hug from program administrator Harriet Dohrmann.

Dohrmann, 71, retires this week from the program she founded 23 years ago and has run ever since. Mother of three, grandmother of three and matron saint of 325 girls who have completed the program over the years, Dohrmann has also authored four books on educating teen mothers.

“She’s a friend, a counselor, a teacher. She’s like a mother! We’re her children, you know?” said 19-year-old Lupe Brito, who has two young sons of her own and spent five years in Dohrmann’s program.

“I’m scared. I’m scared to go out into the different world,” admitted Brito, who has already enrolled at Rancho Santiago College and hopes to become a registered nurse. “Here, my teachers were my friends. When I had a problem, they were there. This is like my home, my second home. I’ll miss it.”

The cozy program opened Feb. 1, 1971, with only three students. Now there are 100.

For years, Dohrmann cooked breakfast and lunch for the girls every day--”teen-age girls, their nutrition isn’t the best,” she explained. But soon, “we had to drop the lunch because it cut into academics,” Dohrmann said. “With 50-60 plates, we were washing dishes when we should have been doing history.

“But I still talk a lot about nutrition,” she added. “It’s important.”

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Santa Ana’s is one of Orange County’s oldest, largest and most comprehensive programs of its kind, but nearly every local school district has some services for teen parents. Since 1980, Orange County’s teen pregnancy rate has doubled: in 1992, the most recent year available, 1,736 babies were born to girls ages 10 to 17.

And pregnancy is the No. 1 reason girls drop out of high school, according to the Coalition for Children, Adolescents and Parents, an Orange County nonprofit education organization.

“I’m not sure that I could have been in school if I had all the problems these girls have,” Dohrmann said. “I just hope that I have helped someone, that’s my whole thing. And I probably shouldn’t say this, but I think I have.”

Students said Dohrmann’s program removes any stigma from being young and pregnant, provides flexibility for emergency doctor appointments or other baby-related needs, and makes school relevant to teens more concerned about birthing methods and colic than sports and parties.

Also, they said, in the Teen Parent Program, everybody understands each other.

“It’s fun being here because you get to share all your experiences, all your problems are the same,” said Ana Vaglienty, 18, who has been married for three years and has a 2 1/2-year-old son, Angel. “If you come late to school, they understand, the baby might have gotten sick. If you really have to call your house, they let you use the phone.”

Snapshots of the students’ children decorate every wall of the five-room schoolhouse. In the central area, which serves as Dohrmann’s child development/family life/home economics classroom, there is a one collage listing each girl’s due date, another listing every baby’s birth weight, and a third titled “Love Makes Children Bloom,” with pictures of the infants.

If a student is in labor, throngs gather at Dohrmann’s desk whenever the phone rings. Upon returning to school, new mothers tell about their deliveries. Even at Monday’s graduation, back-row chatter before the ceremony concerned ultrasound tests and baby food.

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“I don’t think there’s a day that we don’t talk about it,” Dohrmann said. “The girls are a good support to one another. Some girl may have some terrible pain, and she’ll tell about it in class and someone else will say, ‘I had that!’ It’s reassuring.”

School runs from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. each day, and students complete the district’s regular curriculum. There are only four teachers, so each handles several subjects, with extra attention given to child-development and business courses in which the girls learn accounting and computer skills essential to entry-level jobs.

Pearl Raya, 37, graduated from the Teen Parent Program in 1974. Her daughter, 18-year-old Lisa Marie Aguilar, finished this year.

“They taught me how to drive, they taught me how to type, they encouraged me to go to college,” Raya, who now works for the City of Santa Ana, said Monday as she played with her grandson, Ubaldo Mendoza. “They taught me everything about being a mom, how to sew, how to clean and bathe them. Everything.”

Lupe, who was 13 when she first got pregnant, followed an abusive boyfriend to Mexico and back, dropping out of a private Catholic school and skipping classes for nearly a year. She finished eighth grade at the Teen Parent Program, then tried Valley High for ninth grade. At Valley, she lasted only one semester, getting all Fs.

So she returned to the program, where “Mrs. Dohrmann always pushed me around, saying, ‘Lupe, hurry up, get your credits,’ ” the girl explained.

“I want a future for my two kids--it’s not just for me now,” Lupe said. “If I would have dropped out, later they would say, ‘Why should we go to school when you didn’t go?’

“So many teen-age girls who get pregnant at a young age, we don’t make it. I passed through so much, it’s hard,” she sighed. “But we made it.”