In this episode, SOTRU travels to Holyoke, Massachusetts, home of the Care Center. an alternative school just for pregnant and parenting teens who’ve dropped out of high school. It’s not your typical GED program, either: it’s modeled on a prep school, so students are learning fencing, rowing, yoga and poetry along with basic math and reading. Their personal histories are fraught with homelessness, domestic violence, gangs, food insecurity—the entire student body is living at or below 50 % of the poverty level, and 2/3rds of them dropped out of high school by the 10th grade. Despite all that, between 70 and 85 percent of Care Center students go on to college. In this American Graduate special, State of the Re:Union goes deep inside this school—learning its philosophy and the life stories of students and teachers—to explore what it takes to turn a teen mom’s life around.
Photo Source: Emily Fitzgerald
Photos
Episode Music
| Artist | Track |
|---|---|
| Blockhead | Insomniac Olympics |
| Blockhead | Road Rage Breakdown |
| Blockhead | Attack the Doctor |
| The Pharcyde | Somethin’ That Means Something |
| Bexar Bexar | Sweet Devil |
| Bexar Bexar | A Little More South |
| Bexar Bexar | Window Piece |
| Glenn Kotche | Monkey Chant |
| Soul Position | Share This |
| Philip Glass | Molly is a Dreamer |
| Robert Glasper | Twice |
| Quantic | In the Key of Blue |
| Quantic | Snakes in the Grass |
| RJD2 | Here’s What’s Left |
| RJD2 | Unlimited (Instrumental) |
| The Octopus Project | Bruise |
| Balmorhea | Harm & Boon (Anton Remix) |
| DJ Shadow | Giving Up the Ghost |
| Kid Loco | Don’t Forget the Fourth Track |
| Bonobo | The Plug (Quantic Remix) |
| Bonobo | Magic Man |
| Bonobo | Nothing Owed |
| Hugh Maldoro | I Know a Little Cuban |