Liberty North High School sees about one to two pregnant girls pass through its halls each year.

  “First of all, the national teen pregnancy has decreased a lot, so that is down. I think there’s a lot more sexual education out there. This generation is a lot wiser, you know, social media kind of helps with that type of information, so that’s maybe one benefit of social media, but I would say, one or two times a year, we’ll have a student come in who is either concerned that they’re pregnant, you know, I’ve been here for eight years, and on average we’ve had maybe one pregnant student a year,” School Nurse Misty Trinidad said.

  For the girls who do come in to the nurse’s office, thinking they are pregnant, or just have questions, there are places they can go to get the information they need.

  “We have a Women’s Clinic in Liberty, that’s where we would send them. Its free. They also have their family doctors as an other option.” School nurse Jennifer Jenness said.

  The Liberty Women’s Clinic is located at 1532 NE 96th St, Liberty, MO 64068, and their phone number is (816)-415-9415. They provide free, confidential consultations, information, and screenings for girls. Once a girl knows she is pregnant, North has several options to keep her in school for the remainder of the year, and to help her graduate.

  “The counseling department is really their best resource because they will do online classes, they really will sit down and look at their schedules, and say you need this to graduate, you don’t really need this to graduate. They usually homebound them. So they’ll have a tutor come to the house. If they have the baby in January, they can homebound them for that semester. They aren’t going to homebound them for the entire year, but they’ll allow them to be for a certain time. Some girls choose to come back right away. They want to still be in the mix of things and stay on a schedule and things like that. So it depends on the student, the student’s resources, and what works best for the student. So the options are home bounding, online classes, there’s a GED option if they’re a senior, depending on what grade they are. Every situation is different,” Trinidad said.

  The girls who have become pregnant while going through high school have graduated, or at least gotten their GED.

  “Every girl who has become pregnant at North has at least received their GED. Here’s the thing. They’re very resilient, knowing that they have these goals, and they really work hard to try to reach that goal,” Trinidad said.

  Every case of a girl dealing with a teen pregnancy is being different, but one thing will remain the same.

  “They’re a minor, they’re carrying another life. We have to make sure to continue to follow up with them. So that someone is making sure that they tell a parent, because their safety is at risk. We have had to involve a lot of other people, like the counselors, and set them down, and say we’re at the deadline. You have to let a parent know,” Trinidad said.