The Christian Science Monitor – Cathaleen Chen
“Kendra Castillo was 16 when she dropped out of high school for the first time. She was pregnant. When she returned, this time to a different school, she couldn’t keep up. What’s worse was that none of her teachers seemed to care. So, with a waitressing gig and a baby boy to take care of, dropping out again wasn’t a tough decision. Nobody stopped her. “I was pretty much, by that point, alone,” Ms. Castillo says. She’d moved to Boston from Honduras four years before. Her mother was upset about her pregnancy, and her father was out of the picture. Without a referee to flag her decision, she says she had no idea how to think about her future – or that it was even necessary to do so.”(more)