Raising the Bar: Impacts and Implementation of the New Heights Program for Expectant and Parenting Teens in Washington, dc

Considerations for further improvement 
The program leaders, coordinators, and students we spoke to for this study uniformly 
remarked on the success of New Heights in delivering a high quality program that achieved its 
objectives. Still, many offered suggestions for how to improve the program to continue meeting 
its goals. 
The content of the program could be expanded and improved upon in a number of ways. The 
program primarily served females. Staff suggested differentiating the program content and 
outreach efforts to better serve and retain fathers. The workshop content did not include some of 
the most sensitive topics that these young parents deal with, such as racial discord and 
discrimination, intimate partner and community violence, physical and mental abuse, trauma, 
and other mental health issues. Coordinators asserted that these issues interfere with students’ 
ability to achieve their academic and personal goals. 
Coordinators indicated that they could be more effective in their roles if they had an 
improved electronic system for monitoring students’ participation in the New Heights offerings, 
and for overseeing students’ academic progress. They also suggested that a caseload-driven 
staffing formula might be useful to determine the number of staff needed in each school, in 
particular given the variance in school size. 
31 

---

This page has been left blank for double-sided copying. 

---

RAISING THE BAR: IMPACTS AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NEW HEIGHTS PROGRAM
 
VI. CONCLUSION 
This study closely examined New Heights, a DCPS PAF-funded program designed to help 
expectant and parenting students complete high school and improve self-sufficiency. Youth who 
attend DCPS are mostly African American and Hispanic, with teen birth rates 25 times that of 
their non-Hispanic white counterparts. The traditional public high schools are located in the 
city’s highest poverty neighborhoods, where nearly 10 percent of the females in these schools are 
parenting. Research suggests that half of parenting females will drop out and not complete high 
school (Perper et al. 2010). This study was designed to assess whether New Heights was 
effective at improving school engagement, credit accumulation, and graduation rates.