MMSD Receives $50,000 Grant to Benefit Student-Parents

The Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) has received a seed grant valued at $50,000 from the Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin Endowment (AHW), to support teen parents in its high schools.  

“For many, high school can be daunting under the best of circumstances,” said Jay Affeldt, MMSD’s associate superintendent of high schools. “We’re committed to helping all of our students realize their full potential, and we expect that this grant will allow us to provide more comprehensive supports for this vulnerable part of our community.”

There are more than two dozen documented student-parents across MMSD’s six high schools, all of whom are faced with balancing the realities of parenthood with the rigors of academic coursework and other commitments. 

According to a project summary on the AHW website, the grant will clear a path for “recent teen parent graduates, school staff, healthcare providers, and community partners to develop and implement … tailored health assessments, connections to prenatal care and doulas, mental health counseling, peer support networks, and educational mentoring” for eligible MMSD students.

“Our Capital High Parenting Program has been a model for what success looks like, in terms of ensuring that our teen parents receive the best education possible, while at the same time meeting the needs of their young families,” said Leia Esser, the District’s executive director of student and staff supports. “We anticipate being able to take the lessons we’ve learned there and more broadly apply them with this aid.”

This grant is one of 66 that AHW will fund throughout the state for the 12 months spanning January through December 2025, amounting to approximately $3.9 million in total. Other benefiting initiatives include those focused on housing security; mental health services; healthy food access; suicide prevention; refugee and immigrant integration programs; and sexually transmitted disease prevention and treatment.

AHW is a part of the Medical College of Wisconsin. Grants were approved by its three oversight bodies, comprising the College’s Consortium on Public and Community Health, its Board of Trustees, and the AHW Research and Education Advisory Committee.