Catherine Ferguson Academy, the awesome urban farm high school for pregnant and parenting teens, has risen from the ashes. Michigan's emergency financial manager decided last week to shutter the school, which has a 90 percent graduation rate. But it's been rescued by a company called Evans Solutions and will continue as a charter school, which will be open to all Detroit public school students.
This is awesome, because seriously, if you read a young adult novel about this school you would roll your eyes about how unrealistically idyllic and successful it was:
Only half of teen mothers have a high school diploma by age 22, according to the National Women’s Law Center. But at Ferguson Academy, 90% of students graduate, and for the past nine years, every graduate has been accepted to a two- or four-year college, according to DPS.
At Ferguson, students tend to an award-winning urban garden located on a farm right in the middle of a neighborhood. There’s a horse, rabbits, chickens and a barn powered by a windmill and solar panels on the roof.
