University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Teen parents: outsourcing childcare to keep them connected and engaged in school

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Teen parents: outsourcing childcare to keep them connected and engaged in school

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Teen parents: Outsourcing childcare to keep them connected and engaged in School

by

Verónica Obregón

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACTULY OF THE USC ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION

Dissertation Chair- Guilbert Hentschke
Committee Members: Dr. Katharine Strunk and Dr. Patricia Burch

December 2014

Copyright 2013 Veronica Obregon
iii
Table of Contents

List of Tables v

List of Figures vi

Abstract vii

Chapter 1: Introduction to the Study 8

Background 8

Conceptual Underpinnings for the Study 11

Statement of the Problem 12

Purpose of the Study 13

Limitations 14

Assumptions 14

Definition of Key Terms 15

Summary 17

Chapter 2: Review of Related Literature 19

Introduction 19

Teenage Parenting 19

Interventions That Keep Teen Parents in School 21

Policies Supporting Parenting Teens 24

Transaction Cost Economics 27

Summary 29

Chapter 3: Research Design and Methodology 30

Introduction 30

Problem and Purposes Overview 31

Research Questions 31

Research Hypotheses 32

Population and Sample 34

Data Collection and Instrumentation 39

Individual Interviews 40

Archival Review 41

Data Analysis 42

Chapter 4: Data Analysis 47

Introduction 47

Organization of Data Analysis 48

iv
Descriptive Characteristics of Respondents 48

Report of the Findings 50

Summary 65

Chapter 5: Findings, Implications, Conclusions 68

Introduction 68

Transaction Cost Economics 68

Summary of Findings 68

Limitations 75

Implications 76

Issues raised by the study 80

Summary 81

References 85

Appendix A: High School Administrator Interview Guide 90

Appendix B: Childcare Center Principal Interview Guide 94

Appendix C: Head Teacher Interview Guide 98

Appendix D: Archive Review Rubric 102

v
List of Tables
Table
1
Live
Births
to
Mothers
Under
20
Years
Old
2011
...........................................................................................
36

Table
2
Relationship
Between
Research
Question
and
Data
Source
......................................................................
40

Table
3
Relationship
Between
Data
Source
and
Research
Questions
....................................................................
42

Table
4
Cost
Versus
Benefits
Cited
in
Participant
Interviews
...................................................................................
61

Table
5
Terms
of
Contract
Between
Firm
and
Vendor
..................................................................................................
63

Table
6
Cal-‐SAFE
Program
Operating
Criteria
..................................................................................................................
65

vi
List of Figures
Figure
1.
Themes
for
Research
Question
1.
...........................................................................................................................
51

Figure
2.
Themes
for
Research
Question
2.
...........................................................................................................................
56

vii
Abstract
This exploratory study will use Transaction Cost Economics to explore the
contractual relationship between a high school and a childcare provider to examine how
educational institutions make decisions about outsourcing services to help teen parents to
graduate from high school. Educational institutions find it challenging to keep teen
parents in school and to help them to graduate from high school because they may not
have the resources and skills to support these students. A qualitative design will be used
to describe the relationship between the high school and the child-care provider. The high
school and child-care staff will be interviewed to collect data relevant to the decisions to
outsource. A record review will also be conducted to understand the cost and the benefits
incurred in this relationship. Data will be analyzed to uncover themes and connections
that speak to Transaction Cost Economics.
8
Chapter 1: Introduction to the Study
Background
Teen pregnancy and parenting is a complex issue with which educational leaders
grapple. It is an unwanted reminder about adolescent sexuality and the way it affects the
educational trajectory of many students. Teen pregnancy and parenting elicits conflicting
and negative feelings and ideas about educational rights. The common narrative derived
from punitive frameworks assigns blame to teens for their choices that lead to teen
pregnancy (Fuentes, Bayetti, Flores, & Gonzalez-Rojas, 2010). The narrative of blame
focuses interventions on teen pregnancy prevention and describes the social and
economic costs of this issue (Franco, 2012; Fuentes et al., 2010). However, the issue is
broad and complex and diverts attention away from the larger socioeconomic factors that
set the stage for this educational problem (Franco, 2012; Fuentes et al., 2010). The
American school system has a large population of parenting teens who have a right to an
education (Kim, 2012). Therefore, educational leaders have a responsibility to address the
issue of how to educate teen parents. The focus of this dissertation was one layer of need
within the complex issue of the educational needs of parenting teens and not a discussion
about pregnancy prevention. This chapter contains background information about teen
parents with regard to the rate of live births in the United States and in California. The
conceptual underpinnings for the study follow to link to the purpose of the research.
The United States had 367,752 teen live births in 2010, or 34.3 live births for
every 1,000 teens (Constantine, Jerman, & Nevarez, 2012). The rate of national live
births shows that California’s teen birthrate has dropped below 30 births per 1,000 live
9
births (Constantine et al., 2012). This rate is 59% lower than the highest point reached for
California in 1991 with 70.5 per 1,000 live births (Constantine et al., 2012). Los Angeles
County had a teen birthrate of 27.3 births for every 1,000 live births. That is, 11,677 teens
gave birth in Los Angeles County in 2010 (Constantine et al., 2012). Therefore, Los
Angeles ranked 26th in teen live births in California in 2010. This number is very high, in
spite of the statewide 59% decrease since 1991 and presents a challenge to the educators
in educational institutions required to educate this population. Leaders of educational
institutions must design programs that help teen parents stay in school. Using data to
identify hot spots for teen live births helps education experts target interventions in areas
of the state that will have a greater impact. Hot spots are defined by zip codes with high
rates of teen live births (Constantine et al., 2012). In addition to identifying hot spots of
teen live births, it is also important to identify groups experiencing high rates of teen live
births.
Latina teens have the highest birthrate in California (Constantine et al., 2010) and
are twice as likely to give birth as Caucasian teens (Fuentes et al., 2010). However, when
accounting for socioeconomic factors, the data showed poor and low-income teens
account for 83% of teens who give birth (Berglas, Brindis, & Cohen, 2003). Constantine
et al. (2010) found counties with high teen birthrates translate into economic costs for
taxpayers. Leaders at the National Latina Health Institute called for a shift in discourse on
teen pregnancy. They contended the social cost argument diverts attention from the
fundamental issues that face young mothers, such as poverty and health care access
(Fuentes et al., 2010). Stigmatizing young motherhood as the problem avoids the real
10
problems that surround and cause teen pregnancy, such as the lack of access to health
care, poverty, and lack of educational opportunities in communities of color (Fuentes et
al., 2010). Instead of stigmatizing teen pregnancy, the focus of this research was on
describing school supports that provide educational opportunities for parenting teens.
School supports such as case management and school-based child care are
important because teen parents find it more difficult than other teens to stay in school and
tend to drop out of high school at higher rates than their peers (Constantine et al., 2010).
Seventy percent of teen mothers do not complete high school after giving birth, which
indicates that school leaders are ill equipped to support teen parents (Berglas et al., 2003).
There are also negative social-emotional consequences for teenagers who give birth
(Constantine et al., 2010). Teen mothers tend to have poorer psychological functioning,
lower levels of educational attainment, more instances of single parenthood, and less
stable employment than do teens with similar backgrounds who postpone childbirth
(Coley & Chase-Lansdale, 1998).
Child-care support for teen parents who want to stay in school is lacking. One
major school district in Los Angeles has four school-based infant centers that each
provides child care to 18 children of teen parents. At any given time, the district can offer
child care to only 72 young families out of the thousands reported above (LeTendre &
Inouye, 2010). Other school districts in Los Angeles County have similar school-based
child care available to a small number of parenting teens, which is why it is important to
look at educational institutions whose leaders are outsourcing their child-care needs when
they do not provide them in-house. This exploratory study involved examining the
11
contractual relationship between a charter high school and a childcare center to describe
how the leaders of the educational institution made decisions about insourcing or
outsourcing support services for teen parents.
Conceptual Underpinnings for the Study
In this exploratory study, I explored the contractual relationship between a high
school and a child-care provider to examine how leaders of educational institutions make
decisions about outsourcing childcare services to help teen parents graduate from high
school. To accomplish this goal, I used the conceptual framework of transaction cost
economics (TCE). Within TCE, the transaction is the basic unit of analysis, instead of the
organization (Williamson, 2008). According to TCE, there are many costs in making an
economic trade, including the cost of researching best providers, the cost of writing a
contract, and the cost of monitoring and evaluation. The magnitude and complexity of the
transaction influence the decision about where to make the trade: in-house (which
includes the organization’s own policies governing transactions) or outsourcing (in which
markets set the price and laws enforce the transaction; Williamson, 2001).
Outsourcing is an advantage when the contract is consistent and mutually
advantageous (Williamson, 2008). The focus of TCE is the relationship between
organizations and emphasizing the importance of the long-term stability of transactions
(Williamson, 2008). I used this framework in the exploratory study to describe and
understand how school leaders makes decisions to contract out for teen parent support
services to help teen parents complete high school.
12
Statement of the Problem
Teen parents pose an educational challenge to school systems because school
leaders are not prepared to keep teen parents connected and engaged in school (Fuentes et
al., 2010). School systems find it difficult to help teen parents stay in school and
subsequently they tend to drop out of high school at higher rates than their peers
(Constantine et al., 2010). Seventy percent of teen mothers do not complete high school
after giving birth (Berglas et al., 2003), demonstrating that school leaders lack
preparation in providing services to teen parents. Considering Los Angeles County
population statistics, this formula indicates that 9,202 of the 11,677 teen mothers reported
in 2010 would not complete high school. Teen parents also experience other documented
negative effects of teenage parenting.
There are negative social-emotional consequences for teenagers who give birth
(Constantine et al., 2010). As noted above, teen parents tend to exhibit poorer
psychological functioning, lower levels of educational attainment, and more instances of
single parenthood. They also have less stable employment than do those with similar
backgrounds who postpone childbirth (Coley & Chase-Lansdale, 1998).
Teen parents stay connected to or complete high school when they access school-
based support services such as child-care and case management services (Crean,
Hightower, & Allan, 2001; Sadler et al., 2007). California’s School Age Family
Education Program (Cal-SAFE) also demonstrated that teen parents connected to Cal-
SAFE complete high school at a rate of 73%. This study involved reviewing research
evidence that demonstrates teen parents complete high school when they access school-
13
based support services. However, the role administrators have in deciding whether to
fund support services at their school sites is not clear. As noted above, Los Angeles
County had 11,677 teen live births in 2010 and had the capacity to provide child care for
72 teen-parent families during 2010 (LeTendre & Inouye, 2010). The educational
problem that was the focus for this exploratory study was how school administrators use
TCE to describe how they make decisions based on their perceptions of the costs and
benefits of providing services to teen parents.
Purpose of the Study
The focus of this exploratory study was a contractual relationship between a high
school and a child-care provider to analyze the costs and the benefits of outsourcing
childcare services to help teen parents complete high school. The study included the TCE
conceptual framework to explore costs when the high school enters into a contract with
an outside vendor to provide support services for teen parents (Williamson, 2008). The
study contained an outline of the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing support
services for teen parents to help them stay connected and engaged with high school to
help them graduate.
This study is important because it contributes to the knowledge base of school-
based interventions that help teen parents stay in school. Researchers have not well
documented the administrative decisions made to design, implement, and maintain
programs that support parenting students. The primary focus of existing research has
been to measure the negative or positive outcomes of programs that support parenting
students (Fenyk, 2006; Rivers, 2012). However, this study began with a description of
14
administrators’ role in implementing and maintaining a contractual relationship between
two educational institutions whose staff members serve parenting students.
Limitations
There are several limitations when working within schools and school districts.
Accessing data and history regarding the contractual relationship between the firm and
the vendor may be difficult. Most of these relationships have been present for decades,
and the current administrator may have limited knowledge about the initial transaction
cost associated with insourcing or outsourcing. The current administrator may only have
knowledge about the decision to pursue the contractual relationship.
The theoretical framework used in this exploratory study also may be been a
limitation. School administrators do not use this frame of thinking to make decisions
regarding providing support services to teen parents. This framework may have limited
the way administrators were surveyed regarding their decisions to engage in or maintain a
contractual relationship between the firm and the vendor. However, it was important to
operationalize how to define transaction costs because decisions to serve this population
may often be emotional and biased based on political and religious beliefs (Williamson,
2001). These definitions led into the assumptions that I would maintain transparency and
clarity about my assumptions.
Assumptions
The main assumption of this exploratory study was that the data collection
techniques and tools were reliable and valid. The techniques represented attempts to
capture the individual and organizational perspectives about who established the
15
contractual relationship and why they maintain it. Another assumption connected to the
study was that participants would be honest. I expected to run into bias, but knew that the
bias would provide more data to interpret. A third assumption was that both parties value
women’s education or they would not engage in the contractual relationship. Both the
firm and the vendor were nonprofit organizations that serve educational purposes. The
last assumption was that the researcher’s history of social work (Chicana feminist
perspective) with teen parents, in addition to the use of the main theoretical framework of
TCE, would influence and help frame the interpretation and discussion of the data.
Definition of Key Terms
Asset specificity: The lack of alternative use of underlying assets (Nagpal, 2004).
Bounded rationality: A person can be rational up to a point; beyond that, it is not
possible. Bounded rationality is important in policy decisions (Williamson, 1981). [This
term does not appear elsewhere in your study]
California School Age Family Education (Cal-SAFE): A comprehensive school-
based program that supports pregnant and parenting teens in high school (Le Tendre &
Inouye, 2010)
Charter school: Free public schools organized under California law and funded by
the State of California. Charter schools are run independently and charter leaders can
make their own decisions about hiring, textbooks, and educational policies, as long as
they comply with California State requirements.
Contract: A basic unit of exchange that sets out rules for the game ex. Checkers
games, it governs the exchange (Williamson, 1973).
16
Cost effective: Cost result that happens as a result of the transaction. The benefits
of transaction should outweigh the cost (Williamson, 2008).
Firm: A school district, school, or other educational institution (Williamson,
2008).
Frequency: Number of occurrences of a repeating transaction over time
(Williamson, 2008).
Hierarchy: Internal organization with clear departmental boundaries, clean lines
of authority and formal decision making procedures (Powell, 1990).
Incentives: Elements of a transaction that may get more attractive to people to
continue to pursue contract (Williamson, 1973).
Opportunity costs: The cost of transaction when compared to the next best
alternative.
Outsourcing: Outside procurement both for generic goods and services and for
more complex transactions (Williamson, 2008).
Networks: Describe a contracting relationship that is not a market or hierarchy. It
is useful in analyzing the exchange of services when the value of goods cannot be easily
measured (Powell, 1990).
Partnership: Contracting relationship that lies on a continuum of trust, typified by
reciprocal and frequent patterns of communication that are relational and interdependent
(Powell, 1990).
Parenting teens: An adolescent who is a biological mother or biological father of a
child.
17
Pregnant teens: An adolescent girl who has not given birth yet.
Rationality: The idea that people behave according to their best interest, but also
that they know what their best interest is based on facts.
Social capital: The combination of social networks, culture, and collective action
(Jobin, 2008).
Uncertainty: The source of disturbances to which adaptation is necessary
(Williamson, 2008)
Vendor: An agency that goods or services, such as child care and case
management to teen parents
Summary
Educating teen parents is an educational problem because it challenges leaders of
educational institutions to come up with service models that keep this population of
students connected and engaged with school. Teen parents encounter many barriers that
prevent them from completing high school and therefore need school-based interventions
that guide them to graduate. Leaders of educational institutions must assess their
available resources and educational goals to determine whether they can provide support
services or whether they should outsource these services. This study included a TCE lens
to analyze the reasons school leaders decide to provide services in-house or to outsource
these services (Williamson, 2008). The focus of this exploratory study was analyzing a
contractual relationship between a high school and a child-care provider to determine if
the costs and the benefits of outsourcing child-care services help teen parents complete
high school.
18
Chapter 2 involves a review of the literature related to teen parents. The chapter
begins with a description of teenage parenting and short-term and long-term
socioemotional consequences of parenting as an adolescent. The review of the literature
also includes interventions that help teen parents stay in school. The interventions include
programs that show positive outcomes in helping teen parents graduate from high school.
The literature review contains policies that support teen parents in school and ends with a
review of the research on TCE.
Chapter 3 contains a blueprint to the methodology of this exploratory study, a
description of the study, a description of the firm and vendor within the study, and an
explanation of why the participants were suitable. The chapter includes the purpose and
research questions, a description of the data collection tools and instruments used to
accomplish the study goals, and a discussion of the process used to collect data to answer
the research questions. Chapter 4 contains the findings of the study and a conclusion in
Chapter 5 concludes this paper.

19
Chapter 2: Review of Related Literature
Introduction
The literature on teen parents indicates the problem is teen pregnancy prevention
and documents the negative socioeconomic impacts on government when teens give
birth. The literature contains a lot of information on the issue of preventing teen
pregnancy (Corcoran & Pillai, 2007). The literature about best practices to help teen
parents stay in school is also growing (Barraza, 2011). However, literature about how
educational institutions can support teen parents to stay in school is lacking. Researchers
have written a lot about the social costs and benefits to society and government, but little
about the costs and benefits to school systems whose leaders choose to outsource support
services for teen moms. The literature review contains a discussion about school services
that help teen parents stay in school, as well as interventions that work for this
population. The review also includes a discussion about the theory of TCE and its
connection to education to help describe how schools decide to outsource services.
Teenage Parenting
Teenage parenting has significant negative educational consequences for young
women who choose to give birth (Basch, 2011). Basch (2011) found that compared with
women who delay childbearing until age 30, teen parents’ educational attainment was 2
years shorter, which demonstrated that teenage parenting has a negative effect on higher
education opportunities for young women. Parenting teens are 10-12% less likely to
complete high school and have 14-29% lower odds of attending college (Basch, 2011).
The educational attainment of parenting teens is negatively affected after they give birth.
20
Teen pregnancy and child bearing also entail negative psychological, social, and
physical consequences (Coley & Chase-Lansdale, 1998). Teens who become mothers
tend to exhibit poorer psychological functioning, lower levels of educational attainment,
increased likelihood of single parenthood, and less stable employment than do those with
similar backgrounds who postpone childbirth (Coley & Chase-Lansdale, 1998). The
literature on teen pregnancy considers the problem to be a pregnancy prevention issue
and identifies socioeconomic effects on government (Fuentes et al., 2010). Finding
educational solutions and supporting socioemotional development for teen parents are
important to help them be successful in school.
No Time for Complacency is a research publication in which Constantine et al.
(2012) compiled state data that identified counties and assembly districts with high teen
birthrates and translated the data into economic cost for taxpayers. According to
Constantine et al., California experienced a cost to taxpayers of $874 million in 2010 due
to teen live births. Furthermore, Los Angeles experienced a cost of $250 million the same
year (Constantine et al., 2012).
Researchers at the National Latina Health Institute called for a shift in discourse
on teen pregnancy, contending that social cost arguments divert the attention from the
fundamental issues that face young mothers who are mostly Latina, such as poverty and
health care access (Fuentes et al., 2010). Therefore, stigmatizing young motherhood as
the problem avoids the real problems that surround and cause teen pregnancy, such as
lack of access to health care, poverty, and lack of educational opportunities in
communities of color (Fuentes et al., 2010). Fuentes et al. (2010) contended that young
21
women give birth because they are poor and not the other way around. Therefore,
focusing on the consequences of teen pregnancy will not be as effective as focusing on
causes such as poverty and lack of opportunities.
Supporters of social cost perspectives conceptualize the education problem calling
for measuring consequences of teen parenting as opposed to focusing on preventative
interventions that protect against teen pregnancy or that facilitate graduation and
academic success in spite of parenting status. Kirby, Coyle, Denner, and Brindis (2001)
investigated community characteristics that protect against teen pregnancy by conducting
a qualitative assessment of resilient communities that protect adolescents from teen
pregnancy despite the community being within a larger area with a high teen live
birthrate. Social capital and protective cultural norms fostered resilient communities that
protected against teen pregnancy (Kirby et al., 2001).
Interventions That Keep Teen Parents in School
Teen parents are less likely to complete high school than their peers (Berglas et
al., 2003). Crean et al. (2001) attempted to show that providing school-based child care to
teen parents positively affects graduation rates. The study was an explanatory study that
showed the cause and effect relationship between providing school-based child care to
teen parents and its effect on their graduation rates. Showing that school-based child care
has a positive influence on increasing attendance rates and helping teen parents pass core
high school courses that eventually lead to graduation demonstrated the relationship. The
original sample consisted of 300 adolescent mothers in an urban school district in the
state of New York (Crean et al., 2001). Students who used school-based child-care
22
centers were in the participant group and students who did not use school-based child-
care centers were in the nonparticipant group (Crean et al., 2001).
Crean et al. (2001) showed a significant difference between participants and
nonparticipants. Participants passed at a greater percentage, had higher rates of
attendance, and were at lower risk than the nonparticipants. Although attendance rates
decreased for both groups after birth, participant attendance rates were still higher than
nonparticipant attendance. Graduation rates were also higher for participant groups.
Overall, 40 of the 57 participants graduated from high school, at a rate of 70% (Crean et
al., 2001). The graduation rate of the nonparticipant group was 28%, with only 18 of 64
teen mothers graduating from high school. The study demonstrated that child-care centers
for children of teen parents were effective in keeping teen parents engaged in and
connected with school through graduation (Crean et al., 2001). The keys to the success of
the program are accessibility and quality of the program provided at these school-based
child-care centers (Crean et al., 2001).
School-based interventions help keep teen parents in school. Sadler et al. (2007)
described school-based interventions that support teen parents’ connection and
graduation from high school. The participants in the study consisted of a convenience
sample of 65 volunteer teen mothers and their 68 children (Sadler et al., 2007). The
participants who enrolled their children at the child-care center were volunteers chosen
from the high school. The significant results of the study demonstrated that 91% of
mothers using the school-based child-care center graduated or demonstrated continued
enrollment (Sadler et al., 2007). Mothers using family care and enrolled in a parent
23
support program only demonstrated a 67% likelihood of graduation and continued
enrollment. The evidence supported the continued efforts to keep teen mothers engaged
and connected with school through school-based supports (Sadler et al., 2007).
School-based interventions supported the academic success of parenting teens by
helping them stay connected and engaged with school (Crean et al., 2001; Sadler et al.,
2007). The positive outcomes are of greater importance because of the high-risk
population studied. Sadler et al. (2007) advocated for more research that applies a
rigorous evaluation and longitudinal research of programs serving teen parents. Sadler et
al. (2007) also contended that the cost–benefit ratio of such programs needs further
research. It is valid to provide evidence that preventative programs have short- and long-
term economic benefits during difficult economic times because these are usually the first
programs cut. However, it is also concerning that a price tag can be placed on the
education of certain individuals (Fuentes et al., 2010). The idea that it is too expensive to
intervene for this population raises ethical questions about placing value on people
considered less desirable than others.
Basch (2011) noted that school-based programs such as school-based infant
centers have the power to help teens who are pregnant or parenting acquire the
knowledge and skills needed to postpone sex, practice safer sex, avoid unintended
pregnancy, and complete high school to pursue postsecondary education. The literature
points to the effectiveness of school-based interventions. More research is necessary to
determine how to make decisions to fund these types of programs and the costs and
benefits to school districts challenged by the issue of pregnant and parenting teens.
24
Policies Supporting Parenting Teens
Local policies that support teen parents stem from and mirror the efforts of Title
IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Kim, 2012; Solomon, 2002). Title IX is the
primary federal statutory guarantee of educational equity for pregnant and parenting
teens, and its protections extend to most public and some private institutions as long as
they receive federal funding. Title IX prohibits any educational institution that receives
federal funding to discriminate based on sex (Kim, 2012; Solomon, 2002), and it provides
explicit protections for pregnant and parenting students. Under Title IX, pregnant and
parenting students have a right to remain in school and have a right to be treated without
discrimination or harassment from peers or administrators. School staff cannot
discriminate against students based on marital status, childbirth, pregnancy, or false
pregnancy or during the recovery of their pregnancy. Title IX requires school staff to
treat pregnancy as they treat any other medical condition or any other temporary
disability. For example, a student must receive a leave of absence for as long as it is
necessary to recover from her false pregnancy or childbirth and must be able to retain the
same status she had before the leave. The regulations also prohibit school staff from
discriminating in activities such as sports, student government, and graduation activities.
Pregnant and parenting students also have the right to remain in their schools and may
not be funneled into inferior alternate programs. Schools also cannot have attendance
policies that penalize absences related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical
conditions. California law allows excused absences for parenting teens when the absences
relate to their child’s medical condition (Kim, 2012; Solomon, 2002).
25
California Education Code 48200 requires compulsory full-time education for all
persons between the ages of 6 and 18 years old. Therefore, parenting teens under the age
of 18 must attend school full time. Having a child is not a valid excuse for not going to
school. California education code describes eight valid reasons for an excused absence;
being a parent is not a reason to stay out of school. However, students are excused from
school when an absence is due to an illness or medical appointment of their child during
school hours.
California’s most recent efforts to address the issue of teen parenting involved
passing Senate Bill 1064 in 1998 to establish Cal-SAFE. The program is a comprehensive
and community-linked school-based program that serves pregnant and parenting students
and their children with the goal of improving their educational experience (Cal-SAFE,
1998). The 2010 report to the California legislature included an analysis of data collected
from July 2000 to June 2009 (Le Tendre & Inouye, 2010). The data showed that school-
based interventions help teen parents to complete high school. Over 73% of the students
who left the Cal-SAFE Program successfully completed their high school education (Le
Tendre & Inouye, 2010). This rate exceeded the 30% graduation rate reported by Berglas
et al. (2003). The success of the program is due to the emphasis of school-based support
as the primary intervention that helps students succeed.
Constantine et al. (2012) offered some policy recommendations regarding work
with pregnant and parenting teens. Some of the recommendations included providing
multilevel comprehensive sexuality education and youth development programs,
providing parent education and supports to encourage parents and other significant adults
26
to communicate effectively, and to review and monitor school polices and curricula to
assess compliance with sex education policies and curricula (Constantine et al., 2012).
However, in spite of this lack of attention to policy recommendations that support
parenting teens in school, research has demonstrated the positive effect of school based
interventions on parenting teens’ educational attainment (Berglas et al., 2003).
Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) has a long history working with
teen parents. One of the first Childcare centers for teen parents opened in the early 1970s
at The High School. LAUSD Policy Bulletin 2060.0, Pregnant and Parenting Students
Educational Rights (LAUSD Student Health and Human Services and Office of General
Counsel, 2005), asserts the district’s commitment to protecting the educational rights of
pregnant and parenting students. Bulletin 2060.0 states that the goal of LAUSD is to
provide pregnant and parent students with educational options, resources, and access to
support and advocacy services to achieve educational success. LAUSD policy contains
guidelines that mirror Title IX in the areas of the right to full participation, equal access,
confidentiality of health status, attendance and absence policies, and voluntary
participation in other specialized programs for pregnant and parenting students. Although
LAUSD policy does not explicitly guarantee the right to school based childcare for teen
parents, it does require that schools provide support and advocacy services to achieve
academic success (LAUSD Student Health and Human Services and Office of General
Counsel, 2005; Solomon, 2002). It is at this intersection between policy and practice
where administrators face the requirement to provide support services and where their
27
values and perceptions about the values of these services influence their decisions to
implement such programs.
Transaction Cost Economics
TCE involves looking at the transaction as the basic unit of analysis instead of the
organization (Williamson, 2010). In TCE, there are many costs in making an economic
trade, including the cost of researching best child-care providers, cost of writing a
contract or partnership agreement, and cost of monitoring and evaluating child care
(Jobin, 2008). TCE is a lens through which to look at the transaction as the unit of
analysis instead of simple exchanges of goods or services for monetary gain (Tadelis &
Williamson, 2012; Williamson, 1973). The essential idea argues that markets and
hierarchies are alternatives to each other and firms such as in educational institutions
need to pick a system that works best for their needs. Hierarchies are formal
organizations that represent the make and markets that are typified by vendors represents
the buy considerations (Tadelis & Williamson, 2012; Williamson, 1973).
This study involved using TCE to look at the contractual relationship between a
charter high school and Childcare center to describe the factors that led to the partnership
and what both parties perceive are the costs and benefits of this relationship. Perception is
significant in TCE because the framework pulls from theories of social sciences and
business to identify human errors during contracting (Macher & Richman, 2008). The
leaders of the two educational institutions under study, the firm and the vendor, entered
into the partnership voluntarily. TCE helped identify the perceived costs and benefits
from both perspectives to unpack the value-driven factors implemented in policies of
28
collaboration that help teen parents graduate from high school.
The three significant factors explored were lack of experience of staff, need of a
small volume of students, and strategic partnerships (Tutorials Point, 2012). Not all the
charter high school’s students were pregnant or parenting; therefore, only a small number
of its school population needed child-care services. The high school staff lacked the
experience to care for infants and toddlers because their expertise and mission is to
educate high school students. Finally, the high school is strategically located across the
street from the Childcare center. The combination of these three factors created an
opportunity for the high school to outsource child-care services for the parenting student
population. Therefore, the leaders at the educational institution created a network of
relationships to provide the service to help their students stay in school (Powell, 1990).
Researchers typically apply TCE to markets and hierarchies as the most common
forms of economic organization. However, Powell (1990) contended that network forms
of organization such as partnerships are also characterized by reciprocal patterns of
communication and exchange and therefore represent a valid pattern of economic
organization. Powell noted that this dichotomous view with sharp definitions of markets
and hierarchies is changing and relational and network partnering are becoming more
important. Hybrid forms of organization can be more personal and depend on mutual
interest and reputation as typified in networks (Powell, 1990). Therefore, networks are
useful forms of economic organization for services whose value is not easily identified as
child-care services for teen parents.
29
Summary
The literature review contained a description of the phenomenon of teenage
parenting with regard to the negative socioemotional consequences on young women
(Bowman, 2007; Friedrich, 2010). Research showed that school-based services help teen
parents to complete high school. School-based interventions that provide counseling, case
management, and child care are best practices that work (Office of Adolescent Health,
2010). Teen parents need these school-based supports to thrive academically. TCE can
provide a framework for identifying the costs and benefits of outsourcing child-care
services and how these decisions affect school-based services for teen parents
(Williamson, 2008). The review of the literature indicated how to use a TCE lens to
describe how contractual relationships developed to support teen parents in high school.
Chapter 3 contains a blueprint to the methodology of this exploratory study, a
description of the study, and a description of the charter high school and the Childcare
center that was the child-care provider within the study. The chapter also contains a
discussion about why the participants were selected, as well as the purpose and research
questions. Also included are data collection tools and instruments used to accomplish the
study goals.

30
Chapter 3: Research Design and Methodology
Introduction
This exploratory study included a qualitative design to explore the contractual
relationships between a high school and a child-care center that help teen parents
complete high school. Merriam (2009) contended that qualitative research has four
characteristics that help researchers understand the meaning people have constructed or
how they make sense of the world and their experiences. Merriam noted the focus of
qualitative research is on meaning and understanding, the researcher as the primary
instrument, the inductive process, and providing rich descriptions. Maxwell (2013)
reported that qualitative studies are suitable for five kinds of intellectual goals. One of
these goals is to understand the process by which events and actions take place. Maxwell
noted qualitative research serves to improve understanding of the process that leads to
outcomes, which is more difficult for quantitative research. Therefore, a qualitative
exploratory study was suitable to explore the process by which the contractual
relationship between a high school and a child-care center supported teen parents
graduating from high school. This exploratory study involved exploring the process by
which a network relationship was formed and maintained to help teen parents stay in
school.
This exploratory study also helped to understand the particular context in which
participants act and how this influences their actions (Maxwell, 2013). Maxwell (2013)
contended that qualitative research is suitable to help achieve this intellectual goal.
Furthermore, qualitative research also helps achieve a practical goal of generating
31
information that will help improve practice, program, and policies (Maxwell, 2013).
Through an understanding of the process and context in which the high school and child-
care center leaders engaged in a contractual relationship, the study contributes to the
knowledge base about interventions that help teen parents complete high school.
Problem and Purposes Overview
Teen parents are more likely to complete high school when they access school-
based support services such as child-care and case management services (Crean et al.,
2001; Sadler et al., 2007). Cal-SAFE demonstrated that teen parents connected to Cal-
SAFE complete high school at a rate of 73%. The research evidence demonstrated that
teen parents complete high school when they access school-based support services.
However, the role that school administrators have in deciding whether to provide support
services at their school sites has been unclear. The focus of this exploratory study was the
educational challenge that school staff face to support teen parents completing high
school. I explored how school administrators make decisions to provide support services
to this population and the contractual relationship between a child-care provider and a
high school.
Research Questions
The focus of this exploratory study was a contractual relationship between a high
school and a child-care provider to analyze the costs and the benefits of outsourcing
child-care services to help teen parents to complete high school. The following research
questions helped guide the focus of this qualitative investigation:
32
1. How does generating partnerships with support services such as child care
help teen parents stay connected and engaged with school?
a. What are the perceptions of school administrators about what are cost-
effective services for teen parents?
2. What services do high school administrators think teen parents need to
complete high school?
a. Which of those services do the school-based administrators think they can
provide in-house and why?
3. What motivated the search to partner with a child-care provider?
a. Why did the high school partner with the current child-care provider?
4. What do high school and child-care administrators think are the organizational
advantages and disadvantages of partnering with child-care services to help
teen parents complete high school?
a. What does the high school give and get in this contractual relationship?
b. What does the child-care provider give and get in this relationship?
Research Hypotheses
Research Question 1 hypothesis. School district administrators do not use a TCE
framework to make decisions about providing support services to teen parents. However,
supporters of TCE do suggest that administrators try to minimize costs even if they do
not understand or have not heard of TCE. The basis of these decisions are often social
cost arguments that stigmatize the experience of teen parents and divert attention away
from their educational rights to receive an education. The review of the literature
33
indicated that providing school-based child care is one of the most important school-
based interventions that help teen parents to complete high school. However, it also may
cost the most in time and resources to provide in-house and therefore is not often
available to teen parents.
Research Question 2 hypothesis. It may be more cost effective to contract out
for services such as child care because the overhead cost for a school district increases
rapidly due to the multiple factors of maintaining facilities, hiring qualified staff,
monitoring and supervising staff, staff–infant ratios, and union agreements.
Research Question 3 hypothesis. The high school partnered with the Childcare
center because there was a preestablished relationship before the high school became a
charter school. The child-care provider is directly across the street from the high school
and the child-care provider’s funding guidelines require the provider to serve teen parents
only.
Research Question 4 hypothesis. The perceived organizational advantages of
outsourcing may be that school district leaders do not have to supervise staff, provide
facilities, train staff, worry about lower wages in private settings, or provide staff
development responsibilities. The perceived disadvantages may be that school district
leaders may compromise quality for quantity when they contract out for services. For
example, the private agency’s staff may not be as qualified as school district staff. The
facilities also may not meet the stringent requirements expected of a school district
facility, and the philosophy or curriculum may not be as demanding as a school district’s.
34
Population and Sample
Firm. The charter high school was founded in 2008 as one of seven small
college-preparatory academies known as the The Family Cluster of High Schools. The
school has grade levels 9-12. The school focuses on college, leadership, and life. The
Charter High School is in South Los Angeles. In the 2000 census, the area of South Los
Angeles had a population of 520,461. Of that population, 55% were Latino and 41% were
African American. The median income was $37,803.
The Charter High School belongs to the Family of Schools. The Charter School
Organization is an independent nonprofit organization that operates 18 charter schools
authorized by LAUSD and managed by an independent board of directors, an education
and management team, and school site councils. The Charter School Organization
operates both independent charter schools and turnaround charter schools. A turnaround
charter school is one in which The Charter School Organization assumes operational
control of a persistently low-performing district school to improve student experience and
outcomes. The High School was a turnaround charter school. In 2008, The Charter
School Organization inherited 2,400 students when it took over The High School.
Graduation rates were below 28%, and 90% of students were performing below basic
or far below basic on California Standards Tests and only 2.5% of students were in
college-preparatory courses (high school website).
Purposeful sampling was used to select vendor staff (Maxwell, 2013; Merriam,
2009). It is important to understand the firm to understand the factors associated with the
35
contractual relationship with the Childcare center. Two positions were important within
this sample: the high school administrator and the academic counselor.
The high school administrator supervises and coordinates the instructional and
operational activities of the school’s staff. The administrator develops and maintains a
program of educational activities, counseling, and guidance adapted to the individual
needs of each student. The administrator also supervises student body finances, prepares
budget estimates, monitors contracts, and monitors the annual budget and allocation of
funds. The administrator approves partnerships with the high school and had valuable
information for the study.
The academic counselor was also a person of interest for this research because the
counselor was responsible for planning the master schedule for students. Counselors also
counsel and guide students to design an individualized graduation plan. An individualized
graduation plan includes support services that will help a student graduate. Counselors
consult with parents and school personnel as a means of helping students with
educational and personal problems that may be interfering with their learning and success
in school. Counselors help students use the educational opportunities of the schools;
recommend available resources within the school, school system, and community to meet
the needs of individual students; and assist in making such referrals and contacts.
Subsequently, counselors are often in contact with the principal and head teacher of the
Childcare center.
Table 1 contains data on the number of teen live births in the top five zip codes
that feed into the high school. The area of Los Angeles where The High School is located
36
typically has high rates of teen live births. Accordingly, 819 mothers under the age of 20
gave birth in 2011 in these zip codes (California Department of Public Health, 2011).
Table 1
Live Births to Mothers Under 20 Years Old 2011
Zip code n
90003 219
90061 51
90059 123
90002 183
90044 243
Note. Source of data was California Department of Public Health (2011).
Vendor. The Childcare Center is the vendor located inside The Early Education
Center. This center is strategically located across the street from The Charter High
School. The Early Education Center houses two child care centers that serve different
populations of students. Staff members at The Early Education Center provide early
childhood education services to the children of members of the community ages 3-5 years
old. Staff members at The Childcare Center provide early childhood education services
that include child care services to children ages 0-3 of teen parents enrolled in high
school. Therefore, the students are the infants and toddlers ages 0-3 and the parent is the
teen parent. The Childcare Center personnel only provide services to teen parents
enrolled in high school because it is partly funded by the Cal-SAFE Program.
37
The Cal-SAFE Program is a comprehensive, integrated, community-linked,
school-based program that serves expectant and parenting students and their children.
The program is designed to improve the educational experience, increase the availability
of support services, and provide child care and development services for the children of
enrolled students (LeTendre & Inouye, 2010). Cal-SAFE services at The Childcare
Center are provided to both female and male parenting students age 18 and younger who
have not graduated from high school and are a custodial parent or noncustodial parent
taking an active role in the care and supervision of their child (LeTendre & Inouye,
2010). A student’s enrollment into the program is voluntary. An eligible student with an
individualized education program is eligible, as long as the individualized education
program is active. Students who have an individualized education program are students
who qualify for special education services due to a learning disability.
As long as students are enrolled in a high school, their children are eligible for
child development services until age 5 or entry into kindergarten. The Childcare Center
personnel transition students older than 3 into the Early Education Program in the same
building. Enrollment of the children in Cal-SAFE child care is also voluntary.
The Early Education Center is part of the Early Childhood Education Branch of
the LAUSD. The Early Childhood Education Branch serves more than 32,000 students at
over 450 sites in LAUSD. The early education centers and programs are high-quality
developmentally appropriate preschool programs that address the socioemotional,
physical, and cognitive needs of the population served.
38
Purposeful sampling was used to select vendor staff (Maxwell, 2013; Merriam,
2009). It is important to understand the vendor to understand the factors associated with
the contractual relationship with the high school. Two positions were important within
this sample: the principal of the early education center and the head teacher of the
Childcare center.
The principal oversees the operational and instructional needs of the Childcare
center. The principal also serves as a resource for, and liaison to, the stakeholders of the
school community and interprets and implements state laws, Board of Education rules,
policies, procedures, and negotiated contracts, as well as prepares school budgets and
monitors expenditures of all school funds in accordance with federal, state, and district
guidelines. The principal is also responsible for maintaining positive public relations and
outreach contacts with parents and community groups. The expectation for this study was
that the principal would provide significant information regarding the contractual
relationship between the Childcare center and the high school.
The Childcare center head teacher also had a significant position and was
expected to yield valuable data. The head teacher communicates with teen parents to
create a partnership around student learning by providing information about the
instructional program and the progress of their children. The teen parents also report their
daily attendance and academic progress at the high school to ensure they are meeting the
Childcare center enrollment guidelines of being enrolled at a high school. The head
teacher also communicates with administrators and counselors regarding the teen parents’
39
high school enrollment and academic progress. The principal is the direct supervisor of
the head teacher and is in close communication with the principal.
Data Collection and Instrumentation
This exploratory study included triangulation methods to ensure the internal
validity of the study. Merriam (2009) defined triangulation as using multiple sources of
data to compare and cross check data collected at different points from different
perspectives about the same subject. Maxwell (2013) identified three purposes for using
multiple sources in qualitative research, noting that using multiple sources with various
limitations and strengths will serve as checks and balances to see if they all lead to the
same conclusion. The second reason for using multiple sources is to gain information
about different aspects of the same study (Maxwell, 2013). The third purpose is to gain a
rich description through interviews about certain events and actions that a researcher may
not have the opportunity to observe (Maxwell, 2013). Multiple sources of information
helped me support the results of the exploratory study. Table 2 contains a breakdown of
how the tools related to the research questions.
Data was collected within this timeline began after institution approval. It
was necessary to gain access to the childcare provider’s school district to administer of
my instruments, member checks and to analyze the data. The timeline was as follows:
April 2013: Application for school district research submitted
August 2013: Application for school district research approved
May 2013: Qualifying oral examination, acceptance for school district research,
IRB exempt status submission
July 2013: Pilot instruments and make any changes
October 2013: Gained access by conducting first interview
40
October 2014 – January 2014: Conducted interviews, reviewed artifacts
January 2014: Member checks and interview transcription
February 2013: Data analysis and writing
Individual Interviews
Semistructured individual interviews helped to gather information to answer
Research Questions 1 and 2 that inquired about how outsourcing support services help
teen parents stay connected and engaged with school and what services for teen parents
do schools administrators think they need to help teen parents complete high school. The
individual interview also helped identify what the high school administrator considers are
the organizational advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing support services that help
teen parents complete high school. I interviewed the high school administrator with
interview protocols outlined in Appendix A to gather information regarding the
perceptions of value assigned to support services for teen parents and the organizational
advantages and disadvantages of working with this population. The high school
administrator is the instructional leader of the school and the value that this person
assigns to working with parenting teens was important to qualify because it affects the
quality and effort applied to working with this population of students.
Table 2
Relationship Between Research Question and Data Source
Research questions
Individual
interview
(Appendixes
A, B, and C)
Document
review
(Appendix
D)
41
1. How does generating partnerships with support services
such as child care help teen parents stay connected and
engaged with school?
a. What are the perceptions of school administrators about
what are cost-effective services for teen parents?
X

2. What services do high school administrators think teen
parents need to complete high school?
a. Which of those services do the school-based
administrators think they can provide in-house and
why?
X

3. What motivated the search to partner with a child-care
provider?
a. Why did the high school partner with the current child-
care provider?
X

4. What do high school and child-care administrators consider
are the organizational advantages and disadvantages of
outsourcing childcare services to help teen parents
complete high school?
a. What does the high school give and what do they get in
this contractual relationship?
b. What does the child-care provider give and what do
they get in this relationship?
X X

I interviewed the principal and the head teacher of the Early Childhood Education
Center to help gather information to answer Research Questions 1 and 2. Appendixes A,
B, and C contain examples of the questions asked during the interview. The early
education center principal’s perspective was important to help identify the advantages
and disadvantages of outsourcing child care services and to help identify interventions
and services that help teen parents complete high school.
Archival Review
I reviewed the contract between the high school and Childcare center to help
answer Research Question 3 that asked what the school receives and what the childcare
42
provider receives from this contractual relationship. Merriam (2009) noted data sources
should provide information to answer the research question and should be practical to
access. The contract is a public record that was easy to access and provided information
that helped answer the research questions.
I used a rubric as seen in Appendix D to help guide the review of the contract
between the high school and the child-care provider. This rubric guided me by ensuring I
would identify certain points that would help answer Research Question 3. The rubric did
not confine me to looking for only these points. I had the discretion to note any other
observations that were relevant to the research. Table 3 contains a description of the
relationship between the data source and the research questions.
Table 3
Relationship Between Data Source and Research Questions
Data sources
Individual
interview
Document
review
High school administrator RQ 1, 2, 3, 4
High school counselor RQ 1, 2, 3, 4
Childcare center principal [change OK?] RQ 1, 3, 4
Childcare center head teacher RQ 1, 3, 4
Contract, memoranda of understanding, or partnership
agreement between vendor and firm, student contracts,
early education enrollment forms
RQ 4

Data Analysis
The information gathered was analyzed using a combination of methods to ensure
triangulation of findings. The sources of data corroborated or contrasted the findings
43
from each source. The semistructured interviews were transcribed and then coded to
qualify the costs and benefits of the partnership. The information from the document
review was grouped into costs and benefits groups. Patterns emerged that identified the
perceived negative and positive organizational transaction costs of engaging in a
partnership that helps teen moms graduate from high school.
Research Question 1 was as follows: How does generating partnerships with
support services such as child care help teen parents stay connected and engaged with
school? Which of those services do the school-based administrators think they can
provide in-house and why. The first research question and subquestion investigated the
perceptions of value that administrators place on support services that help teen parents to
complete high school. I prepared a letter of introduction that introduced each participant
to the researcher, the research study, and the level of commitment for the study. The
interview protocols helped answer this question (see Appendixes A, B, and C) by asking
participants to share information about their experiences and values working with teen
parents. The questions were asked in an interview format that lasted 45-60 minutes. With
in 48 hours the interviews were transcribed. I used predetermined codes to open code and
identify the top themes. I organized the themes in into two distinct organizational
categories to construct theories from the data.
Research Question 2 was as follows: What services do high school administrators
think teen parents need to complete high school? Which of those services do the school-
based administrators think they can provide in-house and why? The second research
question and subquestion investigated the administrators’ perception of need and the
44
schools’ ability to meet the need to support teen parents to graduation. I prepared a letter
of introduction that introduced each participant to the researcher, the research study, and
the level of commitment to the research. The interview protocols helped answer this
question (see Appendixes A, B, and C) by asking participants to share information about
their experiences and values working with teen parents. The questions were asked in
interview format that lasted 45-60 minutes. With in 48 hours the interviews were
transcribed. I used predetermined codes to open code and identify the top themes. I
organized the themes in into two distinct organizational categories to construct theories
from the data.
Research Question 3 was as follows: What motivated the search to partner with a
child-care provider? Why did the high school partner with the current child-care
provider? The third research question and subquestion investigated the strategic
partnership between the firm and the vendor. I prepared a letter of introduction
introducing each participant to the researcher, the research study, and the level of
commitment to the research. The interview protocols helped answer this question (see
Appendixes A, B, and C) by asking participants to share information about their
experiences and values working with teen parents. The questions were asked in an
interview format that lasted 45-60 minutes. With in 48 hours the interviews were
transcribed. I used predetermined codes to open code and identify the top themes. I
organized the themes in into two distinct organizational categories to construct theories
from the data.
45
Research Question 4 was as follows: What do high school and child-care
administrators think are the organizational advantages and disadvantages of partnering
with child-care services to help teen parents complete high school? What does the high
school give and get in this contractual relationship? What does the child-care provider
give and get in this relationship? The fourth research question and subquestions
investigated the costs and the benefits derived from the contractual relationship. A rubric
(see Appendix D; LAUSD Student Health and Human Services and Office of General
Counsel, 2005) helped to categorize the givers and the receivers of the firm and the
vendor. I reviewed the Memorandum of Understanding between the firm and the vendor.
I organize data into four distinct organizational categories: Vendor benefits, vendor
losses, childcare provider benefits, childcare provider losses (Maxwell, 2013).
Subsequent to the initial categorization, I used the organization matrix to help identify
any emerging theories from the data
This study used a TCE lens to analyze why school administrators decide to
provide services in-house or to outsource support services that help teen parents stay in
school. The focus of this exploratory study was a contractual relationship between a high
school and a child-care provider to analyze the costs and the benefits of outsourcing
child-care services to help teen parents to complete high school.
Four research questions were investigated to help understand the relationship
between the vendor and the firm. Using these questions, I explored the factors associated
with outsourcing decisions and the value assigned to factors considered in outsourcing.
The process of answering the research questions also involved exploring a combination
46
of factors or competing factors to provide support services to teen parents to help them
stay in school. Perceived value of services and the ways that influenced decisions and
contractual agreements was also probed.
The study involved comparing, contrasting, and grouping the information
collected to develop an understanding of the contractual relationship and the thought
process behind the decisions. Interviews and document reviews were used to collect
information. The data were coded and synthesized to answer the four research questions.
The study decreased the gap in literature regarding the role of leaders efficiently
organizing resources to support teen parents to high school completion. This study
contributes to knowledge about interventions that help teen parents stay in and graduate
from high school.

47
Chapter 4: Data Analysis
Introduction
This chapter contains the data collected during the qualitative study about the
relationship between a high school and a child-care provider. The study involved
analyzing the costs and the benefits of outsourcing child-care services to help teen
parents to complete high school. The study included a TCE conceptual framework to
explore costs and benefits of entering into a contract with an outside vendor to provide
support services for teen parents (Williamson, 2008). The study indicates advantages and
disadvantages of outsourcing child care for teen parents to help them graduate from high
school. The data collected were from stakeholder interviews and document and artifact
reviews.
Teen parents pose an educational challenge in school systems because educators
are not able to keep teen parents connected and engaged in school (Fuentes et al., 2010).
School systems find it difficult to help teen parents stay in school and subsequently they
drop out of high school at higher rates than their peers who are not teen parents
(Constantine et al., 2010). An estimated 70% of parenting teens do not complete high
school after giving birth (Berglas et al., 2003). Therefore, it was critical to investigate
school-based interventions that help parenting teens stay in school.
This chapter contains data collected from stakeholder groups from the high school
and the child-care provider and from a review of artifacts such as school documents and
memoranda of understanding. The data are presented by research question and include
tables of the data collected.
48
Organization of Data Analysis
This chapter contains each research question, followed by related themes and
supported by findings. The data results include tables from the interviews and document
review organized by research question. Research Question 1 looks at how generating
partnerships help teen parents stay in school. Research Question 2 addresses
administrators’ perceptions about prioritizing services that help teen parents stay in
school and if perception affects their decisions to provide these services in-house or to
outsource. Research Question 3 asks how the vendor was selected and whether strategic
partnership indicators were considered when making that selection. Research Question 4
addresses the costs and the benefits of this partnership. A subquestion is attached to each
research question. The data for each subquestion appear after each corresponding
research question.
Descriptive Characteristics of Respondents
To answer the research questions, participants from the high school (firm) and the
child-care provider (vendor) participated in interviews. Participants included a a high
school administrator overseeing the partnership between the firm and the vendor, an
administrator for the early childhood education center that houses the child-care center
for children of teen parents, a teacher at the child-care center, and a former counselor of
the Cal-SAFE program that works with the teen parents. The high school administrator
was chosen because of that person’s knowledge about community and school
partnerships and because that person is the liaison between the child-care teacher and the
high school. The child-care administrator, teacher, and former attendance counselor had
49
more than 7 years of experience working with teen parents in the Cal-SAFE program.
They were all professionals experienced with working with teen parents.
The research questions guide the discussion in this chapter:
1. How does generating partnerships with support services such as child care
help teen parents stay connected and engaged with school?
a. What are the perceptions of school administrators about what are cost-
effective services for teen parents?
2. What services do high school administrators think teen parents need to
complete high school?
a. Which of those services do the school-based administrators think they can
provide in-house and why?
3. What motivated the search to partner with a child-care provider?
a. Why did the high school partner with the current child-care provider?
4. What do high school and child-care administrators think are the organizational
advantages and disadvantages of partnering with child-care services to help
teen parents complete high school?
a. What does the high school and the child-care provider give and get in this
contractual relationship?
The sub-questions under research question number four were consolidated
because the analysis of the data revealed that they were part of the same question. What
the firm gives to the vendor showed up as the same data that the vendor gave to the firm.
50
Report of the Findings
Research Question 1 findings. Research Question 1 was as follows: How does
generating partnerships with support services such as child care help teen parents stay
connected and engaged with school? This research question explored how partnerships
between organizations help stakeholders pursue a common goal of helping teen parents
graduate from high school. The subquestion was linked to this question through the
assumption that school administrators consider the partnership between the high school
and child-care provider cost-effective. The term cost-effective had a different meaning to
each participant based on his or her value system. Both parties are more likely to sustain
a transaction whose benefits outweigh its costs. The participants repeatedly described its
benefits in value terms outlined below. The analysis of the data from the interviews
revealed two codes: (a) values and perceptions and (b) asset specificity (Maxwell, 2013).
Two themes emerged from subsequent analysis: (a) focus on the firm’s expertise and (b)
the perceived benefits outweighed the cost to continue the partnership (see Figure 1).
Focus on expertise. A theme that surfaced with both high school and child-care
administrators was that partnerships support academic achievement by helping firm
leaders focus on their organizational expertise. This high school staff understood that
generating partnerships with community-based organizations helped students stay
connected and engaged with school because it helped them stay focused on their goal of
teaching and learning, yet it allowed the high school staff to support the whole student by
partnering with an organization that meets the high school student’s primary needs.
51

Figure 1. Themes for Research Question 1.
One high school administrator reported,
We recognized that our students needed more intensive out-of-school
supports than what we have at our other school. We pursued this community
school initiative to begin to build a web of comprehensive wrap-around services
to better support our students and their families. My role is, one, to bring that
vision of providing these comprehensive wrap-around services, to bring that
vision to fruition and to, one, identify what are the top needs of our students at
[the] high school.

Another example of how partnerships help teen parents to stay in school was evidenced
in the following statement of the high school administrator:
I think if you identify an effective partner who is using best practices within the
field, that those partners are going to help our young people. They’re going to
provide the kind of support that our young people need to be successful, to
complete school successfully, to stay in school.

This quote illustrated the importance of working with partners who are experts in their
field and implementing best practices. The high school staff sustain the partnership with
the child-care provider because they understand their students need out-of-school
supports to help them complete high school.
I think especially with high school . . . high school’s focus, our district’s focus, is
teaching and learning. I think what makes us a strong organization, what makes
our school most successful and more successful than what we’ve seen with a big
district like New York’s Department of Education . . . when you think about those
Partnerships
support goal
of the firm:
High school
graduation
Focus on
expertise as
asset specificity
Perceived
benefits
outweighed
cost to continue
partnership
52
large . . . it’s the really honing in on focusing on what we’re good at. There’s Jen
Collins, who wrote this book called Good to Great. She talks about what’s your
core work and focusing on that core work. Once you start getting distracted from
really getting better at that core work . . . does that core work get compromised?
I’m not saying that young people who are teen moms are compromising
education, but I think you have to recognize here’s what we’re an expert at. (high
school administrator)

The high school administrator recognized that partnerships with community-based
organizations help high school staff focus on education while ensuring other experts in
the field are meeting the students’ needs. The high school staff do not separate the
students’ socioemotional needs from their educational needs. Instead, they understand
that they need to identify partners who can support the high school by working with the
whole student.
The child-care administrator also provided evidence that their partnership with the
high school also helped teen parents stay connected and engaged with school. The child-
care administrator replied to the following question: What is your main priority as a
director at a center like this that serves teen parents?
To make sure that they finish. To let them know that they can do it. Some of them
get discouraged. Not to belittle them because they are a teen parent, not to make
them feel guilty, but to support them through it, to actually love them through it.
To let them know that there’s other opportunities out there for them and that they
can succeed although they have a baby. Your path may be a little bit rockier than
without a child, but you can do it and there’s people around you that can support
you and will support you.

The child-care teacher also reported that helping teen parents stay in school was
part of that person’s role:
The main goal of the Childcare center is to have teen parents go to school and
graduate from high school. Sometimes the teen parents coming in thinking that
they’re going to drop off their baby and they go to school and do whatever they
want to do. However, I didn’t mention this earlier, but there is grade checks, and
53
they have to bring in their report cards to make sure that they’re progressing at the
rate that they’re expected to to graduate high school. That is sometimes
challenging, because we don’t always have the time to also encourage the teen
parents to do well in school and continue with their studies.

Both high school and child-care staff reported that their main goal was to help
teen parents graduate from high school. Both sides viewed the teen parent as their
primary focus of intervention and the child-care as a support service.
Research Question 1a findings. Research Question 1a was as follows: What are
the perceptions of school administrators about what are cost-effective services for teen
parents? School staff on both the firm and the vendor side reiterated value-driven
justifications about why the benefits outweighed the cost of the partnership between the
firm and the vendor. However, the high school administrator mitigated the value-driven
justifications with practical examples shown below. The administrator emphasized value-
driven justifications about services for teen parents:
I think we should be a front runner in demonstrating what it means to educate a
young woman and give them a strong educational foundation, and it just leads to
self-sustainability, and I think it also leads to increased levels of equality so that
there’s not this women needing to depend on men, that they can be just as self-
sufficient. Absolutely, I think it’s important for us to do what we can to support
our young women, especially young women of color, in being successful in
education.

But the high school administrator qualified the statement with a practical example:
I think one of the things as a school that you . . . I think there are considerations
when you’re talking about cost benefits. There are considerations that a school
has to make. I think one is looking at is this an issue that really impacts our
community in particular? If you’re in a community that has a rather low teen birth
rate, you’re not going to invest as much as maybe another community that does. I
think there is also the other issue of competing priorities. Like I said from the
start, one of our top priorities is mental health because that’s an issue that impacts
a lot of young people. I think we see it and see it on a daily . . . and probably more
than you feel or experienced having teen parents.
54

The child-care administrator was clear about the value-driven justifications about
costs or benefits:
There are benefits because you see them progress. You see them learning right
before your eyes. You see the stages of development right before your eyes.
That’s an awesome feeling when you actually can see that visually, everything
you went to school for and you actually can see it. You’re like, “Wow.” This is
real. It’s rewarding when the parents come back and they tell you thank you and
they see us, not just the teen parents, just parents in general. A lot of them are new
moms too, new dads, and they don’t know what to do. We help them through
those stages and give them pointers. It’s a great advantage. It’s profitable in the
end, not just . . . it’s not monetarily profitable, but it’s profitable in ways that we
could never be paid for.

The child-care administrator did not identify any financial cost or benefits to this
partnership. The benefits identified were value-driven reasons about cost-effective
services for teen parents. These reasons were based on the value of early childhood
education and the reward of teaching in general. Although the child-care administrator
stated, “It’s not monetarily profitable,” there is some evidence to the contrary.
Intervention with teen parents and their children can reduce long-term social costs to
society (Ludwig & Phillips, 2007; Barnett, 2007).
Discussion. Research Question 1 involved exploring how partnerships between
organizations help teen parents stay in school to pursue high school completion. The
subquestion was linked to this question under the assumption that school administrators
consider the partnership between the high school and child-care providers as cost-
effective. Two themes emerged from the data. The first theme described how partnerships
between organizations help teen parents stay in school. Leaders of each organization
noted that they are experts in their field and work together to meet a common goal of
55
helping teen parents complete high school by helping them meet a need that is affecting
their ability to come to school every day. The second theme that emerged described
administrators’ perceptions about cost-effective services for teen parents. Staff on both
the firm and the vendor sides made value-driven judgments about what is cost-effective.
Both sides valued the work they were doing for teen parents.
Research Question 2 findings. Research Question 2 was as follows: What
services do high school administrators think teen parents need to complete high school?
Which of those services do the school-based administrators think they can provide in-
house and why? Research Question 2 explores what school administrators think are the
services that teen parents need to complete high school and which of the services they
think their staff can provide in-house. The question also queried administrators about
why they thought staff can provide these services in-house. The analysis of the data
revealed two codes: interventions and asset specificity (see Figure 2). The theme that
emerged is school-based administrators believe school-based interventions help teen
parents stay in school. The belief in school-based interventions is coupled with their
belief that they need to identify experts in their field to provide these services.
School leaders have decisions to make about what kind of services they need to
provide in-house and what kind of services to outsource to help their students stay in
school. School administrators identified several interventions that their staff could
provide at school but also identified areas in which their staff lack expertise. These gaps
in expertise were identified as areas of need and influenced the decision to collaborate
with community-based agencies. High school and child-care staff identified child care
56
and counseling as the top needs for teen parents to complete high school. High school
staff identified counseling as a service they provide in-house and child-care as a service
they outsource.

Figure 2. Themes for Research Question 2.
Child care provided by vendor. The high school administrator reported that
working with teen parents is an area of expertise that could be better provided by experts
focused on this population:
Community partners who help teen parents or teen moms to stay in school are
critical, I think, to our young people’s success. When you take a large school, and
even in our case, we have small schools with just five, six hundred students. Even
in that scenario, I think the needs of teen parents are so specialized that if you
have a community partner who’s really an expert in this work, they know what to
do and have systems in place to best support our young people.

The administrator identified that the school administrators do not have the resources or
assets to provide child care. The administrator stated,
Child care is out of scope and practice. To some extent, I think there are
specialized needs of teen parents that may not necessarily be met by your typical
counselor or typical teachers. I think that our counselors are equipped to . . . that’s
what they’re trying to do. They’re trained to support young people across a lot of
different life issues. I think that’s different from having someone who’s really
an expert in working with teen parents. I think they could do it, but I think there
Vendor

• Childcare

Firm

• Counseling

School-‐based

interventions

that
help

teen
parents

stay
in
school

57
are people out there that could probably provide that, do that better, do that
work better.

The high school administrator is aware that child care is important but not with in
their expertise to deliver. The child care administrator was also succinct about identifying
the service that staff could provide best for teen parents by stating, “Of course the care,”
in reference to the child care they provide for children of teen parents. The child-care
administrator identified child care as the service that teen parents need to stay in school
and that they provide.
Counseling provided by firm. One child-care staff member reported that
counseling was not within the scope of practice of the child-care teachers:
I would say any type of case management, any type of counseling. I know that
with this population, people have to be careful to remember what their training is
and not to cross boundaries because I think that can happen a lot. I think that the
social workers and the counselors that are trained in providing that type of service
should be utilized and the teachers should be utilized for what their training is.

This staff member was referring to the child-care teachers. The child-care provider is an
early childhood education center that provides certificated teachers trained to work with
infants and toddlers. The staff member reported that their training is in teaching and
learning for infants and toddlers, and the high school staff trained to work with teen
parents should provide counseling.
Discussion. Research Question 2 explored school administrators’ thoughts about
what kind services teen parents need to complete high school and which services they
think their in-house staff can provide. The questions also query administrators about why
they think staff can provide these services in-house. Administrators in both organizations
58
identified their areas of expertise and strength. The high school focuses on teaching and
learning for high school students and the child-care center focuses on early childhood
education for infants and toddlers. Both organizational leaders recognized that school-
based interventions help teen parents stay in school.
Research Question 3 findings. Research Question 3 was as follows: What
motivated the search to partner with a child-care provider? Why did the high school
partner with the current child-care provider? Research Question 3 probed the factors that
led up to vendor selection. Organizational leaders make decisions about which vendors to
use to provide cost-effective service for their organization (Williamson, 2008). Location
was the reason that the high school collaborated with the child-care provider. One high
school administrator reported,
I would say that we probably have the strongest relationship with the early
education center because they’re right across the street from campus. There’s that
convenience, there’s the access. Convenience and access to our young people.
There’s probably a historical partnership that existed even when . . . it was
another high school. That just sort of continued. I think the ease of accessibility
for our school staff makes it easier for our school staff to know the school staff
here.

There was a historical partnership present before the high school turned into a
charter school. The historical partnership that the high school administrator referred to
has to do with the fact that the child-care provider has been across the street from the
high school for more than 30 years. The high school has been a charter high school since
2008, but before that, another educational organization operated the high school. The
previous high school organization also relied on the services that the child-care provider
offered for their teen parents because that area of the city has historically had a high rate
59
of teen pregnancy (California Department of Public Health, 2011). When the high school
transitioned into a charter organization, the high school administration decided to
continue the partnership with the child-care provider and they inherited the partnership
because it was across the street. This proximity helps the students get to school on time.
The accessibility of location and ease of communication was significant to partnering
between these two organizations.
Discussion. Research Question 3 probed the factors leading up to vendor
selection. Location was the primary reason for selecting the child-care provider. Location
is important in helping teens parents get to school on time. Teen parents can quickly drop
off their children at a child-care provider that is close to school. There was an established
partnership before the high school took control of the facilities in 2008 that the
organizational leaders continued.
Research Question 4 findings. Research Question 4 was as follows: What do
high school and child-care administrators think are the organizational advantages and
disadvantages of partnering with child-care services to help teen parents complete high
school? What does the high school and the childcare provider give and get in this
contractual relationship? The subquestions were modified from the original because they
captured the same information.
Research Question 4 investigated what the costs and the benefits are for the firm
and the vendor. This question looked at the costs and the benefits as perceived by the
staff members who engage in the daily work to keep teen parents in school. Four codes
emerged during the data analysis: cost—firm, cost—vendor, benefits—firm, benefits—
60
vendor. The primary theme that emerged from these codes is that the high school benefits
the most from this partnership because the child-care provider carries more transaction
costs.
Table 4 shows the transaction costs and benefits perceived by the staff members
who engage in the daily work with teen parents. The high school’s transaction costs as
perceived by participants are less than the vendor’s, which is consistent with the
transaction cost literature that states administrators will try to minimize their transaction
cost (Tadelis & Williamson, 2012).
Data for Research Question 4 were gathered from a review of documents such as
the Cal-SAFE reference manual and the memorandum of understanding between the
vendor and the firm. The Cal-SAFE reference manual outlines program requirements that
the vendor is obligated to perform to maintain funding.
Table 5 shows the terms of the contract as outlined in the memorandum of
understanding between the firm and the vendor. The contract includes teen parents in the
definition of students. Table 5 also outlines cost and benefits in the partnership between
the firm and the vendor.
61
Table 4
Cost Versus Benefits Cited in Participant Interviews
Firm (high school) Vendor (childcare provider)
Benefits
Childcare provider
attendance counselor
monitored attendance for
high school

Lower drop-out rate

Higher attendance rate

Office space on child-care
provider premises

Consistent partner expert in
the field
Easier access to parents for parent education and concerns

Easier experience caring for the child

Monitoring and control that parents are meeting
enrollment contract

Job satisfaction of seeing parents stay in school

Costs
Counselors go to child-care
provider to coordinate with
teacher

High school discloses
attendance records to child-
care provider

Hiring of liaison to oversee
community and school
partnerships

Liaison communication
with principal twice a week

Counselor provides
academic counseling to
teen parent

Child-care provider principal with experience working
with teen parents

Child-care provider counsels teen parents

Child-care provider provides parenting education to teen
parents

Child-care provider provides space for teen parents to
have a parent education

Child-care provider monitors high school attendance for
teen parents

No cost for child-care

Liaison housed on child-care premises

No high school staff member identified to specifically
work with teen parents.

Head teacher conducts outreach,
62
enrollment and screening of eligible teen parents

Head teacher provides guidance counseling to teen parents

Grade checks

Report card monitoring

Searching for a high school staff member who can serve
as point of contact for teen parent issues

Space provided for teen parent to nurse during the day

Health screenings for children and teen parents

Specialized care for infants and toddlers of teen parents

Mental health screenings for children and teen parents
63
Table 5
Terms of Contract Between Firm and Vendor
Terms of contract
1. Who gives what and who gets what? Child care provider will designate a staff
person as a point of contact who will:
a. Identify student eligible to
participate in the program
b. Provide classroom/conference room
space
c. Collaborate with the contractor’s
staff to maximize support for the
students/program
d. Obtain signed parental
consent/exchange of information for
all students participating

High school will:
a. Obtain approval for sponsored guest
speakers
b. Sponsor field trips
c. Facilitate adult ESL classes
d. Navigation services
e. Recreation services
f. Violence prevention programs
g. Substance abuse assessment clinic
h. Adult recreational services

2. What does the high school expect to
get from the relationship?

Use of premises (2939 square feet)
3. How are the outsourced services
integrated within their operations?
No discussion of child-care services
discussed in memorandum of understanding
4. How does the firm monitor the
relationship with the vendor and what
it does? Vice versa?

No discussion of oversight
5. What are the characteristics of the
service provided by the vendor that
makes it a good (or bad) decision for
the firm to contract for it?
Good—location of the premises
Good—access to different populations that
include ages 0-5, including infant care

64
Discussion. Research Question 4 investigated the costs and the benefits for the
high school and the child-care provider. The costs and the benefits as perceived by the
staff members who engage in the daily work to keep teen parents in school appear in
Table 4. The primary theme that emerged from these codes is that the high school
benefits from this partnership because the child-care provider carries more transaction
costs. However, an analysis of the documents presents a more balanced version of the
relationship between the firm and the vendor.
However, a review of the Cal-SAFE reference handbook revealed that some of
the perceived transaction costs absorbed by the child-care provider are actually program
requirements expected by the California Department of Education. Table 6 shows the
Cal-SAFE Program’s operating criteria. Criterion 4 requires the child-care provider to
provide a quality education program to students (teen parents) that is supportive and
accommodating. Therefore, providing guidance counseling and support is within the role
and responsibility of the child-care provider. Criterion 5 states that students are entitled to
participate in any program to which they are eligible. The child-care provider is not
incurring any additional transaction costs by working with a charter high school as
opposed to the previous educational organization. Criterion 6 also states that the child-
care provider must provide a parent education program. This was identified as a cost, but
the program funder lists it as a requirement. Criterion 7 also indicates that community
outreach is a requirement for the child-care provider as opposed to being identified as a
cost in the participant interview.

65
Table 6
Cal-SAFE Program Operating Criteria
1. Comply with the regulations adopted pursuant to Title IX of the Education
Amendments of the 1972 Regulations (refer to Chapter 5, Enrolling the School Age
Family, for additional information).

2. Ensure that enrolled students retain their right to participate in any comprehensive
school or educational alternative programs in which they could otherwise enroll.
School placement and instructional strategies must be based upon the needs and styles
of learning of the individual student. The classroom setting is the preferred
instructional strategy unless an alternative is necessary to meet the needs of the
individual student parent, child, or both.

3. Enroll students in the Cal-SAFE Program on an open-entry and open-exit basis.

4. Provide a quality education program to students in a supportive and accommodating
learning environment and with appropriate classroom strategies to ensure school
access and academic credit for all work completed.

5. Make maximum use of available programs and facilities to serve expectant and
parenting students and their children. Cal-SAFE Program students are entitled to
participate in any program for which they are eligible. These programs vary and
include school bus transportation, school breakfast and lunch program, No Child Left
Behind Act, Gifted and Talented Education, science lab classes, school libraries, and
others.

6. Provide parenting education and life skills instruction to enrolled students. The
instructional strategy (e.g., school classroom, independent study, special project,
community program) should meet the needs of the student. For example, a student
who needs to enroll only in required academic courses to graduate could receive
parenting education instruction through a special project or a community hospital
program (refer to Chapter 6, Student Support Services, for additional information).

7. Provide staff development and community outreach to establish a positive learning
environment and school policies supportive of expectant and parenting students’
academic achievement and to promote the healthy development of their children.

Summary
This chapter contained the findings and themes for the four research questions in
this qualitative study. The process to answer Research Question 1 involved exploring
66
how partnerships between educational organizations help keep teen parents in high
school to help them graduate. The process to answer Research Question 2 involved
exploring school administrators’ perceptions about what services teen parents need to
complete high school and which of these services they think in-house staff can provide.
The process to answer Research Question 3 involved probing into the selection
factors that led to choosing the current vendor. The process to answer Research Question
4 involved investigating the costs and the benefits for the firm and the vendor when
engaging in this partnership. This process involved looking at the costs and the benefits
as perceived by the staff members who engage in the direct support to keep teen parents
in school. Several themes emerged from these questions.
The themes revealed essential findings about the research problem. The first
theme described how partnering with a child-care provider helps parents stay in school.
Leaders from each organization indicated that they are experts in their field and work
together to meet a common goal of helping teen parents complete high school by helping
them meet a child-care need that is impacting their ability to come to school every day.
The second theme that emerged described the administrators’ perceptions about cost-
effective services for teen parents. Staff members from both the firm and the vendor
made value-driven judgments about what they consider cost-effective. The third theme
that emerged was that location was the primary reason for selecting the child-care
provider. Location is important in helping teens parents get to school on time after they
drop off their children at the child-care provider. The fourth theme that emerged was that
the high school benefits from the partnership with the child-care provider.
67
The research revealed that teen parents stay connected to or complete high school
when they access school-based support services such as childcare and case management
services (Crean et al., 2001; Sadler et al., 2007). The Cal-SAFE Program also
demonstrated that 74% of teen parents connected to Cal-SAFE complete high school
(LeTendre & Inouye, 2010). The educational problem in this exploratory study entailed a
TCE framework to describe how school administrators make decisions based on their
perceptions of the costs and benefits of providing services to teen parents to help them
complete high school. Chapter 5 will contain a discussion on the findings, conclusions,
implications, and recommendations from this study.

68
Chapter 5: Findings, Implications, Conclusions
Introduction
The purpose of this chapter is to review and integrate the findings of this study
with a TCE framework to propose implications and recommendations for further
research. This study involved applying a TCE framework to make sense of the costs and
the benefits involved in enforcing and sustaining the partnership between a charter high
school and a child-care provider to help their teen parents stay in school. This chapter
will begin with a review of how TCE is applied to partnerships and then concludes with
implications for the study and recommendations for further research.
Transaction Cost Economics
TCE typically speaks to common forms of economic organization such as markets
and hierarchies (Williamson, 2008). Powell (1990) asserted that partnerships, as in the
case of the high school and the child-care provider, employ reciprocal patterns of
communication and exchange. This partnership represents a valid pattern of economic
organization (Powell, 1990). Relational and network partnering are commonplace in
educational settings. This hybrid form of organization is personal and dependent on
mutual interest and reputation (Powell, 1990) just as the relationship between the high
school and the childcare provider is dependent on mutual relationship and reputation.
Summary of Findings
This section contains the findings from four research questions organized in
numerical order and by theme and notes the major associations between it and TCE. The
process of answering Research Question 1 involved exploring how partnerships between
69
organizations help teen parents graduate from high school. Subquestion 1a was linked to
the question through the assumption that school administrators consider the partnership
between the high school and the child-care provider to be cost-effective because it helps
teen parents graduate from high school. The findings revealed two themes: focus on
expertise and perceived benefits outweigh cost to sustain partnership.
Focus on expertise. Leaders from both organizations emphasized that
collaborating with each other helped them focus their efforts on what they are best at
doing. The high school leaders reported that they were experts at teaching and learning
for high school students. Likewise, the child-care providers reported that they were
experts at providing care for infants and toddlers. This partnership involves working
together to help teen parents stay in school through their combined efforts. Teen parents
have educational needs met by the high school and the child-care provider meets the
child-care needs of the teen parents.
The focus on expertise speaks to Williamson’s (1983) idea of asset specificity, in
which two organizations have ties to each other because the vendor possesses a human
asset specific skill. Williamson defined a human asset skill as a highly specialized human
skill. Asset specificity indicates that the transaction will have a higher value in this
relationship because the skill cannot be used for any other purpose. In this case, the
vendor possessed a highly specified human asset of having the expertise of providing
infant and toddler care to children of teen parents. Few child-care providers have the
years of expertise or qualified staff to provide this kind of specialized care. Likewise, the
child-care providers’ funding source requires them to serve children of teen parents.
70
Therefore, the strategic partnership with the high school allows the child-care provider to
have a steady flow of teen parents who need child care.
Perceived benefits outweigh cost. The findings to Subquestion 1a were
interesting. I hypothesized that education administrators use social cost arguments to
frame their work with teen parents. I also hypothesized that school administrators do not
use a TCE framework to make decisions and try to minimize transaction costs, even if
they do not understand or have not heard of TCE. I assumed the child-care providers
often base these decisions on social cost arguments that stigmatize the experience of teen
parents and divert attention away from their educational rights to receive an education.
However, the findings revealed the opposite in this exploratory study. Staff
working with teen parents in both organizations indicated that the perceived benefits
outweighed the costs to sustain the partnership. People engaged in the daily work of
helping teen parents stay in school in both organizations believed in and valued the work
over the cost of sustaining the work through the partnership. They did not measure their
efforts solely in terms of financial cost versus benefits. They perceived the effects of their
work in terms of social gains more than social losses to society when a child does not
complete high school.
As noted in the review of the literature, researchers at the National Latina Health
Institute called for a shift in discourse on teen pregnancy. They contended that social cost
arguments divert attention from the fundamental issues that face young mothers, many of
whom are Latina. The fundamental issues are poverty and health care access (Fuentes et
al., 2010). The participants in this study did not stigmatize young motherhood as a
71
problem; instead, they identified high school completion as a goal to attain. They spoke
about the real problems that surround and cause teen pregnancy, such as a lack of access
to health care and lack of educational opportunities in communities of color (Fuentes et
al., 2010). This perspective was consistent with the literature that proposed young women
give birth because they are poor, and not the other way around (Fuentes et al., 2010).
Powell (1990) states that networks are especially useful for the exchange of
commodities whose value is not easily measured. The commodities in this relationship
have to do with the spirit and philosophy of working with teen parents that asserts that all
students have a right to an education in spite of their parenting status. These commodities
are not easily measured and speak against the hypothesis that administrators and staff
working with teen parents do so to minimize social cost as a result of teenage parenting.
On the contrary administrators and staff seemed to believe that the benefits of their work
with teen parents outweighed financial or transaction cost to sustain the partnership. They
framed their work in terms of social gains and benefits as a result of helping teen parents
complete high school.
The process of answering Research Question 2 involved exploring what school
administrators think are the services that teen parents need to complete high school and
which of these services they think their staff can provide in-house. When responding to
the question, administrators then identified the services they could provide in-house. The
analysis of the data revealed two themes: school-based child care and counseling are
needs for parenting teens to help them complete high school.
72
Child care and counseling. The findings revealed that school administrators fell
back to their expertise and training to decide what services to provide in-house and what
services to outsource to a community partner. The high school and the child-care staff
also reported that these services needed to be school based. The high school
administrators identified that they are experts in teaching and learning and the child-care
providers reported that they are experts in child care. Everyone involved viewed the teen
parents as whole individuals with multifaceted needs that are affecting their ability to go
to school. The high school administrators spoke about their students as parents, and the
child-care providers saw the parenting teens as students.
The participants identified counseling as a need for parenting teens because it
helps guide, motivate, and monitor their academic progress. Basch (2011) found that
parenting teens are 10-12% less likely to complete high school and have 14-29% lower
odds of attending college. School-based counseling and child-care have had positive
effects on helping teen parents stay in school (Crean et al., 2001; Sadler et al., 2007). Cal-
SAFE also demonstrated that teen parents connected to Cal-SAFE services that include
child-care and counseling complete high school at a rate of 73%. This rate supports the
professional instincts narrated by the staff of both organizations working with teen
parents. They understood that counseling and childcare help teen parents complete high
school and subsequently may contribute to their perception that this partnership is
necessary and sustainable beyond the perceived financial cost.
The process of answering Research Question 3 involved examining the factors
that led up to vendor selection to understand why the high school administrators
73
partnered with the child-care provider. The major theme that surfaced during the analysis
of the data was location and proximity. Leaders of both organizations identified that the
major reason they collaborated with each other is they are across the street from each
other.
Location and proximity. The theme speaks to the idea of a strategic partnership
as discussed in the literature review. A strategic partnership is a formal alliance between
two organizations that each has a specific asset (Tutorials Point, 2012). In this case, the
child-care provider provided child care to children of teen parents and the high school
provided a steady flow of teen parents who needed child care. Leaders of both
organizations use each other’s assets to make them stronger. For example, the high
school leaders are able to meet the needs of their parenting students by assuring these
students that they have access to child-care. The child-care provider is able to continue
services that sustain their organization because they have easy access to parenting teens
that need child-care.
The process of answering Research Question 4 involved investigating the
transaction cost and benefits for the firm and the vendor. This involved looking at the
costs and the benefits as perceived by the staff members who engage in the daily work to
keep teen parents in school. The theme that emerged from the analysis was the high
school benefits from this partnership in two ways. The transaction costs for the high
school to sustain this partnership are minimal and the child-care provider is an expert
partner who demonstrates outcomes by keeping teen parents in school.
74
High school benefits from partnership. The high school does not have an
identified staff member who oversees a school-wide teen parent program or case manages
the students who use child-care services. The child-care provider used to have a nurse, a
social worker, and an attendance counselor who provided case management, nutrition,
and health screenings and tracked and monitored attendance for the high school. The
child-care provider cut these support services 3 years ago due to statewide budget cuts.
However, the teachers and staff at the child-care provider continue to routinely monitor
the teen parents’ attendance and grades. They also provide academic guidance,
motivation to continue coming to school, parenting education, and referrals to support
services. That is not to say that the teen parents do not receive these similar services at
the high school through their own counselors and school nurses. But in this case, both
organizations share the same vision of helping teen parents graduate from high school
and both parties in this partnership reinforce a common message to teen parents.
I initially hypothesized that the perceived organizational advantages of
outsourcing may be that school district leaders do not have to supervise staff, manage
facilities, or train staff. The perceived disadvantages would be that school district leaders
will compromise quality of service for quantity when they contract out for services. This
study revealed that one benefit is that the high school staff did not need to supervise or
train staff to work with teen parents and their children. The staff members at the child-
care center have their own principal and received training to work with teen parents.
Another finding was that the high school staff does not compromise quality of service by
outsourcing child-care needs to the child-care provider. The child-care provider had a
75
history of over 30 years of providing child care in the community and had training to
implement best practices of early childhood education.
Limitations
External validity was a limitation of this study due to the single site and small
number of participants who agreed to participate. I approached two high school
administrators, two high school counselors and another child-care provider administrator
to participate in this study but they declined the invitation. The high school staff reported
they had no information to contribute to the topic of teen parents at their school. A study
that includes other high school sites collaborating with child-care providers will lend
more validity to a study about outsourcing child-care to help teen parents stay in school.
Access to the location was also a limitation of this study due to the strict rules
about conducting research in the school district that the child-care provider belongs too. I
submitted a proposal for research in April of 2013 and was finally approved for research
four months later in August of 2013. I submitted five iterations of the proposal and
submitted to an over the phone interview by the school district’s research proposal
committee before this study was approved. This extended process delayed the data
collection timeline. I intended to schedule the participant interviews during the summer
when they were least busy and more likely to participate. Instead, I had to approach
participants during the beginning of the school year when they were busiest with the start
of the new school year. In fact two counselors and one principal declined to participate
citing that they were very busy at this time of the year.
76
A possible reason for the reluctance to participate may lie in the history of the
relationship between the charter high school and the school district that the childcare
provider belongs too. In 2008 the charter organization took over the high school in what
was known to be the first “hostile takeover” of a public high school by a charter school
organization. The school district declined the charter school organization’s request to take
over the high school. They subsequently turned to the community for support to take the
school over. Consequently this high school received a lot of news coverage and publicity
regarding the take over and subsequent academic results of this intervention.
It is logical to assume that the administration and staff may have been frequently
approached with requests for research or interviews regarding the high school’s
conversion into a charter school model. Perhaps my request for access to conduct
research was seen as an attempt to scrutinize a charter school model as opposed to the
original intent of the research. The socio-political context of an educational institution
affects how outsiders are perceived. This researcher imposes no judgment on potential
participants decisions to participate or not in a study. It is important to note the context
and/or moment in time that the study takes place and how this affected the results of the
study.
Implications
The following implications arose from the analysis of the data. The implications
are bound to the limitations of this qualitative study that involved looking at the
partnership between one high school and one child-care provider. The implications
77
enumerated in this section apply to this partnership but can also apply to other schools
with large populations of parenting teens.
Professional development training for both the high-school and the child-
care providers. Reciprocal training on the missions, goals, and structure of both
organizations will facilitate mutual understanding of the partnership. Both organizations
have recently experienced a reorganization of staff and resources. One of the limitations
of this study was as a result of administrators reporting that they did not have anything to
contribute on the topic. Training will be critical for the staff members of both
organizations who work with teen parents so that staff will be more informed about
services available to this population; especially since this high school is located in an area
of the city with a high teen live birth rate. I would hypothesize that many staff members
at high schools in this area are not knowledgeable about issues surrounding the
educational challenges of teen parents.
Professional development training should include the following topics: Cal-
SAFE, best practices for keeping teen parents in school, and early childhood education.
The Cal-SAFE program is the primary funding source for the child-care provider and
could become a source of funding for the high school. The high school staff should look
into becoming a grantee to fund support programs for teen parents who do not use the
child-care services. Both teams that work with teen parents should receive training on the
most recent information about best practices that keep teen parents in school. The high
school staff members who work with teen parents should also receive training on the
benefits of early childhood education for children. Children of teen parents are a
78
vulnerable population, and access to early childhood education services can have
protective factors that help children thrive and help their parents stay in school (Love,
2002).
Creation of a teen parent program at the high school. School-based
interventions support the academic success of parenting teens by helping them stay
connected and engaged with school (Crean et al., 2001; Sadler et al., 2007). Basch (2011)
proposed that school-based programs such as school-based infant centers have the power
to help teens, pregnant teens, and parenting teens acquire the knowledge and skills
needed to postpone sex, practice safer sex, and avoid unintended pregnancy; to complete
high school; and to pursue postsecondary education. Therefore, the high school should
create a school-based teen parent program that focuses on working with pregnant and
parenting teens. This program should not be stereotyped as a pregnancy prevention
program, instead it should involve working with already pregnant and parenting teens to
help them stay connected to and help them graduate from high school.
Highly skilled staff with experience working with pregnant and parenting teens
should staff the program and provide welcoming environments for pregnant and
parenting teens (Office of Adolescent Health, 2010). Staff should be an interdisciplinary
team of school social workers, school nurses, and attendance counselors. As noted above,
819 births occurred to mothers under the age of 20 years living in the top five zip codes
that feed into the high school under study. Table 1 contains a breakdown of the zip codes.
If only one out of every 10 of these births were to students of the high school under
79
study, then 80 students would be parenting teens for that year alone. That large group of
students would need support to help them stay in school.
Childcare provider should rehire a social worker and nurse. The childcare
provider had a nurse, attendance counselor and a social worker dedicated to work with
their children and their teen parents. These positions were cut in 2011 due to funding
cuts. This interdisciplinary team provided socio-emotional counseling, case management
and health screenings for both children and teen parents. These positions are critical to
the academic success of teen parents and should be rehired.
Look for other child-care providers to replicate model at other sites. In the
likely event that more new resources may not be readily available, one alternative source
of support would be to seek to replicate the model nearby. The high school staff need to
look for other partners to provide child care for their teen parents. The current child-care
provider is highly qualified and easily accessible, but can only provide care for 18 infants
and toddlers at one time. This is not enough to meet the needs of pregnant and parenting
teens in the area. The following three child care providers provide Early Head Start
services such as child-care to children ages 0 to 3 years old and are within a 5-mile radius
of the high school. These organizations are viable options for parenting teens to consider
for child-care while they go back to school.
1. Kedren Early Head Start
710 E 111th Pl
Los Angeles CA, 90059
Distance: 2.77 miles
(323) 777-1411

2. Mary B. Henry Center
1656 E 118th St
80
Los Angeles CA, 90059
Distance: 3.26 miles
(213) 807-1800

3. El Nido Family Centers Early Head Start
2152 W Manchester Ave
Los Angeles CA, 90047
Distance: 4.04 miles
(323) 971-7360

Issues raised by the study
The analysis of the research revealed two sets of issues about which further
research could contribute much to our understanding of the problem. The following
issues revealed two research questions that merit further inquiry.
Further research is necessary to understand how generating partnerships with
support services such as child care helps parenting teens stay in school. The first
recommendation is to conduct further research at different sites concerning the first
research question of the study, since this was an exploratory study that looked at one
partnership using a TCE lense. Other high schools in Los Angeles are outsourcing their
child-care needs to partners in the community which makes them good candidates to be
researched and studied. New Village Charter Academy in Los Angeles partners with St.
John’s Well Child and Family Center to provide child-care for their teen parents. Los
Angeles County had 11, 677 teens give birth in 2010. Those teens face challenges to stay
in school because of their parenting status. TCE proposes that administrators will try to
reduce their transaction cost, but partnerships with community organizations can help
mitigate the transaction cost of providing school-based child-care and the transaction cost
of helping teen parents stay in school.
81
The second issue that emerged points to the question about how staff training
needs link to performance gaps in service to teen parents. Many potential participants
declined to participate in this study because they reported they had nothing to contribute
about the topic of parenting teens. If this was indeed the reason for the refusal to
participate then it speaks to staff’s lack of knowledge about this population. This
uncovers a need for staff training and education regarding the educational challenge of
working with teen parents to help them stay in school. Research is necessary to uncover
whether a lack of education among administrators and staff about what works for teen
parents contributes to the low high school retention rates for this population.
Furthermore, a gap analysis would be an interesting project to identify the gaps in
services for teen parents. A knowledge and resources gap might prevent the educational
organization from providing services to more teen parents.
Summary
The focus of this exploratory study was on the partnership between a high school
and a child-care provider to analyze the transaction costs and benefits of outsourcing
child-care services to help teen parents to complete high school. The qualitative
exploratory study included a TCE conceptual framework to explore costs when the high
school enters into a partnership with an outside vendor to provide support services for
teen parents (Williamson, 2008). The study included advantages of outsourcing support
services for teen parents to help them graduate from high school.
The findings of this study revealed that asset specificity was a major reason that
the high school staff entered into a partnership with the child-care provider. The strategic
82
partnership between both organizations allowed them to leverage each other’s strengths
to provide a service that helps teen parents stay in school. Both the high school staff [and
the child-care provider viewed school-based counseling and child-care as the most
important services needed to help teen parents stay in school. Both partners felt confident
in their expertise and ability to provide to provide these services and expressed
confidence in their partnership. This perception about the value of the services led to a
belief that the benefits of sustaining the partnership outweighed the cost.
The staff at both organizations essentially believed in the work of helping teen
parents stay in school. This study was not about teen pregnancy prevention; instead it
involved studying school-based interventions that help teen parents graduate from high
school. A teen parent does not lose the inherent right to a high-quality education because
they choose to give birth. They are entitled to the same supports that other students
receive when life stressors affect their ability to learn. This study involved describing a
partnership between two organizations whose leaders are working to help parenting
students stay in school. In 2010, Los Angeles County had 11,677 live births to mothers
under 20 years old. Education leaders need to meet the educational needs of this teen
population. Researchers should replicate the model described in this qualitative
exploratory study at other high schools in communities with high rates of teen pregnancy.
This case is informative because it contributes to the knowledge gap about how to
develop school based interventions that help teen parents stay in school. The research of
the literature identifies school based interventions such as child-care help teen parents
stay in school (Basch, 2011; Crean et al., 2001). Using a TCE framework, this case in
83
particular was a suitable partnership to study because the child-care provider and the high
school have a long standing relationship to help teen parents stay in school. The area in
which this partnership is working also has a high rate of teen live births. As stated above
819 teens gave birth in 2010 in the five zipcodes that feed into this high school. The need
is real and the partnership helps address this need for childcare in this area.
This also why this partnership is important and should be replicated at other sites.
There is only one infant care provider in the area that provides child care services to
children of teen parents. This child-care provider is also an expert in their field with over
30 years of history serving the South Los Angeles community. There is no other high
school in the area that meets their parenting students needs in that way. The information
gathered in this study informs administrations about partnerships that remove barriers to
school attendance and help teen parents stay in school. For example, the findings of this
study revealed that identifying a childcare partner that is close in proximity, is an expert
in the field of early childhood education and that shares the same vision of helping teen
parents graduate from high school reduces transaction cost for high schools. These
partnerships are easier to sustain and lead to positive graduation outcomes for high school
students.

84

85
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Appendix A: High School Administrator Interview Guide
Contracting for Educational Excellence: Teen Parents
Charter Interviewer: Veronica Obregon
Interviewee: Date/Time:
Title:

Introduction
Thanks again for taking the time to speak with me this morning/afternoon. Before we
start, I’d like to provide a little background on our work, and answer any questions you
might have for me.
Contracting for Educational Excellence
As you know, I am a student at the Rossier School of Education at the University of
Southern California. I am studying how outsourcing childcare services helps teen parents
complete high school but more specifically how the decisions and strategies school
administrators make help teen parents stay in school. This exploratory study is taking
place at one high school site because of its unique position across the street from The
Charter High School
Privacy
Thank you again for allowing me to record this interview. As a reminder, everything that
is said today will remain completely confidential. No one from the district will ever hear
the recording or see the notes I am taking, and I won’t discuss what I hear today with
91
anyone else outside of the research team. Only the research team at USC will listen to the
recording.

We will never identify you or use your name. However, the name of your school may be
identified in our reports. So now that we’ve gone over the confidential nature of this
interview, I am going to turn on the recorder and ask you to state your name, your school,
and that you agree to be recorded.
Also, you should know that your participation is voluntary, and you do not have to
respond to any questions you do not want too. Please let us know at any time if you
would prefer not to participate.
Recording
If you don’t mind, I would like to record this interview simply for note-taking purposes.
No one outside of our research team will hear the recording, it would just be for my own
reference. If you would like me to turn off the recorder at any point, just let me know.
Would that be OK?
Do you have any questions before we begin?

Note to interviewer: Throughout the interview, possible probes are set aside following each general
question. Asking these questions may help to move the interview pace or may prompt a less talkative
respondent. However, do not feel you need to ask each of these probes (except where noted) it
is likely that the respondents will cover many of these issues when responding to your initial inquiry.
Keep the tone conversational and comfortable.
92

HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATOR
Background
1. Please tell me about your background in education (career trajectory)?
a. How did you come to be a principal at this school?
2. I want to follow by asking you to tell me about your role at this school.
a. Why do you think your work as a principal is important at this school?
3. What is your main priority as principal at a school like this?
Perceptions about need, value and cost
4. What is your belief about educating young women who choose to parent?
5. What services do you think teen mothers need to help them complete high school?
6. Which of those services do you think can be provide by your staff? And why?
a. Which of these services do you think are beyond the scope of your staff?
7. What advantages does your school get by outsourcing childcare services?
b. What are some disadvantages to outsourcing childcare services?
Network
93
8. Do you know the principal at The Early Education Center?
9. Do you think it is the school’s responsibility to put systems into place to help
parenting teens complete high school? (child-care, programming,
accommodations, case management etc..)
10. Do the high school and the child care provider have a communication strategy to
case manage the students that are using both of their services?
a. Does the school have an identified staff member to work with teen
parents?
11. Would you like to share any other ideas about the value you place on educating
young women?

94
Appendix B: Childcare Center Principal Interview Guide
Contracting for Educational Excellence: Teen Parents
Childcare Center Interviewer: Veronica Obregon
Interviewee: Date/Time:
Title:

Introduction
Thanks again for taking the time to speak with me this morning/afternoon. Before we
start, I’d like to provide a little background on our work, and answer any questions you
might have for me.
Contracting for Educational Excellence
As you know, I am a student at the Rossier School of Education at the University of
Southern California. I am studying how outsourcing childcare services helps teen parents
complete high school but more specifically how the decisions and strategies school
administrators make help teen parents stay in school. This exploratory study is taking
place at one high school site because of its unique position across the street from The
Charter High School
Privacy
Thank you again for allowing me to record this interview. As a reminder, everything that
is said today will remain completely confidential. No one from the district will ever hear
the recording or see the notes I am taking, and I won’t discuss what I hear today with
95
anyone else outside of the research team. Only the research team at USC will listen to the
recording.

We will never identify you or use your name. However, the name of your school may be
identified in our reports. So now that we’ve gone over the confidential nature of this
interview, I am going to turn on the recorder and ask you to state your name, your school,
and that you agree to be recorded.
Also, you should know that your participation is voluntary, and you do not have to
respond to any questions you do not want too. Please let us know at any time if you
would prefer not to participate.
Recording
If you don’t mind, I would like to record this interview simply for note-taking purposes.
No one outside of our research team would hear the tape, it would just be for my own
reference. If you would like me to turn off the recorder at any point, just let me know.
Would that be OK?
Do you have any questions before we begin?

THE CHILDCARE CENTER PRINCIPAL
Note to interviewer: Throughout the interview, possible probes are set aside following each general
question. Asking these questions may help to move the interview pace or may prompt a less talkative
respondent. However, do not feel you need to ask each of these probes (except where noted) it
is likely that the respondents will cover many of these issues when responding to your initial inquiry.
Keep the tone conversational and comfortable.
96
Background
1. Please tell me about your background in early childhood education-or as an educator?
2. How did you come to be a director at this early education center?
3. I want to follow by asking you to tell me about your role at this school. Why do you
think your work as a director is important at this school but specifically as the
principal of the Childcare center?
4. What is your main priority as a director at a center like this that serves teen parents?
Perceptions about need of services and value of these services
5. What is your belief about educating young women who choose to parent?
6. What services do you think teen mothers need to help them complete high school?
7. Which of those services do you think can be provided by your staff? And why?
a. Which of these services do you think are beyond the scope of your staff?
8. What advantages does your school get by providing child-care services to the high
school?
a. What are some disadvantages to providing childcare services to this
school?
Network
9. Do you think it is the center’s responsibility to provide extra supports for children of
teen parents? (extra supports examples: more patience, help with tummy time, more
attachment/nurturing time [holding, hugging], frequent parent conferences, parent
education)
97
10. Do the high school and the child care provider have a communication strategy to case
manage the students that are using both of their services? (If so: Can you describe it?)
11. Why does the Childcare center collaborate with the high school?
a. How does the Childcare center benefit from this partnership?
b. What are some costs to working with the high school?
12. Would you like to share any other ideas or feelings about educating young women
and/or providing childcare to young families?

98
Appendix C: Head Teacher Interview Guide
Contracting for Educational Excellence: Teen Parents
Childcare Center Interviewer: Veronica Obregon
Interviewee: Date/Time:
Title:

Introduction
Thanks again for taking the time to speak with me this morning/afternoon. Before we
start, I’d like to provide a little background on our work, and answer any questions you
might have for me.
Contracting for Educational Excellence
As you know, I am a student at the Rossier School of Education at the University of
Southern California. I am studying how outsourcing childcare services helps teen parents
complete high school but more specifically how the decisions and strategies school
administrators make help teen parents stay in school. This exploratory study is taking
place at one high school site because of its unique position across the street from The
Charter High School
Privacy
Thank you again for allowing me to record this interview. As a reminder, everything that
is said today will remain completely confidential. No one from the district will ever hear
the recording or see the notes I am taking, and I won’t discuss what I hear today with
99
anyone else outside of the research team. Only the research team at USC will listen to the
recording.
We will never identify you or use your name. However, the name of your school may be
identified in our reports. So now that we’ve gone over the confidential nature of this
interview, I am going to turn on the recorder and ask you to state your name, your school,
and that you agree to be recorded.
Also, you should know that your participation is voluntary, and you do not have to
respond to any questions you do not want too. Please let us know at any time if you
would prefer not to participate.
Recording
If you don’t mind, I would like to record this interview simply for note-taking purposes.
No one outside of our research team would hear the tape, it would just be for my own
reference. If you would like me to turn off the recorder at any point, just let me know.
Would that be OK?
Do you have any questions before we begin?

Note to interviewer: Throughout the interview, possible probes are set aside following each general
question. Asking these questions may help to move the interview pace or may prompt a less talkative
respondent. However, do not feel you need to ask each of these probes (except where noted) it
is likely that the respondents will cover many of these issues when responding to your initial inquiry.
Keep the tone conversational and comfortable.
THE CHILDCARE CENTER HEAD TEACHER
Background
1. Please tell me about your background in early childhood education or as a
teacher?
2. How did you come to be a head teacher at this early education center?
3. I want to follow by asking you to tell me about your role at this school. Why do
you think your role as a head teacher is important at this school that works with
the children of teen parents?
4. What is your main priority as a head teacher: working with the children, the teen
parent or both?
Perceptions about need of services and value of these services
5. What is your belief about educating young women who choose to parent?
6. What services do you think teen mothers need to help them complete high school?
7. Which of those services do you think can be provided by the staff? And why?
a. Which of these services do you think are beyond the scope of your staff?
8. What advantages does your school get by providing child-care services to the high
school?
a. What are some disadvantages to providing childcare services to this
school?
Network
101
9. Do you think it is the center’s responsibility to provide extra supports for children
of teen parents? (extra supports examples: more patience, help with tummy time,
more attachment/nurturing time [holding, hugging], frequent parent conferences,
parent education)
10. Do the high school and the child care provider have a communication strategy to
case manage the students that are using both of their services? (If so: Can you
describe it?)
11. Why does the Childcare center collaborate with the high school?
a. How does the Childcare center benefit from this partnership?
b. What are some challenges about working with the high school?
12. Would you like to share any other ideas or feelings about educating young women
and/or providing childcare to young families?

102
Appendix D: Archive Review Rubric
Archive Review Rubric
The researcher will utilize this rubric to help guide the review of the contract
between the high school and the childcare provider. This rubric will help guide the
reviewer by assuring that certain points are identified that will help answer research
questions four. This research question asks about the organizational advantages and
disadvantages of the partnerships. The rubric will not confine the reviewer to look for
only these points. The reviewer will have the discretion to note any other observations
that come up and are relevant to the research.
103
History of Document
6. Is there a previous version?

7. Is Document Complete?

8. Has it been tampered or edited?

Identifying information
9. Who is the author/authors?

10. For whom was the document intended?

11. Who signed it

12. Dates on contract

13. Expiration Date

Terms of Contract
14. Who gives what and who gets what?

15. What does the High School expect to get
from the relationship?

16. How are the outsourced services integrated
within their operations?

17. How does the firm monitor the relationship
with the vendor and what it does? Vice
versa?

104
18. What are the characteristics of the service
provided by the vendor that makes it a
“good” (or “bad”) decision for the firm to
contract for it?

Comments:

Abstract (if available)

Abstract This exploratory study will use Transaction Cost Economics to explore the contractual relationship between a high school and a childcare provider to examine how educational institutions make decisions about outsourcing services to help teen parents to graduate from high school. Educational institutions find it challenging to keep teen parents in school and to help them to graduate from high school because they may not have the resources and skills to support these students. A qualitative design will be used to describe the relationship between the high school and the child-care provider. The high school and child-care staff will be interviewed to collect data relevant to the decisions to outsource. A record review will also be conducted to understand the cost and the benefits incurred in this relationship. Data will be analyzed to uncover themes and connections that speak to Transaction Cost Economics.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Obregón, Verónica (author)

Core Title Teen parents: outsourcing childcare to keep them connected and engaged in school

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Education

Publication Date 09/16/2014

Defense Date 05/23/2014

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag childcare,High School,OAI-PMH Harvest,outsourcing,parenting students,teen moms,teen parents,Transaction Cost Economics

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Hentschke, Guilbert C. (committee chair), Burch, Patricia E. (committee member), Strunk, Katharine O. (committee member)

Creator Email laverito2@sbcglobal.net,veronica.obregonusc@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-478307

Unique identifier UC11287052

Identifier etd-ObregonVer-2945.pdf (filename),usctheses-c3-478307 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-ObregonVer-2945.pdf

Dmrecord 478307

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Obregón, Verónica; Obregon, Veronica

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA