[MUSIC PLAYING] CARMEN TELLES-FOX: She had been working at a department store during an early shift, and I remember we had a little talk about how this job wasn't paying her very well, but she thought it was great because it was full-time, it had benefits, and she had all these things. 

ANDREA CHAVEZ: My goal was just basically trying to work, just continue to work. When my home study teacher, Carmen Telles, she mentioned to me about the new program that they had in the medical receptionist training that they offered at the adult school, I was like, well, that's too long. I can't take that much time off of work. I need money now. 

CARMEN TELLES-FOX: I said, Andrea, how long can you do this? I said, this is actually getting your foot in the door to the medical field, and it's a great opportunity, and you're not likely to see another opportunity like this come about very soon. 

ANDREA CHAVEZ: So she just basically kind of opened up my eyes to see, like, no. I have to go back to school. I have to get a better education. 

And that's when I decided-- I went home that day and I talked to my mom about it, and my mom was like, yeah, you can do it. You have me here. The Adult School offers a program where they can watch Christopher. They provide the daycare for you, and they pay for your books. 

So it's like, I had no excuse. I had no excuse at all. Like, OK, I could do this. There's no excuses. I can continue further. 

ROSIE SIERRAS: She always looked into the future. That's something that was so good about her. She always wanted to do what was better for-- what's going to make me better? And now when Christopher came, it was what am I going to do to help me and my son? 

ANDREA CHAVEZ: The Whittier Adult School that I attended was wonderful. I couldn't ask for a better environment. The teachers were very helpful. They had the job assistance, and Debbie Mineau ran that. 

DEBBIE MINEAU: And Andrea did stand out because, number one, her attitude. It just shined through immediately. You saw just the desire to improve herself. She was excited about it. 

She's very reserved, and she's serious, but there was a light in her eyes that you could say, yeah. This is for me. I really want to do this. 

CARMEN TELLES-FOX: And I remember, for the most part, her just being very serious and determined to get things done. There's not always a lot of humor when you have a baby and you're working full-time and you're going to school full-time. It was a tough life, I think. 

ANDREA CHAVEZ: That's a great course, and I would recommend it to anybody. And I have recommended people over there, and they've attended, so it's just wonderful. 

CARMEN TELLES-FOX: It's a very serious program, in a sense, because you're working with children who have children. 

LEONARD RIVERA: What we found out in 1997, '98 is that those students, the teen mothers, were highly motivated to get work. The problem that they were having was that they really couldn't get into job training because of childcare issues, because of a number of other things that if they did not have some type of program that gave them childcare during training and after training, they probably weren't going to be successful. We found, in Andrea's case, in her class especially, we had the highest scores we've ever had in our training programs. Even though the kids were 17 going on 18 years old, their facility to learn was tremendous. 

LORI VALDEZ: Andrea, she just has so much potential. She is a great person. She is our leader within our department right now. 

I would like to promote her in the near future. I think that she has a lot to offer. She can go far, and I hope that others follow in her footsteps. 

ANDREA CHAVEZ: At this point, after completing everything with my education-- I mean, I'm still going further within my education, but all that I have accomplished, I'm able to do more activities with my son, travel with him, go to New York. We went to Hawaii last year. And that's something that I never thought I was going to be able to do. 

And then, so it's just-- it's amazing to look back and say, wow. We did all these things, and the rewards you get from it, it makes me feel so proud of myself and seeing that my son is living a good life. 

[MUSIC PLAYING] 

And we're living a good life, and we're not worrying about it. So I know that I'm set. I'm OK.