Remember that "pregnancy pact" we told you about last week that was reportedly sealed by eight pregnant teens at Gloucester High School in Gloucester, Massachusetts? The story, broken by Time magazine, made international news and brought the topic of teen pregnancy into sharp focus during the same week that 17-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears gave birth to her first child.
Now, after the world's attention was focused on the small, predominantly Catholic fishing town, school officials are casting doubt on the claim made by the school's principal that the girls banded together and planned to get pregnant and raise the babies together. School Committee Chairman Greg Verga told the Boston Herald on Monday (June 26) that Principal Joseph Sullivan is the only person who has made the claims that half the expectant teens at Gloucester High planned to get pregnant.
"I'm calling into question the whole pact thing," said Verga, who will be among the officials at a meeting Monday morning with Gloucester Mayor Carolyn Kirk and other city leaders to discuss how to deal with the pregnancy spike at the school. "I have reason to believe that no one has come forward other than the principal, who is saying he heard someone say it. The more logical occurrence is that two or more girls got pregnant and decided to have a pact to stick together from that point on."
Verga told USA Today that the story about the alleged pact had gotten out of control in the month since a local newspaper reported on the spike in pregnancies at the school and the resignation of the doctor and nurse who ran the school's health clinic.
The fourfold increase in pregnancies at Gloucester High — there were four the previous year — shocked parents and officials in the town, but Mayor Kirk told The Associated Press over the weekend that school counselors, teachers and the girls' families have not found an independent confirmation of the principal's claims. Sullivan has since told city officials that he cannot remember who his source was for the tale of the pact.
Sullivan is on vacation and was not expected to be at Monday's meeting.
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