(AFP) – Jun 20, 2008

GLOUCESTER, Massachusetts (AFP) — Locals in this small seaside town on the Atlantic coast are used to drawing attention to themselves by the size of their fishing catch or the rugged beauty of Goodharbor Beach.

But this week, Gloucester, one of the oldest towns in the United States, was thrust into the spotlight for an entirely different reason, as it emerged that a sizeable group of teenage girls from the town's high school had fallen pregnant -- many of them after reportedly making a pact to do so.

Education officials first noticed something was amiss when a group of girls went to the clinic at Gloucester High School for "repeated pregnancy tests," schools superintendent Christopher Farmer told Fox News in an interview Friday.

"When they became pregnant, they appeared to believe that was a satisfactory outcome for their behavior," he said.

Media reports on Friday said 18 girls at Gloucester High School are expecting babies.

"Certainly, it is far more than the norm," said Farmer.

On Thursday, the principal of Gloucester High, Joseph Sullivan, was quoted by Time Magazine, which broke the story this week on the national and international stage, as saying nearly half the expectant girls, none older than 16, had "confessed to making a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together."

"The idea of a pact has been blown out of proportion," Greg Verga, a member of Gloucester High's board, told AFP Friday.

"I heard no talk of a pact until I read the article in Time. The mayor of Gloucester, Carolyn Kirk, and the principal of the school... think the Time article misrepresents the facts," he added.

A journalist at Gloucester's local newspaper said the story of a spike in teen pregnancies had been doing the rounds in the town for months.

"We learned of the pregnancies in March," another school board member, Amy-Beth Healey, said.

"We checked it out to see if it was true and then the mayor set up a working group which will advise us on the appropriate reaction and measures we should take in the high school and in the day care facility at the school," she said.

Farmer said education officials were grappling to "try to understand the situation" and assured that a "measured response" would be taken.

For the moment, however, the lingering question remains: why?

What drove a dozen American high school girls to become teen mothers?

Farmer speculated that the young women were seeking to fill an emotional void in their lives.

"The general theory is that these are young women who have poor self-esteem. They do not have a lot of affection in their lives and, at the same time, they believe they will gain some affection by having a baby," Farmer said.

Another theory, put forward by Time Magazine, is that Gloucester High "has done perhaps too good a job of embracing young mothers," providing them with on-site childcare and healthcare facilities.

Farmer dismissed that theory outright.

"I don't believe that. Young women don't make a decision to have a baby based on what care facilities there are," he said.

A worker at a local McDonald's restaurant told AFP the scandal has shaken the quiet fishing community to the core.

"It's shameful. These kids aren't watched by their parents," the worker, who asked not to be named, said.

"We close at 11:00 pm and the kids stay in the parking lot until two, three in the morning. You can't blame the school for what happened. Where are their parents?" he added.

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