GLOUCESTER, Mass. -- The fishing town of Gloucester, Mass., north of Boston, is grappling this week with the news that a number of pregnant teens at the local high school may have become pregnant in order to have their babies together.

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Gloucester is in the spotlight after the high school principal, Joseph Sullivan, told Time magazine that about half of the 17 girls who are pregnant at the high school made a "pact" to get pregnant and then raise their babies together.

Normally there are about four pregnancies a year at the school.

Most of the girls who are pregnant just finished their freshman and sophomore years. Some of the fathers are said to be in their mid-20s, raising questions about statutory rape, according to Gloucester's mayor Carolyn Kirk.

Gloucester residents have been concerned about the alarming number of teen pregnancies this year; but it wasn't until the Time article came out that people knew about the alleged "pact."

One 17-year-old Gloucester teen said she accidentally got pregnant and was not part of any pact.

"I thought it was kind of crazy," Kyla Brown said. She said she wasn't sure she believed the news about girls getting pregnant on purpose, but is wondering about it now.

"There's just so many girls pregnant now, it kind of makes you think," Brown said.

Last month, two officials from the school's health clinic resigned because the hospital they partner with wouldn't allow them to prescribe birth control pills to underage girls without parental consent.

The hospital said it was concerned about potential health complications that could open the hospital up to liability. The hospital administers the state money that funds the clinic

Sullivan told Time that nearly half of the expecting students, none over 16, were involved. Sullivan said students were coming to the school clinic multiple times to get pregnancy tests and "seemed more upset when they weren't pregnant than when they were."

Some of the girls reacted to the news they were pregnant with high fives and plans for baby showers, Sullivan said. One of the fathers "is a 24-year-old homeless guy," Sullivan told the magazine.

School superintendent Chris Farmer said the pregnant girls are generally "girls who lack self-esteem and have a lack of love in their life."

The first reports of the students' apparent plan to get pregnant were in the Gloucester Daily Times in March, when Sullivan said students were reporting that the girls were getting pregnant on purpose.

Sue Todd, the CEO of Pathways for Children, a company that provides an in-school day-care program for teenagers at the school so they can finish their educations after giving birth, told Good Morning America that the town is now looking at the root causes of the teen pregnancy surge.

"We're focusing in on looking at parental responsibility," Todd said, "to stop this from repeating."

The town newspaper reported that the program had only three teen mothers enrolled this spring. Next year eight have applied for the seven available slots in the free program, and there's already a waiting list, according to the Gloucester Daily Times.

The School Committee is expected to vote on a comprehensive policy for limiting teen pregnancy sometime before the beginning of the next school year in September, the paper said.