After pregnancy pact controversy, contraception policy mulled at Gloucester High
By Steven Rosenberg, Globe Staff
More than three months after a pregnancy scandal rocked Gloucester, the city’s School Committee issued a set of options Tuesday that will be used in helping to formulate a new policy to deal with teenage pregnancy.
 Mayor Carolyn Kirk |
A key question will be whether or not contraception should be distributed to high school students at the school’s health clinic. The board will consider three possibilities: providing contraception to students without parental approval; providing contraception with parental consent, or not changing the current policy, which does not allow contraception to distributed at the school.
The final School Committee vote on the district’s teenage pregnancy policy is expected to take place as early as Oct. 8. School Committee Chairman Greg Verga said two special School Committee meetings will be held Oct. 1 and 2 at 6 p.m. at City Hall to hear from the public on the matter.
In June, Time magazine reported that several of the 18 teenage girls who had become pregnant during the year had entered into a pregnancy pact. Later that month, Mayor Carolyn Kirk contested that report and said a city investigation found no evidence of a pact.
The School Committee had begun debate on the matter earlier in the spring, after the resignation of the school’s health clinic director, Dr. Brian Orr. Orr quit because he opposed the district's policy of not allowing contraception to be distributed at the clinic.
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