Vincent Feli Boy’s Blog

No one seems to know for sure whether all those high school girls in Gloucester, Mass., had a secret pregnancy pact. But “The Secret Life of the American Teenager” must surely be the collective effort of an anti-pregnancy cabal.

This cautionary series, which begins Tuesday on ABC Family, woodenly follows the trials of a 15-year-old named Amy (Shailene Woodley), a good student and dutiful daughter who becomes pregnant the first time she has sex. “I didn’t exactly realize what was happening until like after two seconds, and then it was over,” Amy tells her two best friends. Her friends tell her she has options, but abortion is apparently not one of them; that choice is dismissed right away in horrified tones. The despairing Amy does not even know the baby’s father well enough to tell him, and he probably wouldn’t care; he’s a cad in the high school band who sleeps with as many girls as he can because, viewers quickly learn, he has low self-esteem.

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A Massachusetts high school is facing a pregnancy boom with 17 girls entering summer vacation expecting babies in what some have called a pregnancy pact. Officials at Gloucester High School in Gloucester, Mass., are investigating whether half of the teens made a pact to get pregnant during the school year, Time.com reported. Officials said that beginning last fall a large group of girls started asking the school clinic for pregnancy tests, the site said.

“Some girls seemed more upset when they weren’t pregnant than when they were,” principal Joseph Sullivan told Time.com. The pregnancy rate at the 1,200-student school is four times higher than the previous year, and officials were shocked to learn that men in their 20s had fathered some of the babies, Time.com said. “We found out one of the fathers is a 24-year-old homeless guy,” Sullivan told Time.com. The Gloucester baby boom is forcing this city of 30,000 to grapple with the question of providing easier access to birth control, something this largely Catholic enclave is slow to embrace, the site said.

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“I actually like the dress. Everybody else likes my dress,” Ms. Taylor said as she showed it off to a KHOU-TV reporter on Friday afternoon. Madison High’s prom took place at the Sugar Land Marriott, but Ms. Taylor got only as far as the lobby.

When she tried to enter the ballroom, she was told her outfit violated a school dress code. “She shook her head, she was like, ‘You are not getting into this prom,’” Ms. Taylor said. “We were arguing back and forth because I wanted to know why I can’t get into my prom.

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David Nanninga grew up in the tiny town of Mineral hearing his grandparents and parents reminisce about their experiences at Mineral High School. But by the time Nanninga was a teenager, the school in Mineral - about 40 miles east of the Quad Cities - had long been closed. He was bused to the nearby town of Annawan and played for a basketball team representing several towns, never getting to wear his hometown Leopards’ jersey. So Nanninga has created a Web site to serve as a tribute to places like his alma mater and other high schools that exist only in the memories of their alumni.

On the Illinois High School Glory Days site, http://www.illinoishsglorydays.com, visitors can browse through entries for more than 900 schools. “These schools are a very important part of Illinois history, and to see them be forgotten would be a shame,” said Nanninga, of Chicago, whose full-time job is as an Illinois State Police lieutenant. Nanninga, 46, created the site more than three years ago.

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Students around the country won’t be speaking up this Friday. The “Day of Silence,” sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), is honoring Lawrence “Larry” King, a 15-year-old gay teen who was shot and killed in his Oxnard, Calif., classroom in February. Students from more than 6,500 schools have registered with GLSEN to participate.

To show support for hate crime victims, they’ll remain quiet throughout the day. The annual event gained new visibility with a celebrity endorsement. “What are you going to do to end the silence?” gay singer Lance Bass asked in a public service announcement released last week. “Whoever they are, whatever their backgrounds or beliefs, these students will take action because they believe that the bullying and harassment must end.

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