AP News, March 21st, 2007
A chart in the faculty lounge keeps track of new babies at a northern Utah school. Someone added paper just to keep up. When teacher Trisha Hunt gives birth in June, it will be the 11th baby since January for staff at Thomas Edison Charter School South in Cache County.
"We are running out of substitute teachers," principal Eldon Budge said with a laugh.
Teachers said Budge has been supportive, never showing signs of stress when yet another employee would say, "I have something to tell you."
Kindergarten teacher Michele Heiner started the baby boom on Jan. 3. Hunt, her aide Mandy Powell and special-education aide Anna Dunn will raise the total to 11 by the end of the school year.
At one point, about a quarter of the approximately 40 school employees were pregnant.
"Everybody says it's in the water," Powell said.
Fifth-grade teacher Michelle Yost, who had a boy March 8, hadn't told anyone she was pregnant until a staff meeting in August.
"It was just kind of incredible starting to see the list get longer and longer," she said.
Part-time art teacher Seantae Jackson debunked the theory of something in the water by getting a job at Edison while pregnant.
"It was really weird. I felt like I was at Lamaze," she said.
There have been some light moments: Powell and Hunt, for example, wore the same maternity clothes one day.
Jackson, who had twin boys Jan. 10, enjoyed sharing the experience with students, especially fifth-graders.
"All of the boys would try to get me to name (the babies) after them," she said.
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Information from: The Herald Journal, http://www.hjnews.com
