When Emerson School physical education teacher Tammy Henderson gave birth to Jacob last fall, she had no intention of being a trendsetter.
But that’s exactly what she became at Emerson, 400 N. West Ave., where seven other women staffers welcomed eight more baby boys within 10 months. While a cluster of pregnancies in the same year isn’t all that unusual in a profession populated mostly by women, few would call the births of nine baby boys in nearly as many months mundane.
Former Principal Jill Weininger, whose son, Gabriel, was born last spring while she still held her post at Emerson, said the male births at the school surprised everyone.
“After a while, it became a joke,” Weininger said Monday in Emerson’s library during a small reunion for the mothers. “No one could believe that we were all having boys.”
“Everyone keeps saying there’s something in the water,” said 3rd-grade teacher Julie Siebel as she held son Charles.
Whatever the cause, the birth trend at Emerson made its arrival known swiftly. After Jacob arrived in November 1996, school secretary Linda Wilkie gave birth to Zachary in February; Nicholas was born to former 2nd grade teacher Andrea Jacobs in March; Siebel welcomed Charles in April; Weininger had Gabriel in May; 2nd grade teacher Sandy Wenig gave birth to Colton in June; art teacher Julie DeSalvo had twins Christopher and Jacob in August and preschool teacher Kris Alvarado welcomed Kyle in September.
The teachers and staff say they would like to see a local day-care provider offer special day-care plans. “As a teacher, you really only need day care until 3 p.m. on school days, and none on holidays or in the summer, but there are no day-care programs that really follow the school schedule,” Henderson said.
In the meantime, when stress starts to build, several mothers said, they just look at the lighter side of things.
“We’ve got our own baseball team going,” Siebel said.