The principal of a Massachusetts high school who said a group of students deliberately got pregnant defended his assertion Thursday, saying his information "was and is accurate." Gloucester High School principal Joseph Sullivan released a statement last night, one week after Time magazine’s flaring report on a presumed pregnancy pact put the city under the international media spotlight.

In his initial public statement since the dispute broke out earlier this month, Sullivan said he does not specifically recall using the word "pact" but does not argue it.

He said the reporter from Time magazine asked him if access to birth control through the school's health center would have precluded the rapid increase of pregnancies — 17 last year, compared with the classical four.

"I told her no, because my sources had informed me that a significant number of the pregnancies, especially among the younger students, were the result of deliberate and intentional behavior," Sullivan said.

He mentioned his only direct source of information about the intentional pregnancies was the former nurse practitioner at the health center. In addition, he told of hearing "verbal staff reports and student/staff chatter."

Sullivan said school officials had asked him not to go publicly with the story. Nevertheless, the principal released a three-page statement on Thursday "to put to rest the notion that I am “foggy in my memory” or that when pressed, “my memory failed.”

He was referring to previous comments made by Carolyn Kirk, the mayor of this isolated fishing community 30 miles north of Boston. Kirk has said there is no evidence of such a pact and that Sullivan could not remember the source of his information.

Sullivan's statement was first made known in the online version of his hometown newspaper, the Gloucester Daily Times, as confirmed to The Associated Press by his attorney.