An elementary school in Goddard, Kansas is experiencing a baby boom.
Seven of the 15 classroom teachers at Oak Street Elementary School are expecting. One of the women is pregnant with twins.
“To me, it just becomes comical because like it was a lot when there were three of us and then there were four of us and then there were five of us and then there were seven of us, so it just kind of became funny to me at that point,“ said fourth grade teacher Tara Johnson.
Johnson, who is due April 10, was the second teacher to notify her boss about her pregnancy. She said after the seventh teacher, Tiffany Schmidt, announced she was also expecting, the jokes started flooding in.
“Don’t drink the water. That’s the biggest one,” Johnson laughed.
“When I actually went in to tell her, I’m like, ‘By the way, I drank the water’ and she’s like, ‘What?’ I go, ‘I drank the water!’ She’s like, ‘You are number seven’ and she is like leaning over her desk, and she’s like, ‘Oh my gosh. When are you due?‘“ said third grade teacher Tiffany Schmidt.
The school’s principal vividly remembers the interaction.
“I was sitting down at my computer, and I had turned around and said to her, ‘Are you kidding me?’ Then, I had to tell her congratulations,“ laughed Oak Street Principal Ashley Miller.
Miller said she has never experienced a baby boom of this magnitude in her years with the district.
“What we really need right now is a sponsorship from like Pampers or Huggies or somebody,“ Miller said.
Kidding aside, the women are grateful to be on the journey to motherhood together.
“One of the things the Goddard School District talks about a lot is being one big family. That’s one of the things that they really push and really strive for and so this kind of proves it,“ said fourth grade teacher and mom-to-be Kelli Jo Sheahon.
“To be experiencing life at the same time with these ladies I love so much already is really, really cool and it’s a really fun experience,“ Johnson said.
Sheahon is expecting twins. If all goes as planned, the school will welcome eight babies into the world in 2019. Three of them are girls. One is a boy. The other teachers are still waiting to find out the gender of their babies.
The women’s due dates range from late March to early October.
The principal said she already has long-term substitutes to fill the positions while the women are on maternity leave. She jokingly added it might be a good investment to add a nursery at the school.
