Crisply clad in school uniforms of blue sweater vests, white shirts and pressed slacks, the fidgety Ciegielski brothers reluctantly flash toothy, twin grins.

Shunning any thought of mischief in the library, the happy-go-lucky 5-year-olds look up from their seats to the towering principal and swing their feet, exposing identical black-and-yellow, Velcro-reinforced Nikes.

They giggle and rub their similarly-styled, closely-cropped hair.

“I’ve noticed just today that Daniel has a freckle on his right check,” Dan Hill points out. “Maybe now I can tell Daniel apart from Matthew.”

If Hill seems a bit puzzled, he may be forgiven. Telling one face from another at Holy Family School is not always easy. The charismatic principal – along with staff, teachers and parents – frequently plays “who’s who?”

Six sets of twins and one set of triplets attend Auburn’s long-established, proud Catholic school. Three sets of new twins arrived this fall, among them Adelle and Rachelle Nkeze, French-speaking 4-year-olds from Cameroon.

Having a few set of twins grace any school is nothing unusual. But for a parochial school with an enrollment of 213 students (prekindergarten to eighth grade) to carry 15 kids with similar, if not identical, features is an anomaly.

“I’ve never seen a school this small have so many sets of twins,” Hill says. “It’s very unusual.”

Confusing?

“For me? Yes. Some I can tell apart, and some I can’t,” said Hill.

Such a task is especially challenging for Barbara Bolanos. The fifth-grade teacher cannot help but see double each school day. She has taught twins in each of the last five years at the school.

This fall she welcomed a new set of twins – Olivia and Jazmine Pope – to join bespectacled triplets Sandy, Maria and Katie Lukes in her classroom of 27 students.

Bolanos doesn’t use any methods or memory tricks to help her tell the kids apart. It takes practice, patience and getting to know their personalities. It goes beyond simply applying name tags to desks.

Bolanos takes it all in stride.

“I can tell everybody (apart) except for Sandy and Maria. They are so identical. They’re such dead-ringers,” she says. “And I’m good at twins, usually.”

Looking for some kind of visual aid, Bolanos recently found one. She noticed that Sandy sports shorter hair these days.

For the twins, sharing the same classroom has certain advantages.

“We help each other with homework,” says Marissa Schuler, who shares the same sixth-grade classroom with sister Aeryn.

One twin’s weakness in a subject might be another’s strength. Jazmine, for instance, performs well at reading and writing. Olivia excels at math and art.

The twins look out for each other.

“He often forgets his book, so he has to borrow mine,” says eighth-grader Elizabeth Cranstoun, looking at her brother, Alex.

“And she charges me a dollar,” he says.

“It’s better than nothing,” Elizabeth shoots back.

As the only brother-sister twin combination to pass through Holy Family School in the last nine years, the Cranstouns are enjoying the ride.

“It’s been an interesting experience,” says Elizabeth, her class’s spiritual coordinator.

“It’s been a unique experience having a twin,” says Alex, the ASB president. “For the most part, we get along fine. But having the same classes, we sometimes annoy each other and get on each other’s nerves.”

Bragging rights, sharing friends and homework, even watching who gets into more trouble are part of the nature of being twins at the same school.

“He picks on me whenever I step out of line,” says seventh-grader Isaac Ipsen, motioning to his brother, Andrew.

“(I’m) scrawny, (he’s) brawny – and that’s how it will always be.”

Andrew pauses, then adds:

“I have someone to blame all my troubles on.”

This house of many twins has its share of challenges, but the school and its staff keep the peculiarity all in perspective.

“It’s an interesting phenomenon here at Holy Family School that we would have so many (twins),” said Father Tim McKenna, the pastor of Holy Family Church. “It’s kind of a fun thing to have. It’s a unique way of being.”

Father McKenna should know. He happens to be a twin.