6 high school yearbook controversies
Doctored photos, banned babies, cruel captions, and more
1. Wheatmore High School in Trinity, N.C.
A North Carolina teen's photo was recently pulled from her high school yearbook because it showed her holding her baby. Students at Wheatmore High School were told to pose with something that best represents them, so Caitlin Tiller, 17, chose her 1-year-old son, since he changed her life. School officials said the photo "promoted teen pregnancy."
2. McKinney High School in McKinney, Texas
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Some students who picked up their yearbooks in 2008 noticed something rather odd with their portraits: They weren't wearing the same clothes they had on for "Picture Day." Further investigation revealed that the Minnesota company that printed the books had altered some of the students' photos by switching the heads and putting them on different bodies. Some of the stranger alterations included students with a missing arm and stretched necks, and even a photo of a girl on a nude body with strategically placed blurs. The school's yearbook staff had to redo the entire yearbook over a single weekend to get them ready for the end of the year. The Minnesota company chalked up the goof-up to "an unfortunate lapse in judgment."
3. Russellville Middle School in Russellville, Ark.
In 2011, an Arkansas middle school asked its student body to name "The Top 5 Worst People of All Time" and printed the results in the yearbook. The first three were not particularly controversial: Adolf Hitler, Osama bin Laden, and Charles Manson. But numbers four and five rankled many parents: former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney. School officials placed a strip of black tape over the list in every copy of the book before they went home with students.
4. Charter Oak High School in Covina, Calif.
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This high school's 2008 yearbook infuriated parents and students after some offensive fake nicknames for members of the school's Black Student Union made it into the final print. (Among the racially charged monikers: "Tay Tay Shaniqua" and "Crisphy Nanos.") The school offered parents stickers with the students' correct names that could be placed over the fake ones.
5. Glenn Hills High School in Augusta, Ga.
In 2010, this Georgia high school's yearbook included a special student section called "The Jail Report" that included photos of students made to look like criminal mugshots, complete with a list of fake charges. That might have sounded like a mildly cute idea to some parents... until they read the charges and captions with the mugshots, which labeled certain students as "Most Likely to Become a Porn Star" or "Most Likely to Become an Exotic Dancer."
6. Saratoga Springs High School in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
In 2011, the school's yearbook included a portrait of one student that was altered to make it look like she was wearing a set of gold teeth. School officials scrambled to stop teachers from distributing the yearbooks so they could cut the picture out, but the photo still made it onto Facebook and became the talk of the campus. The school later offered parents and students a replacement page for their yearbooks.
Danny Gallagher is a freelance writer, blogger, and humorist. He can be found on the web at www.dannygallagher.net and on Twitter @thisisdannyg.
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