Yearbook ‘Joke’ Slurs Students; Adviser Quits

A teacher quit her job as adviser to the Moorpark Memorial High School yearbook staff on the last day of the semester after school officials discovered that this year’s annual had been altered with phony names and a racially offensive headline, the school’s principal said Monday.

Kathie Kennedy, an art teacher, resigned Friday, Principal Cary Dritz said. Kennedy will continue teaching art classes at the high school.

Nearly all of the school’s 800 students purchased copies of the $30 yearbook, Dritz said. Shortly after the annual was delivered to students June 10, school officials were told by students of name changes accompanying the photographs of eight students, he said.

“The name changes were cruel jokes making fun of the students,” Dritz said.

Some of the phony names listed beside student photographs included “Ralph G. Crust” and “Chantel Parfume,” he said. The headline of a photograph showing two students, one black and one white, was changed to read “Black White Not Quite.”

Principal Makes Promise

“The lesson is that if you don’t screen and check every page very carefully things will slip by,” Dritz said. “. . . I’m real sorry it happened, and I guarantee that it will never happen again.”

The yearbook apparently had been altered by students before it was sent to a printer earlier this year, Dritz said. Kennedy was responsible for ensuring that the yearbook was properly delivered to the printer, he said. The former adviser could not be reached for comment.

Dritz said he believes he knows which student yearbook staffers were responsible for making the changes. But he would not say what, if any, disciplinary action was or will be taken against them. “All I can tell you is that steps were taken,” he said.

Moorpark Unified School District Supt. Michael R. Slater said that there is nothing the district can do to discipline students because they have graduated. “We are going to sit down and review the whole thing,” he said.