School Yearbook Voted Least Likely to Succeed

Palm Springs High School officials have sent the school’s yearbook back to the printer after finding copies filled with ethnic slurs and rude remarks about female cheerleaders and gymnasts.

“Parents who have personally contacted me have said that the students would have been devastated had the document gone out in its original form,” Palm Springs Unified School District Supt. Wilber Hawkins said Friday. “They were pleased that it wasn’t.”

Among the offensive pages being replaced was one with a picture of a Mexican-American club and a caption implying that the members were illegal aliens, Hawkins said. Other pages in the book, which is named “The Chia,” had references to drug and alcohol use and sexual intercourse, officials said.

Extra Cost: $11,000

The revisions will cost the student body an extra $11,000 and the yearbook will not be ready for another six to eight weeks. Seniors who had been looking forward to collecting friends’ autographs in their yearbooks on Friday’s final day of school had to settle for a supplement to the yearbook that carried photos from recent events, Hawkins said.

He said the district would not take any action against faculty yearbook adviser John McKee or the students who produced the yearbook.

“I think that’s an internal matter. That’s up to the administration of the school,” Hawkins said. “There were several people who should have seen to it that the yearbook was unpublishable in its original form.”

Several messages seeking comment from Principal Darryl Stucker’s office were not immediately returned, his secretary said, because the principal was busy with last-day-of-school activities.

Promises Investigation

Stucker, who had earlier confiscated the yearbook staff’s computer disks, has promised an investigation. “We are going to look into our editing process and find out what led to this,” he said earlier.

However, yearbook staff member Tod Goldberg defended the book.

“They are worried about what parents or administrators might find offensive but the book isn’t written for them, but for the students,” Goldberg said.