An Omaha middle school has suspended one of its eighth-grade students for adding a three-letter acronym representing an obscenity over another student’s yearbook photo. ABC affiliate station KETV reports that the unnamed troublemaker somehow superimposed the letters “WTF” over the photo of a seventh-grader at Irving Middle School.
At a news conference, officials with Lincoln Public Schools said that the defacement of the image was not discovered until the book was printed. The teacher responsible for scrutinizing the book missed the unfortunate addition, and so did the principal, Hugh McDermott, who said in a statement:
I did not see the letters when I proofed it and I feel bad about that and I take responsibility for that. These letters can have a very negative, damaging and hurtful meaning.
In an interview with reporters, McDermott said that the child responsible for the prank “is very saddened by the whole situation and feels very bad about it.”
School officials claim to be unaware of any bad blood between the target and the perpetrator. “There is no history of bullying toward this student,” said parent Steve Joel.
The school will send a replacement photo that can be pasted over the existing photo. In the meantime, McDermott is calling on students and staff to stand up against the vandalism and immediately mark out the letters to “demonstrate our unified efforts against hurtful behavior of this kind.”
