Trump censorship: Wall HS to get new yearbooks

Mike Davis | Asbury Park Press

Show Caption Hide Caption Was this student's Trump T-shirt censored in the yearbook? Grant Berardo, a Wall High School junior, saw his image digitally altered with a plain black T-shirt in his yearbook.

WALL - High school yearbooks that featured digitally altered photographs of students supporting President Donald Trump will be reissued, according to the district superintendent.

In a letter to parents issued Thursday evening, Superintendent Cheryl Dyer outlined a series of "mistakes," including the intentional alteration of a student's T-shirt to remove a Trump campaign logo.

Other mistakes were unintentional, likely because of "carelessness or lack of attention to detail or lack of sufficient proofreading," she said.

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"I do not believe that it is possible to create a yearbook of 248 pages, thousands of pictures, names and lines of text and have it be error free," Dyer said. "That being said, I cannot allow the intentional change that was not based on dress code to be ignored. I am the chief school administrator in this district and I take responsibility for the actions of those who are employed here.

"Therefore, I have determined that a re‐issuance of the yearbook is necessary," she continued.

The new yearbooks will be available in about two weeks, Dyer said. The school's commencement ceremony for seniors is scheduled for Friday.

Wall High School has grabbed national attention over the last week after three students reported that their images or words supporting Trump had been altered in the yearbook.

Grant Berardo, a junior at the school, took his school pictures wearing a navy blue "Make America Great Again" shirt from the campaign. In the yearbook, his photo had been digitally altered so it resembled a nondescript black T-shirt, which you can see in the video at the top of the story.

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“It was Photoshopped," Berardo said in an interview. "I sent it to my mom and dad, just like ‘You won’t believe this.’ I was just overall disappointed.

"I like Trump, but it’s history too. Wearing that shirt memorializes the time," he said.

In her letter, Dyer said this alteration was "intentional."

“People make mistakes. Sometimes, the mistakes they make are intentional,” Dyer said in an interview. “An adult altered a picture. I don’t know why, and I don’t know if I’ll ever know why. But I do know the how, and I know that I’m not OK with it, so I’m going to do something to fix it."

But it's not yet clear whether a quote attributed to Trump was purposely left out of a section dedicated to Montana Dobrovich-Fago's role as freshman class president, Dyer said.

Traditionally, class presidents pick a quote to accompany their picture. "I like thinking big. If you are going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big," Trump's quote read.

The quote was submitted before a deadline but did not appear in the yearbook.

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Montana's older brother, Wyatt Dobrovich-Fago, wore a sweater vest with a Trump logo for his school picture. The logo was cropped out of the photograph in the yearbook, but Dyer said it was done in "the same manner as all of the underclass photos."

It did not appear to be intentional, she said.

According to Dyer, other errors in the yearbook included:

A photo of a junior was not included.

A senior's photo was published with his eyes closed, despite other photos being available.

No sophomore class officer had their photo included.

Images of a class trip to Bermuda were digitally altered to cover up shirtless students or students wearing swimsuits. It was intentional, Dyer said.

Digital media teacher Susan Parsons, also the yearbook adviser, was suspended with pay because of the incident. The school board is expected to discuss further discipline at its June 20 meeting.

Parsons has not returned multiple calls seeking comment.

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Mike Davis: 732-643-4223; mdavis@gannettnj.com