Administrators at Charter Oak High School in Covina are investigating how a student on the yearbook staff was able to get fake names for Black Student Union members, including "Tay Tay Shaniqua," "Crisphy Nanos" and "Laquan White," into the published yearbook.
Calling the incident a "regrettable mistake," Clint Harwick, superintendent of the Charter Oak Unified School District, said Friday that school officials had spoken to the student believed to be responsible.
Principal Kathleen Wiard, however, said they were still trying to determine who bore responsibility for multiple errors on a yearbook page that listed class councils and other student groups in addition to the Black Student Union.
"It appears that during the process of creating the yearbook, filler names were put in and not corrected at the proofreading part," Wiard said.
She said captions on photos attributed wrong or made-up names to other students but "the BSU ones were what I would consider the most offensive."
Harwick said he had a hard time understanding why the fake names had not been caught in the proofing process.
"We're doing everything we can to remedy the problem. This is not the standard of our yearbook by any means," he said.
The school has made stickers with the correct names available for students wishing to cover over the false names. Wiard said the school was also considering replacing the entire page because so many names, not just those of BSU members, were incorrect. Because school is no longer in session, students would have to bring their yearbooks to campus to receive the replacement page, she said.
Evanne Jackson, 16, who will be a senior this fall, received a handful of corrective stickers on the last day of school, June 12, to give to her friends.
"She was really humiliated and embarrassed," said her mother, Toi Jackson. "I'm not sure how they thought she was going to pass them out. What was she going to say? It's already embarrassing that (the BSU members) already have to be labeled with some negative, stereotypical type of names."
Jackson added that school officials have yet to formally apologize to her daughter or her friends, or inform other parents of what has happened.
At the suburban campus, largely empty this morning, Ashley Nolton, who will be a senior in the fall, said she learned of the fake names from news reports.
"It's disrespectful," she said. "It gives a bad name to the entire school."
