A school principal in Arkansas has apologized for “political inaccuracies” in a yearbook falsely stating that Donald Trump was not impeached and that last year’s racial protests in the US were “Black Lives Matter riots”.
Josh Thompson, principal of Bentonville’s Lincoln junior high school, admitted that some of the contents of the yearbook, which also included a photograph of the deadly 6 January insurrection in Washington DC captioned: “Trump supporters protest at the Capitol,” were “both biased and political”.
In a letter sent to students and parents, Thompson said the yearbook “does not represent our values nor meet LJHS and Bentonville Schools’ standards for quality and excellence.”
The letter did not address how the false statements and political opinions came to be published, but promised the school would “evaluate its vetting process for all yearbook content to ensure future publications are of the highest quality”.
In many US schools, yearbooks are produced by students under the supervision of teachers, often during journalism classes.