SAN DIEGO (KFMB/CNN) - Yearbooks at a middle school were recalled because of a horrifying mistake.
The "N" word made it onto the cover.
Black Mountain Middle School staff and editors working on the yearbook got an unfortunate lesson on proofreading before printing.
"This was an unfortunate, inadvertent mistake on the part of our yearbook staff and our yearbook adviser," said Christine Paik, Poway Unified School District communications director.
They used a historical map from the 1800s of northern San Diego County.
"On that map there was a reference to a place where a freed slave was known to reside, and it had a name which now is a derogatory racial slur," Paik said. "We were upset to find that that made it on the cover of the yearbook."
It was only the eighth graders who received the yearbooks on Monday. They were all supposed to be brought back to school on Tuesday.
The sixth and seventh graders hadn't been given the yearbooks yet.
"Approximately 1,000 yearbooks then were corrected," said Paik. "Literally, staff went through each yearbook and scratched off that word from the cover so that we can get these yearbooks in time to our kids."
Parents and grandparents are glad the yearbooks are being corrected.
"In this community, maybe some people will be offended," said Al Sanchez, the father of a student.
"I think it was an honest mistake. I don't think it was meant to harm anybody," said grandparent Mark Guss.
"It’s unfortunate that it happened, sounds like the district is taking right measures to get it fixed," said father Scott Grider.
The staff scratched off that term from the yearbooks Tuesday night and in order to have the yearbooks ready to be distributed to all grades Wednesday morning.
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