A New Jersey father spent more than $5,000 to reprint an entire set of high school yearbooks after his son's shirt was photoshopped by a faculty member to remove President Donald Trump's campaign logo.
According to Asbury Park Press, Wall Township father Joseph Berardo donated a whopping $5,279 out of the estimated $10,000 needed to reprint yearbooks for the entire school after his son Grant and two other students were censored in the original set passed out at Wall High School in June.
Grant Berardo said at the time he was shocked when flipped the pages to discover his shirt had been censored and the words "Trump: Make America Great Again" had been edited out of his school picture.
“I sent it to my mom and dad, just like ‘You won’t believe this.’ I was just overall disappointed,” he told APP. “I like Trump, but it’s history, too. Wearing that shirt memorializes the time.”
Two other students had Trump-related memorabilia censored from their photos: student Wyatt Dobrovich-Fago, who had the Trump logo censored from his sweater, and his younger sister Montana, who submitted a Trump quote to appear under her photo and title of class president. The submitted quote did not appear on the page.
After a $3,000 donation from the photography company who was hired to take the photos, Joseph said he wanted to donate a good portion of the remaining balance because he thought it was the right thing to do, and he didn't want other school programs to receive cuts over the incident.
"I wanted to know what happened but I didn’t want there to be some other program that didn’t get funded because of this," he said. "[The school district] responded appropriately [after the allegations] and corrected it. Supporting the kids of Wall Township seemed like the right thing to do."
Jostens, the yearbook publishing company, issued a credit for the remaining balance. Two hundred copies of the yearbook were reprinted, but as of mid-July only 28 students had claimed their new copy.
Media/technology teacher Susan Parsons, who was the school's yearbook adviser, was suspended with pay while school officials investigate the incident. According to APP, the 62-year-old teacher received a $92,000 salary last year but it is not known whether she will return.
Another faculty member has already been appointed as the yearbook adviser for the 2017-18 school year.