Parents and students at Bartram Trail High School in Jacksonville, Florida are wondering what's going on with their yearbook.
Dozens of girls have seen their images clumsily edited to remove any trace of cleavage, even though they were told on photo day that their outfits were okay.
Is this something that makes sense, or is the school being prudish? Let's dig in.
You can check out the full thread here for more details and reactions.
In short, this is a pretty simple story: about eighty students, all girls, were surprised to find that their photos had been edited in ways similar to this.
I mean, the optics on that brutal Photoshop job are pretty bad. But what I'm talking about is the optics of some administrator or editor poring through hundreds of photos of teenage girls, all in an effort to find (and then obscure) any possible hint of cleavage.
"You’re not only affecting their photo, it’s not just for protecting them, you’re making them uncomfortable and feel like their bodies aren’t acceptable in a yearbook," ninth grader Riley O’Keefe told CBS 47, emphasizing that the school's office gave her the okay to wear what she was wearing on photo day.
"Our daughters of Bartram deserve an apology," one girl's mother told CBS 47. "They are making them feel embarrassed about who they are."
Several reported being confused by the inconsistencies in the application of the school's dress code.
The overwhelming response to Ryan's reporting was that the school was going too far.
A former yearbook editor weighed in, saying this can be a tough call. Still, it's hard to imagine a class photo being so scandalous that it needs to be edited out of the yearbook.
Ryan shared this response to his interview request; however the school has also offered refunds to parents for the yearbooks, although that offer has not been well received.
It reads, in part, that "Bartram Trail High School’s previous procedure was to not include student pictures in the yearbook that they deemed in violation of the student code of conduct, so the digital alterations were a solution to make sure all students were included in the yearbook."
Now that this story has blown up, it seems like it might be hard for school administrators to put a positive spin on this.
Be sure to check out the tweets, and let us know your thoughts in the comments section.
h/t: CBS 47
