Long Island Principal Apologizes for Copied Yearbook Message

A Long Island principal has apologized for a message to graduates in the school’s yearbook that appeared to copy the words of another principal at a school in California.

In a statement released Wednesday, Roosevelt High School principal Stephen Strachan said that an unedited draft of the message had been published in the yearbook, rather than the final version he intended to appear.

The message, according to Newsday, borrowed heavily from one penned by a principal in Albany, California, to his school's class of 2013. Strachan's message even includes the sentence, "Congratulations to the Albany High School Class of 2013."

“I sincerely apologize to the Roosevelt community and to the class of 2014 for the inadvertent clerical error causing mistakes to be printed in the 2014 yearbook,” he said.

Strachan said that a new version of the yearbook with the correct message and will be given out to students on Friday. The new yearbooks will cost about $800 and will be paid for with funds from the principal's discretionary fund, Newsday reports.

“I take full responsibility for this oversight,” Strachan said.

According to Newsday, the first and third paragraphs were nearly identical to the California principal’s, with only the second paragraph differing.

Strachan told Newsday that he received permission to quote one of his colleagues.
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