http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...t39hitskidhard
CHEAP 'SHOT' HITS KID HARD
By DAVID ANDREATTA Education Reporter Fri Jun 17, 5:57 AM ET
A Queens couple claims their daughter's memories of elementary school have been marred by a "horrible" yearbook pho- to, and are demanding the school recall all 200 books and replace the picture.
Michelle Maihepat, of South Ozone Park, said her 11-year-old daughter, Asheana, is so embarrassed by the "bad picture" that she has been crying and hiding her face in shame from her sixth-grade classmates at PS 121 since the yearbooks were distributed Monday.
"For the rest of her life, she's going to have to be ashamed of that horrible picture," Maihepat said.
"Twenty years down the line, she's going to look at this book with her friends, and her friends are going to say, 'What happened to you there?' "
What happened was this: Asheana was home sick on the day in March that most of her classmates posed for the standard cap-and-gown head shot. She took a make-up photo at the school a month later. But school officials said the $32 shoot took place just one day before the deadline to send proofs to the yearbook printer.
Without time to get the proofs, and fearing Asheana would be missing from the yearbook, her teacher — who organized the yearbook project — snapped the extreme close-up shot and sent it to the printer, school officials said.
The school never consulted the Maihepats, who said they expected the professional make-up photo in the yearbook.
Asheana said she does not recall having the quick substitute picture taken. In it, she appears pale and capless against a black background.
Her mother called the school's version of events "a cover-up."
Principal Henry Somers defended the teacher and said he arranged yesterday for the printer to publish a new book for Asheana, but that there was no way the school could recall all the books.
"We bent over backwards to accommodate this parent and we don't have a budget to pay for 200 new books," Somers said. "The teacher who did this went out of her way to be nice so the little girl would have a picture in the yearbook."
Somers signed a check refunding Maihepat $14 for the cost of the yearbook — a gesture the mom called "insulting."
A teary-eyed Asheana said the episode has upset her so much that she has decided to skip graduation next week.
The family says anything less than a total recall is not good enough, reasoning that the yearbook is Asheana's legacy among all her classmates at PS 121.
"Who knows, one day she might be famous or have a lot of money and someone could blackmail her with that picture," Maihepat said.
Asheana, who stayed home from school yesterday, said, "I never expected to see that picture in the yearbook. My friends feel sorry for me."
Went there during its heyday in the early 90s. Herd its going down though. 
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