PERRY HALL, Md. -- Perry Hall High School students found a disturbing surprise in their yearbooks -- a racial slur.

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Racial Slur Prompts Yearbook Recall

School officials believe they know the identity of the student allegedly responsible for the slur. That student faces expulsion. Officials did not reveal the wording of the slur.

The racial slur turned up in the index page of the school yearbook and was not discovered until Tuesday. By then, the word was out on campus -- in 450 yearbooks. Those copies are now headed back to publisher for correction, WBAL-TV reported.

Meantime, county school officials said they're shocked and they plan to take action.

"We'd like to know how it happened. We are very concerned about the fact that the student who was in involved in this, who actually wrote this, was not a part of the yearbook staff, but had access to the yearbook page on his computer in another classroom," Baltimore County schools spokesman Charlie Herndon said.

School staff spent the day collecting yearbooks from students, some parents also returned books to the school office. Current and former Perry Hall students still can't believe what happened.

"It's kinda weird. It's not very nice, really," student Amy Tudor said.

"It's very wrong. When I went here, it wasn't like that. I was just shocked to hear it from here, I was like, 'Wow, Perry Hall?' " Perry Hall alum Brian Tharps said.

Altogether, the school had ordered 1,300 yearbooks and was about to distribute the remaining copies to students.

"We want to make sure we can recall the yearbooks, that we can make the changes, but we will take strong disciplinary action against the student," Herndon said.

It will cost more than $1,000 to fix the yearbooks, and there's no word on who will pay for the changes.