A Christian school in California decided to celebrate the first day of Black history month in the most offensive way possible: blackface.

During a school presentation on African history, a white female speaker was allowed to wear traditional clothing and blackface while she gave the lecture.

John Huffman, the superintendent of the Victory Christian School System, called the decision to allow blackface “poor judgment.”

As part of the presentation, the unidentified speaker  dressed up as a Central African woman and delivered a report on the work of missionary David Livingston, who worked in Africa during the late 19th century Africa, Fox40 reported.

According to Huffman, blackface was used “in an effort to bring authenticity to her role, she wore a typical native dress and headdress. She also used makeup to darken her skin tone on her arms, shoulders, and face.”

He then went on to say that they did not intend to offend anyone with the presentation.

“This presentation was in no way meant to be hurtful or disrespectful… I ask forgiveness from those who have been hurt by this,” Huffman said. “I was wrong to allow the use of makeup no matter how innocent the intentions as it has offended some of my students and parents.  I should have anticipated that this could be offensive, and I apologized to my students and parents asking to be forgiven for hurting them.”

In a conversation with Yahoo! News, Huffman also claimed that he sent an email to families of students and apologized for the incident.

“I wanted to assure them that I am planning future open discussions about this in our chapels and Bible classes in order to help students and staff understand each other’s sensitivities,” he told Yahoo. “There will be other opportunities scheduled for staff as well as teachers as we all learn from this together.”