NEW ALBANY, Ind. — Southern Indiana school officials plan to apologize to a middle school for racially-tinged costumes students at a largely white school wore to a basketball game.

Three New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated School Corp. officials said Monday they’ll write a letter of apology to Parkview Middle School for the costumes.

A handful of students at the district’s mostly white Highland Hills Middle School wore black masks, including a gorilla mask and one featuring President Barack Obama’s likeness, to a Feb. 7 eight-grade basketball game between the schools.

The parents of some students at Parkview, a Jeffersonville middle school with several African American students and basketball players, questioned if racism was involved.

New Albany’s NAACP branch President Nicole Yates says some of the masks have long been recognized as racial insults to blacks.