DURANGO, Colo. -- A teenager girl whose revealing senior photo was banned from the Durango High School yearbook is paying to have the photo run as a full-page advertisement in the yearbook, her mother said Saturday.

The senior portrait Spies submitted shows her wearing a yellow skirt with a black shawl wrapped around her chest that exposes her shoulders and midsection.

Earlier in the week, 18-year-old Sydney Spies, her mother and some friends protested outside the school with signs stating that barring her photo violated her freedom of expression.

Spies told the Durango Herald that school administrators told her the senior portrait she submitted would not be printed in the yearbook because her attire in the photo violated dress code. The newspaper said the high school requires that tops "fully cover the chest, back, abdomen and sides of the student."

But the Herald later reported that the yearbook's student editors said they decided to yank the photo, not school administrators.

"The administration really had nothing to do with it," said Tevan Trujillo, a student yearbook editor. "It was us."

Five student editors said they did not nix the photo because it violated the school dress code.

"We are an award-winning yearbook. We don’t want to diminish the quality with something that can be seen as unprofessional," student editor Brian Jaramillo told the Herald.

Two years ago, yearbook staff made a similar decision when a male student wanted to run a picture of himself bare-chested as a portrait, the newspaper reported.

However, the editors said Spies' photo could still run in a yearbook section reserved for paid senior advertisements, according to the Herald. Those ads usually feature "shout-outs" from friends and family and are located at the back of the yearbook.

Spies mother, Miki Spies, wrote on her Facebook page Saturday that her daughter was paying to run the "banned photo" in a yearbook ad.

"JR and I bought an ad for Sydney Spies to celebrate her childhood in the yearbook," the mother posted on her Facebook page. "Syd bought an additional full page WITH HER OWN MONEY so that she could have the picture that was banned included. One of the editors ... in front of me and the yearbook adviser said 'that's fine but we are putting it on the back page so everybody can tear it out!' Nice professional editor huh?" the mother added.

Sydney Spies told the Herald Thursday that she believes the editors’ decision was influenced by administrators.

"The editors all turned their backs on me and changed their minds,” Sydney Spies said. “I really do feel like they were intimidated by the principal."

School principal Diane Lashinsky told the newspaper, "I was aware of the (student) editors’ final decision not to print the picture, and I support their decision."