Editor’s Observe: This text was written for Mosaic, an impartial journalism coaching program for highschool college students who report and {photograph} tales below the steering {of professional} journalists.
It’s Nationwide Yearbook Week. However you wouldn’t know that at Silver Creek Excessive College in San Jose.
Dealing with declines in gross sales, pupil participation and assets, the varsity is not going to be publishing a yearbook for the primary time in its 55-year historical past.
In keeping with former yearbook advisor Thomas Head, a scarcity of lecturers to tackle the yearbook led the varsity to finish an American custom that dates again to the seventeenth century. A number of different components contributed to the transfer, too.
Regardless of this determination, an off-the-cuff Mosaic survey of almost 100 college students at 4 San Jose excessive faculties discovered the bulk need to see yearbooks survive. On the similar time, nonetheless, they reported that yearbooks have been too costly, poorly designed and never successfully promoted. Lots of the San Jose college students mentioned that, because of the price, they solely buy yearbooks of their senior yr. At San Jose excessive faculties, yearbooks sometimes price from $60 to $90.
A number of components led to Silver Creek’s determination to finish the yearbook custom. Among the many most necessary was the elimination within the 2023-24 tutorial yr of the elective class through which the yearbook was produced, changing it with an extracurricular exercise membership. When the yearbook was produced by a category, 30 college students have been concerned. As a membership, solely eight college students participated within the yearbook manufacturing final yr.
Not solely have been they overwhelmed placing out a 300-page publication with so few college students, however members additionally reported that their efforts weren’t taken as critically as in earlier years.
“Sometimes you would make a lunch appointment but people would forget. It wasn’t their top priority because we were not a class, just a club,” mentioned Lorel Gonzales, a senior.
The varsity administration dealt a deadly blow to the yearbook custom when it stopped offering cameras to the membership. That led to the yearbook membership being disbanded this yr, in response to Gonzales.
Katherine Newray, a journalism and English instructor at Silver Creek, mentioned that scheduling conflicts amongst lecturers additionally performed a component. There was no instructor obtainable to turn out to be an adviser.
Imani Butler, who served as Silver Creek’s yearbook instructor from 2015 to 2019, spoke of a number of the challenges, from the tight publishing deadlines to the necessity to discover methods to pump up gross sales.
“The culture is different now. It’s disappointing because many students don’t buy yearbooks until they’re seniors,” he mentioned.
These are points not solely at Silver Creek however at different San Jose excessive faculties as properly.
Like many different college students, Leigh Excessive College senior Ayano Osawa is discouraged by the associated fee. “If yearbooks were more affordable, more people would be inclined to purchase them,” she mentioned.
At Evergreen Valley Excessive College, senior Owen Chung mentioned he’s reluctant to buy a yearbook however would take into account a less-costly paperback model.
At Oak Grove Excessive College, Kaylin Knight began educating the yearbook class final yr and at first discovered herself fighting an absence of assist and assets. Presently, she has acquired help from a former yearbook instructor at close by Santa Teresa Excessive College. Nevertheless, Knight notes what number of college students come into yearbook unaware of the topic’s expectations.
“Students didn’t know that yearbook was supposed to be like journalism,” she mentioned.
These challenges haven’t diminished college students’ curiosity in preserving yearbooks alive. Among the many 93 college students who participated within the Mosaic survey, 68 reported yearbooks nonetheless are a big half of highschool life.
Silver Creek senior Tinh Nguyen mentioned, “Not only do yearbooks allow a final farewell from our childhood into adulthood, they also let us always reminisce as we progress through life. Even when our memory starts to give out, our faces and names will be archived for all of us to see.”
Brook Navarro, a Silver Creek sophomore, identified that in contrast to the short-lived trendiness of social media platforms, the place pictures are buried over time, yearbooks are a medium “where photos will stay a constant throughout life.”
Butler, the previous Silver Creek yearbook advisor, mentioned, “Yearbooks are a valuable keepsake in this digital world.”
One native highschool could have discovered an answer to the gross sales problem. With its yearbook in jeopardy, Evergreen Valley switched from a standard publishing firm program — through which a set variety of books are printed and the varsity is pressured to promote all of them — to an organization that has a extra versatile association.
Beneath the brand new plan, college students order on-line and the yearbooks are individually printed and shipped on to their dwelling. Additionally, the brand new yearbooks rely extra on pictures and fewer on blocks of textual content. These adjustments helped decrease the price of the yearbooks from over $100 to round $75, in response to Virginia Yenter, Evergreen Valley’s actions director and yearbook adviser.
Till extra faculties can provide you with such choices, the way forward for highschool yearbooks could possibly be precarious.
Jasmine Sessoms is a senior at Silver Creek Excessive College in San Jose.
Initially Printed: October 7, 2024 at 1:30 p.m.
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