Editor’s Notice: This text was written for Mosaic, an impartial journalism coaching program for highschool college students who report and {photograph} tales beneath the steering {of professional} journalists.
It’s Nationwide Yearbook Week. However you wouldn’t know that at Silver Creek Excessive College in San Jose.
Going through declines in gross sales, pupil participation and assets, the college won’t be publishing a yearbook for the primary time in its 55-year historical past.
Based on former yearbook advisor Thomas Head, a scarcity of academics to tackle the yearbook led the college to finish an American custom that dates again to the seventeenth century. A bunch of different elements contributed to the transfer, too.
Regardless of this resolution, an off-the-cuff Mosaic survey of almost 100 college students at 4 San Jose excessive faculties discovered the bulk wish to see yearbooks survive. On the similar time, nevertheless, 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 value, they solely buy yearbooks of their senior yr. At San Jose excessive faculties, yearbooks usually value from $60 to $90.
A number of elements led to Silver Creek’s resolution to finish the yearbook custom. Among the many most essential was the elimination within the 2023-24 tutorial yr of the elective class during 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 significantly as in earlier years.
“Typically you’ll make a lunch appointment however folks would overlook. It wasn’t their prime precedence as a result of we weren’t a category, only a membership,” mentioned Lorel Gonzales, a senior.
The college 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 trainer at Silver Creek, mentioned that scheduling conflicts amongst academics additionally performed an element. There was no trainer obtainable to change into an adviser.
Imani Butler, who served as Silver Creek’s yearbook trainer 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 tradition is totally different now. It’s disappointing as a result of many college students don’t purchase yearbooks till they’re seniors,” he mentioned.
These are points not solely at Silver Creek however at different San Jose excessive faculties as nicely.
Like many different college students, Leigh Excessive College senior Ayano Osawa is discouraged by the fee. “If yearbooks have been extra inexpensive, extra folks could be inclined to buy 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 scuffling with an absence of help and assets. At the moment, she has obtained help from a former yearbook trainer at close by Santa Teresa Excessive College. Nonetheless, Knight notes what number of college students come into yearbook unaware of the topic’s expectations.
“College students didn’t know that yearbook was presupposed to be like journalism,” she mentioned.
These challenges haven’t diminished college students’ curiosity in maintaining 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 solely do yearbooks permit a closing farewell from our childhood into maturity, in addition they allow us to at all times reminisce as we progress via life. Even when our reminiscence begins to present out, our faces and names shall be archived for all of us to see.”
Brook Navarro, a Silver Creek sophomore, identified that not like the short-lived trendiness of social media platforms, the place pictures are buried over time, yearbooks are a medium “the place pictures will keep a continuing all through life.”
Butler, the previous Silver Creek yearbook advisor, mentioned, “Yearbooks are a precious souvenir on 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 conventional publishing firm program — during which a set variety of books are printed and the college 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 give you such choices, the way forward for highschool yearbooks might be precarious.
Jasmine Sessoms is a senior at Silver Creek Excessive College in San Jose.
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