Yearbook students have an important role in covering the everyday lives of the students at our school. But how do they accomplish so much in one class hour? Yearbook students begin their day by logging into their Edesign accounts. Edesign is a website that allows yearbookers to work on and edit the yearbook at school or home. They look over what pages they need to work on. For instance, if a page needs pictures for an event or a game, like a jazz concert, track meets, teacher profiles, etc., they will go out and take the pictures themselves or ask someone in the yearbook staff to go to the event for them.
Once pictures are taken for their page, they’ll put the SD card in a little envelope and place it in a container to get it ingested. The photo editor will then “RTU” them, prep and sort them into a 24-25 file. Picking the best pictures on the SD card is sometimes challenging because there are some events where the photographer takes anything between 1000-3000 images. Once the photographs are prepped in the system file, they get edited by a staff member.
Yearbook students also take interviews to get a first-hand account of the event or sport they are putting in the yearbook. So, if they have a soccer page, they will reach out to students who play soccer, either through email or by getting assistance finding their classes from the yearbook advisor. If the student agrees to the interview, then the interviewer will email the student’s teacher to let them know that the student will be pulled out of class, or conduct the interview upon finding the student. Yearbook staff members are required to take pictures for three events, or they risk failing the class.
Events are usually one hour to three hours long, but on rare occasions, they could be up to five hours long or more. Staff on site must stay until the event is finished, or make arrangements with other staff to leave early with the permission of the yearbook advisor. The yearbook staff is also graded on the pages assigned at the beginning of the trimester. Being in the class can get stressful if a person doesn’t know what they’re doing. There are editors on staff with multiple years or trimesters of experience and can help with aspects of the book that students might have trouble with.
Yearbook staff members are very educated in taking pictures since they must attend photography one and two before being allowed to join the yearbook staff. But if a staff member doesn’t know what to do, they can ask one of the editors to teach them. They’re responsible for ensuring the staff members are working and up-to-date with their pages. They are also in charge of double-checking the pages of staff members because the class is student-led. Once the staff members are done with their pages, an editor will ensure that the customer is satisfied with the final product by fixing all the imperfections that the staff member may have made. The yearbook staff works hard so the graduating class can have something to look back on, and they don’t get enough credit for their work.
