top of page

How Can Administrators Successfully Partner with Yearbook Staff? Top Ten Tips


A school principal stands at the front of the school smiling

Yearbook advisers, as you know, the yearbook is a priceless time capsule. We’ve written this blog post to directly share with administrators the impact that a yearbook can have on the community and students. The partnership between the administration and the yearbook is vital to keep it running. We hope you will share this blog with your administrators.


Administrators, the yearbook is a historical time capsule of all the events and relationships that occurred during the year, including the cultural and political affairs. This task is challenging and monumental for the student yearbook staff and adviser. You can help! Below are 10 actions that extend support and show you are involved in the yearbook's success.


Top ten tips


  1. Partner the yearbook adviser and staff with an administrator. An administrative partner will streamline communication and provide ongoing counsel as situations arise.

  2. Introduce the Yearbook adviser and student staff during the first faculty meeting. Allow the staff to make a brief presentation detailing their vision and mission, and how the faculty can assist them.

  3. Prepare and enact the protocol that allows yearbook student staff access to the fields and courts to get quality shots. Include the Athletic Director, adviser, and yearbook leaders.

  4. Throughout the year, include yearbook announcements at faculty and staff meetings. Implore them to participate in photo ops, events, and marketing strategies.

  5. Promote the mission and vision of the yearbook, and their sales events by including the student leaders at the Parent and Teacher Association meetings.

  6. Support and endorse the Yearbook Bootcamp. The yearbook adviser will organize and lead the staffers so they are ready, and not a moment of student life will be missed!

  7. Enable the Administrative staff to schedule on the calendar the major yearbook events: Yearbook Cover Reveal, and Distribution and Signing Party! This generates supportive excitement among the student population.

  8. Purchase extra copies of the yearbook to give as thank-you gifts to community event organizers. Ask the staff to sign on the colophon pages.

  9. When the Yearbook staff contacts you with their due date, please provide the principal’s message to the school community quickly. This is one way to show your support and attention to detail.

  10. Be THE advocate for inclusivity in the yearbook, a place where everyone belongs! Do all you can to place a yearbook in every student's hands by fundraising, providing scholarships, gifting, etc.


The Impact of a Yearbook 


“A yearbook is a love letter a school writes to itself. It pays homage to its teachers and coaches and librarians and administrators who helped shape the youth of America for little acclaim and small paychecks. It flings roses to the class leaders and student council members, athletes in their great prime of life, band members who bring music to fields and auditoriums, reporters who bring news of the day in the student newspaper and photographers who will make this book live forever. This love letter will notice the unpraised citizens of your school: The janitors and cafeteria workers, the new students who walk the halls, friendless and unpraised at that mocked and overlooked notion of students who would never expect to find their pictures in any book, let alone something as necessary and wonderful as a yearbook. A yearbook is a chronicle of life. The very best ones have a snapshot of every student and teacher in the school. The great yearbook never overlooks the shy kids or the kids who hold back or keep to themselves. It embraces everyone and everything because it will serve as the history of this one year of the singular school which exists beneath the shadows of your buildings and all the roads and highways that have led inexplicably to your school.”


“Excerpts of text from Pat Conroy, used by permission.” 


Yearbooks have chronicled a hundred-plus years of education. They make all the difference in the students' lives captured between its pages. As an administrator, your value in the yearbook process is undeniable. United Yearbook is happy to accompany you and your school on your unique yearbook journey. Thank you for taking the time to explore the possibilities with us.


United Yearbook offers blogs on a wide range of topics. In addition, there are resources such as curriculum, and year-round workshops on this and other areas. Make sure to subscribe to our blog and our  newsletter, and visit our website at www.unitedyearbook.net to learn more! United Yearbook is available to assist you throughout the school year including during summer break. Visit our website at this link to schedule an online appointment.


Copyright © 2024. TSE Worldwide Press. All Rights Reserved.

 
Former yearbook advisor, Lucy McHugh

Contributor: Lucy McHugh comes to United Yearbook Printing from a 39-year career in public and private school education. She was a former visual art teacher and yearbook adviser. She received a Bachelors of Science in Art from Columbia College in Columbia, SC, a Masters in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Nebraska in 2000, and in 2014 earned a Certificate in Catholic School Leadership from Loyola Marymount University. Lucy enjoys her family, making art and gardening.


Editor, Donna Ladner

Editor: Donna Ladner obtained a B.A. in Education and a minor in English from California Baptist University, and a M.S. in ESL from USC, Los Angeles. After she married Daniel, their family moved to Indonesia with a non-profit organization and lived cross-culturally for 15 years before returning to the U.S in 2012. Donna has been working as an editor and proofreader for TSE Worldwide Press and its subsidiary, United Yearbook since 2015.

Commentaires


bottom of page