At our small, private all-girls school, Hanna Sacks Bais Yaakov in Chicago, the upcoming graduating class votes at the end of their junior year for the position of editor-in-chief. It sounded like fun to us, so we ran to sign up.
Staff Management
Since only juniors and seniors can enroll in yearbook at my school, each year I have to train a new group of five talented individuals to ride this new bike around school, so to speak. So what kind of training wheels do I need to provide for these newbie leaders?
When I took over the yearbook staff, the book was in debt, the students were uninterested, and the school was not sure it wanted to continue to support a failing program. Which is why I developed these strategies to recruit and retain a new staff.
Big ideas come to those who take the time to think. Explore what Thinking Big really means for your yearbook.
In her first year as the adviser at the O’Bryant School in Roxbury, Mass., English teacher Betsy Lazo and her young staff changed the entire culture around the school’s yearbook program. This is their story.
Every fall we return to school with an eagerness to start the new yearbook. As the days turn into weeks and the first deadline approaches, an adviser needs to provide guidance as the staff learns what is required of them as individuals of this team effort.
The yearbook staff has spent months chronicling the year for their fellow students, who should be as excited to see the finished product as the staff. Build on that enthusiasm of the yearbook by hosting a distribution signing party.
In most schools, including yours, it is possible to improve the media staff/administration relationship, and, once established, it has to be nurtured. It takes work, and it takes time.
In my progression from beginning journalist to editor-in-chief, I have attended three JEA/NSPA fall national conventions: 2008 in St. Louis, 2009 in Washington, D.C. and 2010 in Kansas City. All have provided invaluable opportunities to me personally and to our entire Cambia staff at Oak Park High School in Kansas City, Mo.
Adviser Jim Jordan thought it would be fun to see how many of his former Del Campo High School editors and staffers he could get in touch with and help them stay in touch with each other. To do so, he turned to Facebook.
