Creating a Yearbook is difficult. The average tenure of a Yearbook Advisor is three years. It is not uncommon that a principal will pressure a new teacher into taking on the task. The Yearbook Advisors, if they even get paid, will end up making far below minimum wage and, if things go wrong, could find themselves in a particularly compromised position. WHY?
Putting together a Yearbook is a uniquely different task for a teacher. They are intimately involved in the production process and their workers are students. Sometimes those ‘workers’ aren’t terribly motivated workers and the Advisor has no leverage to get them to perform. The students aren’t being paid and are generally not being graded. Even when the production of the Yearbook has been turned into a class, it is still difficult to get many of the students to be productive.
Not to minimize other club advisors in a school, but rarely are they held to account for failure. If there are problems in the sewing club, they will not likely result in the Advisor being called into the principal’s office at the end of the year. If the Yearbook is late or has issues (a picture someone has decided is inappropriate or a misspelled name), the Advisor is going to have a very bad end of year experience. If the Yearbook comes in over budget, this will simply add to her/his misery.
The Yearbook Advisor responsible for managing photography for the Yearbook, getting it created within a deadline and mistake free. Additionally, she/he needs to raise enough money to cover its cost! What is that cost? Between $3000 to $50,000 (there are books that will push $100,000). The Yearbook Advisor is now running a small business with unpaid and sometimes unmotivated employees that she/he has very little control over.
There needs to be a solution… and there is! Digital.
A company called Idiom Publishing has introduced the first digital, cloud-based, interactive Yearbook to the market called YearBoxx. How can this help a beleaguered Yearbook Advisor? Here is a partial list: A digital Yearbook is drag and drop simple to create, taking hours, not months to build (the staff can be far smaller and does not have to learn a complicated computer program); the Idiom digital Yearbook cost $5.00 (no budget issues and the Advisor doesn’t have to collect money); mistakes can be easily and instantly corrected (no angry calls from parents); there is no limit to the amount of ‘pages’ in a digital book (everyone and everything can get into the Yearbook, digital means inclusive); there are NO deadlines (no late Yearbook).
There are many reasons why a digital Yearbook makes sense for students, but few people think about how truly difficult it is to create a Yearbook. The Yearbook Advisor is the most underappreciated Advisor in the school. They deserve a break.
Being asked (pressured?) to take over the Yearbook doesn’t have to be something to fear anymore. Building a Yearbook can be fun and stress free, thanks to technology… and YearBoxx!
