Yearbooks for Everyone!
Today, every student at Eisenhower High School will be able to get a yearbook free of charge. Two thousand yearbooks arrived on campus, delivered on three pallets that sit in the 300 hallway waiting to be handed out. This is precisely what I had hoped would happen when I began advising the Reveille Yearbook class in 2016.
The average high school yearbook costs over $60 in the United States. The cost becomes a tremendous barrier for students in a community like ours. It has been my belief that all students should have access to this resource without having to worry about the money it takes to receive one.
During the 2016-2017 school year, a group of my students formed a club to help raise money to lower the cost of a Spirit Pack. Our club is called We Are IKE. That year we sold 1,300 spirit packs to students! This included an ASB Card, a Yearbook, and a We Are IKE t-shirt. It was an incredible accomplishment for our entire school. Those students worked almost every lunch selling flavored lemonades to raise the money it would take to sell the Spirit Pack for $30.
In the subsequent years, we sold an average of over 1,200 Spirit Packs to students. This sounds great, but we were very aware that even at $30, many of our students still could not afford to get a yearbook. So the price was lowered to $20 this school year while we continued to search for a way to solve this problem once and for all.
I became aware of a program that is funded by the State of Washington’s Career and Technical Education budget that could provide the answer we were looking for. If an entire student body can contribute to creating a project that is done in a CTE class, that project can be classified as a Capstone Project. The production of a Capstone Project can be funded by the CTE budget for the Yakima School District.
The reason that I was emailing everyone in the school to send in pictures, artwork, and quotes was to show that our entire school had the opportunity to help create the yearbook. You guys came through! You will see many of the photographs you sent to us featured in the book this year. This also explains the hundreds of emails I sent asking if you wanted a yearbook this year.
We had such a huge response from you guys that we were able to order a book for everyone, even those who did not respond or responded with a “No.” So if you want one today, you just need to come to get one at the end of the day in the courtyard.
Yakima is only the second school district in the state to provide this opportunity to its students. Last year the Bellingham School District was the first to try this out. When we found out how successful their program was, we had to do it here for you guys.
I can’t wait to see all of you in the courtyard today receiving your yearbook. Yearbook day is my favorite day of the year. I hope you all enjoy the hour at the end of the day to look at your book and sign your friends’ books.
We have all been through a lot this year. This school year is like no other school year I have ever experienced. I am so proud of all the work you have done to adjust to being full-time students again. For a lot of us, this process has been a struggle, but nothing good ever comes without struggle. We can now begin to look back and appreciate how far we have all come together this year. We can finally turn the page toward what’s coming next. We Are IKE!
