The yearbook has come under a significant amount of scrutiny the last couple of years. Since the transition from Ms. Light to Mrs. Roesch, students have noticed a slight decline in the yearbooks overall quality. The first yearbook under Roesch was the 2017-2018 yearbook, and it was immediately apparent that the transition from Light to Roesch did not go by without some hiccups. Many students may look at the last two yearbooks and their shortcomings and make the claim that Mrs. Roesch leading the yearbook class is the cause of the Yearbooks problems, and that under Ms Light the Yearbook wouldn’t encounter such problems. It is easy to understand how many students may believe such a claim, as the quality of the last Yearbook under Ms Light is a far cry from the inconsistent pages of the most recent Yearbooks. But from my own experience in the Yearbook I have seen firsthand that the most important factor in creating a successful Yearbook is student dedication, something that students are greatly lacking.

Although many students took their responsibility in yearbook seriously and finished their assigned pages in time for the due date, the vast majority of students used the period to hang out and blow off their pages. This is why many of the pages in the last Yearbook looked cluttered and rushed. It was especially easy for students last year to get away with not doing their pages, as Mrs Roesch wasn’t present for the majority of the year. We were instead left with a substitute for most of the year. When Roesch returned it was at the very end of the school year, so many students had switched at the semester, none who did were held responsible for holding back the production of the yearbook, and those who stayed had the pick up the slack. 

I emailed Ms Light so she could hopefully answer a question I have had for a long time, why did she stop running the Yearbook? For awhile I believed that it was the administration that gave the class to ASB as the switch from Light to Roesch occurred during the transition to Dr Simmons’ administration from Dr Becchio. To my surprise, I was told that it was Ms Light herself who decided to end her run as Yearbook administrator. She cited student apathy as a main reason for her departure, which made sense to me due to my own experience in the Yearbook. A more shocking reason to me was her citing technology as a factor in her decision. Ms Light told me that “..the advent of instagram and snapchat, however, photographs no longer have the allure of nostalgia… It seems we are always trying to record the past and the past has become disposable.” This sentiment does seem to cast doubt on the future of the Yearbook, as technology progresses more and more will there even be a need for a print version of the Yearbook? Perhaps someone will invent a program that can automatically chronicle major events that happen in a school year and create a digital yearbook.

Ms Light ended her email by commending Mrs Roesch’s efforts to reinvigorate the Yearbook program despite the growing pains it has gone through recently, and with the changes they have made to streamline aspects of the Yearbook such as the senior quotes and class superlatives, it seems that with Mrs Roesch the Yearbook is heading in the right direction.