Club / Activity: Yearbook Club
Advisor(s): Sarah Adams (
[email protected])
The MLHS Yearbook club is a place welcome to highly self-motivated, detail oriented students in all grades. In addition to learning about photography and design, yearbook students become better communicators and stronger leaders. They meet real-world deadlines, deal with significant budgets and produce the only permanent record of the school year. Creating a yearbook is “authentic assessment” since day one and the book itself is a “performance portfolio.” Producing a yearbook teaches students
emphasis on research, reflection, revision, critical thinking, collaboration,
communication and creativity.
(https://www.herffjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/WhyYearbook_2015.pdf)
There are about 5-10 students in this club. The group meets at least once per week on Thursday’s after school from 2:36-3:45; many weeks there is an additional open work time Wednesday and Friday after school 2:36-3:45. Additionally, the student staffer’s use a online platform (hjedesign.com) to create the yearbook, many staffers work from home on the yearbook outside of the school day, the site has a message board and electronic sticky notes for members to collaborate on pages, and for me to give feedback. Last school year 2017-18, 4 staffers clocked over a hundred hours outside of the school day on the system (it keeps track) with one member, Anita Shanker, clocking well over one hundred hours. The editors and myself also meet with a publishing representative from Herff Jones and various photographers, and our sales and customer service reps from Lors several times throughout the year. The club highlights and/or accomplishments from last year are:
1. We entered the 2018 Lakes yearbook for judging and critique by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, we received a total score of 722, earning a rating of: Silver Medalist.
2. We entered the 2018 Lakes yearbook for judging and critique by the Garden State Scholastic Press Association, and received a certificate of Second Place/Silver Award with a score of 800.
3. We raised $9,735.00 in Advertisement Sales for the 2017-18 school year.
4. There were 386 books sold
5. We donated a 2018 book to The Town Club of Mountain Lakes for a silent auction fundraiser to benefit charitable organizations in Mountain Lakes and Morris County.
6. We donated a 2018 book to the Main Office, The Board Office, The Police Department, The Media Center, and the Borough of Mountain Lakes Community Library.
7. Used budget surplus to purchase three DSLR Cameras, photo accessories, and membership into CSPA and GSPA.
Mrs. Adams states that the goals for this school year are to “have student editors analyze the critique feedback from CSPA and GSPA and set goals on things they would like to improve in our 2019 edition. We want to create a partnership between student journalists in The Mountaineer and our Lakes Yearbook staff, we can collaborate by sharing photography and layout designs with The Mountaineer, they can help us with creating captions, headlines, and copy. We plan to continue to work within our budget, and meet or exceed book and ad sales from 2018 as well as be able to donate yearbooks to people, organizations, and charities in need. Also, we would love to have students attend an outside yearbook workshop or conference, either individually or as a group.