Editor’s Note: This article was written for Mosaic, an independent journalism training program for high school students who report and photograph stories under the guidance of professional journalists.
It’s National Yearbook Week. But you wouldn’t know that at Silver Creek High School in San Jose.
Facing declines in sales, student participation and resources, the school will not be publishing a yearbook for the first time in its 55-year history.
According to former yearbook advisor Thomas Head, a shortage of teachers to take on the yearbook led the school to end an American tradition that dates back to the 17th century. A host of other factors contributed to the move, too.
Despite this decision, an informal Mosaic survey of nearly 100 students at four San Jose high schools found the majority want to see yearbooks survive. At the same time, however, they reported that yearbooks were too expensive, poorly designed and not effectively promoted. Many of the San Jose students said that, due to the cost, they only purchase yearbooks in their senior year. At San Jose high schools, yearbooks typically cost from $60 to $90.
Several factors led to Silver Creek’s decision to end the yearbook tradition. Among the most important was the elimination in the 2023-24 academic year of the elective class in which the yearbook was produced, replacing it with an extracurricular activity club. When the yearbook was produced by a class, 30 students were involved. As a club, only eight students participated in the yearbook production last year.
Not only were they overwhelmed putting out a 300-page publication with so few students, but members also reported that their efforts were not taken as seriously as in previous years.
“Sometimes you would make a lunch appointment but people would forget. It wasn’t their top priority because we were not a class, just a club,” said Lorel Gonzales, a senior.
The school administration dealt a fatal blow to the yearbook tradition when it stopped providing cameras to the club. That led to the yearbook club being disbanded this year, according to Gonzales.
Katherine Newray, a journalism and English teacher at Silver Creek, said that scheduling conflicts among teachers also played a part. There was no teacher available to become an adviser.
Imani Butler, who served as Silver Creek’s yearbook teacher from 2015 to 2019, spoke of some of the challenges, from the tight publishing deadlines to the need to find ways to pump up sales.
“The culture is different now. It’s disappointing because many students don’t buy yearbooks until they’re seniors,” he said.
These are issues not only at Silver Creek but at other San Jose high schools as well.
Like many other students, Leigh High School senior Ayano Osawa is discouraged by the cost. “If yearbooks were more affordable, more people would be inclined to purchase them,” she said.
At Evergreen Valley High School, senior Owen Chung said he is reluctant to purchase a yearbook but would consider a less-costly paperback version.
At Oak Grove High School, Kaylin Knight started teaching the yearbook class last year and at first found herself struggling with a lack of support and resources. Currently, she has received assistance from a former yearbook teacher at nearby Santa Teresa High School. However, Knight notes how many students come into yearbook unaware of the subject’s expectations.
“Students didn’t know that yearbook was supposed to be like journalism,” she said.
These challenges have not diminished students’ interest in keeping yearbooks alive. Among the 93 students who participated in the Mosaic survey, 68 reported yearbooks still are a significant part of high school life.
Silver Creek senior Tinh Nguyen said, “Not only do yearbooks allow a final farewell from our childhood into adulthood, they also let us always reminisce as we progress through life. Even when our memory starts to give out, our faces and names will be archived for all of us to see.”
Brook Navarro, a Silver Creek sophomore, pointed out that unlike the short-lived trendiness of social media platforms, where photos are buried over time, yearbooks are a medium “where photos will stay a constant throughout life.”
Butler, the former Silver Creek yearbook advisor, said, “Yearbooks are a valuable keepsake in this digital world.”
One local high school may have found a solution to the sales challenge. With its yearbook in jeopardy, Evergreen Valley switched from a traditional publishing company program — in which a set number of books are published and the school is pressured to sell them all — to a company that has a more flexible arrangement.
Under the new plan, students order online and the yearbooks are individually printed and shipped directly to their home. Also, the new yearbooks rely more on photos and less on blocks of text. These changes helped lower the cost of the yearbooks from over $100 to around $75, according to Virginia Yenter, Evergreen Valley’s activities director and yearbook adviser.
Until more schools can come up with such options, the future of high school yearbooks could be precarious.
Jasmine Sessoms is a senior at Silver Creek High School in San Jose.
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