I spend more time than I probably should scrolling through the Facebook groups for yearbook advisors. You know the ones – where a first-year advisor posts a panicked question at 10 PM and a veteran of twenty years offers advice by 10:03. Where someone shares a brilliant coverage idea, and three people immediately explain why it would never work at their school. Where the same debates resurface every few months with the same passion, the same certainty, the same contradictory advice.
And I love it. All of it.
I love reading the questions from advisors who are exactly where I once was – or where I still am on my worst days. I love seeing the generous, detailed responses from people who genuinely want to help. I even love the responses that make me think, “Well, that would be a disaster at my school,” because they remind me of something important.
There’s a t-shirt I picked up at an Entourage Yearbook Advisors’ Conference that I keep coming back to. It says: “It’s not just a yearbook, it’s YOUR book.”
Your book. Not the book described in that passionate Facebook thread. Not the book that won the award at that other school. Not the book that follows every piece of advice from every experienced advisor who’s ever weighed in on ladder placement or senior quote policies.
YOUR book.
Take senior quotes and superlatives, for example. If you’ve spent any time in these groups, you’ve seen the debates. Some advisors are firmly against them – they can be hurtful, the voting can be popularity contests, the quotes can contain coded meanings adults miss, but students absolutely understand. Other advisors defend them as beloved traditions that their students look forward to all year. The conversations get heated. The positions get absolute.
And if you’re reading along, trying to figure out what’s right for your yearbook? It’s easy to feel like you’re failing before you even start.
Here’s what I want you to remember: The answer for your school isn’t in that Facebook thread. It’s in a conversation with your yearbook staff. It’s in understanding your school’s culture. It’s in a meeting with your administration about what works for your students, in your building, this year. The “right” answer might be no senior quotes, or it might be quotes with clear guidelines, or it might be something else entirely.
What works at a school of 3,000 students in suburban Texas might be completely wrong for a school of 300 students in rural Vermont. What’s perfect for a highly competitive academic magnet school might fall flat at an arts-focused campus. The theme that resonates with your staff of seniors might bore your staff of sophomores.
This isn’t permission to ignore good advice or avoid learning from others. Those Facebook groups are valuable precisely because they expose us to ideas we’d never have thought of on our own, solutions to problems we didn’t know we’d face, and encouragement when we’re sure we’re the only ones who don’t have it all figured out (spoiler: no one has it all figured out).
But here’s what I wish someone had told me earlier: Taking in advice doesn’t mean taking on self-doubt. Learning from others doesn’t mean your instincts are wrong. Being new at this – or even being experienced but facing a new challenge – doesn’t mean you need someone else to tell you what your book should be.
Ask the questions. Read the responses. Learn from advisors who’ve been doing this longer than you’ve been alive. Take the ideas that make your brain light up and ignore the ones that make you think, “That’s not us.”
And then make YOUR book.
Your students. Your staff. Your school. Your vision. Your yearbook.
It will look different from every other yearbook out there, and that’s not just okay – that’s exactly the point.
So keep scrolling those Facebook groups. Keep asking questions. Keep learning. But also keep trusting yourself. You know your students better than any advisor in a comment thread ever could. You know what your school needs, what your staff can handle, what will make your students pick up that book in ten years and smile.
It’s not just a yearbook.