Many yearbook advisers are teachers or club leaders and have a great structure and plan for the yearbook. Then there are some of us who are parent volunteers doing a book alone, or sort of alone – see a previous piece about crowdsourcing and enlisting other parents to help get the photos you need.
Here’s a clear and honest breakdown of the pros and cons of creating a yearbook as a club/class vs. a parent doing it alone—helpful whether you’re choosing a method or helping others decide what works best for their school! Consider school size, age of students, time available, and yearbook objective.
📚 Yearbook Club or Yearbook Class
✅ Pros:
- Team effort: Tasks can be divided among students or members, reducing burnout.
- Student involvement: Encourages ownership, leadership, and creativity.
- Learning experience: Offers real-world lessons in design, photography, deadlines, and collaboration.
- Diverse perspective: More voices = more inclusive coverage of school life.
- Built-in structure: Regular meeting or class time helps keep the project on schedule.
❌ Cons:
- Managing students can be tricky: Advisors may need to do a lot of supervising, editing, or redoing work.
- Varied skill levels: Quality can be inconsistent depending on experience and commitment.
- Time-consuming for advisors: Planning, training, and troubleshooting can eat up time.
- Logistical challenges: Coordinating schedules, access to cameras/computers, and communication with school staff can be tough.
👩💻 Yearbook Done by a Parent (Solo Creator)
✅ Pros:
- Creative control: One person = one vision. No group decisions or debates.
- Efficiency: Decisions are made quickly; production may move faster without meetings or approvals.
- Consistency: Quality and voice remain uniform throughout the book.
- Flexible schedule: You can work around your own time instead of coordinating a group.
❌ Cons:
- Overwhelming workload: One person handles everything—photos, layouts, communication, editing, etc.
- Limited coverage: It’s tough to be everywhere and capture every event or group.
- Fewer student voices: Less student involvement can mean less connection with the final product.
- Burnout risk: Doing it alone, especially repeatedly, can lead to stress or frustration.
- Less school connection: Might miss out on the magic of students learning and being proud of what they create.
In my situation, I started with the elementary yearbook for grades K–5. Eventually, that split into two schools: PreK–1 and 2–5. Our PTO was responsible for the yearbook, so I volunteered to create the yearbooks for both buildings—for 13 years. For a few of those years, I also took on a one-year building for our 6th graders. A one-year building is always difficult because not only are the students there for just one year, but so are the parents. I agreed to create that book for five years, including a couple of years when I didn’t even have a child at that school.
Eventually, I was able to convince the principal that the yearbook for that particular building needed to be created by a teacher—someone who would be there year after year—providing consistency, instead of a new parent each year who had to learn how to organize and create a yearbook, often with no prior experience.
I also created a junior high yearbook one year with a student group, and that turned out to be one of my most challenging experiences. Not only was I still creating two other yearbooks at the same time, but I had never had to teach students and allow others to take over parts of the process. It was difficult to give up the control I had grown so used to over the years.
If you’re choosing between the two, consider your school’s size, your resources, and your goals. A club or class builds community and skills, but a solo parent can get things done efficiently—especially if there’s limited interest or support. Either way, the end result is a yearbook full of memories!