Sara Wilson: Can you start by just telling me a little bit about your background?

Jerrod Newell: I have a degree in music education and in school administration. I was never on any kind of newspaper staff or yearbook staff or anything like that in high school. Until I started being a yearbook sponsor, I had never had any kind of formal training in it. I am a musician.

 

SW: How did you fall into the roll then?

JN: At the school I was at before this school, it was just a middle school called Lloyd Wood Middle School. We had to have a full class load. We were on seven periods a day, so that is six full classes a day. It was a smaller school. I was teaching choir, a speech class, and a creative expressions class. So, anyways, the yearbook advisor wanted to give it up and I had always been interested. Plus, it’s a small class—only eight or ten of the very best kids in the school. I went to their summer training and the previous advisor helped some. When Lloyd Wood closed, and we opened here with middle and high school all together, I was the only person coming that had any yearbook experience, so I started doing the book for the whole campus. We have one big book that is middle and high all together.

 

SW: And are there middle and high schoolers on the staff together?

JN: Yes, there are 18 of them. Eight middle schoolers and 10 high schoolers that all meet together at one time.

 

SW: Both at Lloyd Wood and coming here, what were some of the biggest challenges that you faced?

JN: Getting equipment. It is not as big of a deal here because we sell so many senior ads and stuff, and plus we do picture commissions for the whole school. We have a lot more money to work with here. Also, when they built this building, there were already computers and stuff. So some of them are nine years old, but I try to replace one every year. We’ve bought a lot of new cameras and equipment here. At Lloyd Wood, at the end of every school year, any profit we made just went back into the general fund. We just got $1,500 every year for startup costs. Here, all the money stays in the account. So we have thousands of dollars from over the years. I could replace all the computers, but this is my last year doing yearbook.

 

SW: Why?

JN: That new building across the road being built is going to be the middle school. I am going to have to go back and forth to teach choir everywhere and I’ll just have too many kids.

 

SW: Do you know who will replace you?

JN: Yes. Mary Garner. She is an English teacher, and she was on staff in high school. She actually helped me. She was my co-teacher the year I got my principal’s degree. I was gone for a semester to do a residency, so she took over when I was gone. She is the senior English teacher, so she teaches all the seniors. Their cap and gown pictures came back this week, and she passed them all out. So she already helps with a lot of those logistics and is involved with yearbook.

 

SW: What were some of the other learning curves?

JN: Well, I didn’t know anything about using the program. But like I said, I went to an intensive workshop at Birmingham Southern through the publishing company. And our rep is really good. We use Balfour—the Elmore Group—and it is a dad and a son who have been doing it for years. And they have two other people on staff, so it is four different resources that we have access to. And then the 1-800 number is also very helpful. They can always tell you anything you need to know about the software.

 

SW: What does a typical day in the classroom look like?

JN: Right now they are working on senior and personal ads. They just come in, get on their computer, and know what they are supposed to be doing. It is pretty much independent. Each person has the spreads they are working on, and then I send some to take pictures here and there. We do various photo projects. During the week of Homecoming, everyone has to get 150 snapshots. That has kind of calmed down though, because we are more into building the book.

 

SW: So at the beginning it is more instruction?

JN: Yes—how to work the cameras and everything. We go over how to sell ads. We also have to plan the whole thing. We have to design the cover and design the end sheets. We spend a lot of time looking at other schools’ yearbooks. The company has templates and covers, but we design all of our stuff ourselves.

 

SW: Are you a member of any scholastic press associations?

JN: No.

 

SW: Why?

JN: I mean, what do I need them for? Really, like, this is not my forte or my background. Our books have been selected from our publisher—three different years they were used as national samples and they do a thing called “Yearbook Yearbook,” where they show examples of covers and spreads. We made that as semi-finalists in 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015. And then in 2014, 2015, and 2016 we were national sales samples. So they do a competition, but we have never sent it off to be judged or anything.

 

SW: So you feel like you have that feedback and support from the publishing company?

JN: Yeah, and I mean I am not trying to be ugly, but if my customers are happy, I don’t need anybody else’s feedback.

 

SW: What do you think are the main strengths of this program?

JN: I mean, I guess that we make a product that people seem to be happy with.

 

SW: What is student reception usually like?

JN: They are always pleased with it when it comes in. Our sales have declined, however, which is a national trend from what I understand. I don’t know what it is all attributed to, but one of the things our company says is about social media. Instead of waiting a year to get a book, they can post immediately. They take pictures with their friends and don’t have to wade through all the pages of people they don’t care about. So, our sales have declined over the years. There are 800 kids in the building, and when we first started, we sold about 375 books. Now we sell 250 or so. Over the 9 years, it has gradually declined. But over the past 3 years, it has remained steady.

 

SW: Did something change in those three years?

JN: I guess the core people who are going to buy them kept buying them. Our yearbook company—I’ve never done it—but they offer an online yearbook. They can take this book and give it to you online. I don’t know if it’s a PDF or what. I think one of the main thing about yearbooks is being able to take it out and look at it. I just don’t think people would want it online. Plus, the internet access out here is weak. A lot of people out here have expensive, slow satellite internet.

 

SW: How does the staff decide what type of stories or spreads to do?

JN: I just assign it all. It is very formulaic. Ours is not magazine type. It is much more traditional. We used to write articles in it, but we’ve gone away from that because nobody ever read them. The kids just look at the pictures. I do make them write extended captions—get a quote for every caption and so it is somewhat journalistic. Plus, I’ve been overwhelmed with this workload for a while, so we’ve tried to scale back. We were doing one spread for every single sports team. The varsity baseball team got a spread. The junior varsity baseball team got a spread. There were like eight basketball spreads. We’ve started combining a lot of that stuff just to get the size of the book down. In 2011, the book was 279 pages. We are now down to 176. It just got to be totally overwhelming. We still put all the team pictures there and balance the coverage.

 

SW: How do you think this program adds value to student life? Why do you think scholastic journalism is important?

JN: For what we’re doing, they have something to keep. I mean I have all my yearbooks from high school. It is not important to everyone, but for the people it is important to, they are very adamant that we have it. There are several schools in our system that have closed the program. It is usually the schools that have students with a lower socioeconomic status.

 

SW: And what about for the kids going through the program?

JN: I think it is good for their writing skills. Some of them are creative, so they enjoy things like the personal ads. It increases their writing skills. It gives them a creative outlet. It gives them an elective that is small and more enjoyable. If they do what they are supposed to, it is an easy grade. I mean, I grade pretty hard on the spreads. I expect it to be correct.