Seaford High School creates lasting memories with new yearbook class

What first started out as a club has become an entire course dedicated to providing students with a yearbook to cherish their memories at Seaford High School.

This school year marks the first time Seaford’s yearbook club has expanded into a full class for students. The goal for the course, according to its teachers, Curtis Tripoli and Melinda McKee, is to create a yearbook for the entire school, not just the seniors.

“We’d like it to get to the point where the whole school is buying the book and excited to be part of it,” McKee said. “So that there's a buzz for it at the end of the year.”

According to McKee, previous yearbooks would include underclassmen sections featuring portraits and group photos of students. Most of the book, however, has traditionally been tailored for seniors. For Tripoli, setting up a diverse classroom is important for creating a book that represents all the students.  

“The goal is to get more underclassmen involved so that we can widen its reach,” Tripoli said. “We have seniors, and we actually have an underclassman for the first time working on a yearbook.”

With 24 students enrolled in the course, Emily Brown is the only sophomore, while the rest are seniors. Tripoli said the senior majority presents a challenge when it comes to representing all the grades.

“The moment we bring up an idea, ‘Hey, let's do a sophomore section,’ it gets shot down,” Tripoli said. “So, it's a culture shift, and we’re trying to change that.”

Brown said she has helped to facilitate that change by recruiting students for next year’s class by telling friends about the program.

“It’s fun,” she said of the class. “I express what we do and how much you actually put your own input in.”

Three of her friends have already shown excitement to participate in next year’s class.

“There's a lot more people in the class, so it's a different dynamic,” senior Angelina Brody, the yearbook’s editor, said. “The yearbook club was a lot smaller, so now you're amplifying that, and you have a lot of different people with a lot of different ideas. We had to kind of figure out a way to make everybody happy but still make the book work, and that's been a challenge.”

McKee and Tripoli took over the program three years ago when it was a club that met once a week. McKee said the number of students that have enrolled in the class surprised her. As a club, it was small, McKee noted, with 13 being the highest number of students she’s had.

The class is available to sophomores, juniors and seniors, with each grade taking on a different role in developing the yearbook. Tripoli said they’ve divvied up the responsibilities by having students assigned pages to work on. Eventually, they would like to transition to each grade taking on a task — sophomores would interview students and faculty, juniors would take photos, and seniors would act as editors who decide what goes into the book.

“We’re trying to get more autonomy from the students to be able to run it themselves eventually,” McKee said.

When it was a club, Tripoli said, advisors would do much of the work while students provided input. As a class, Tripoli wants to reverse that role.

“We're trying to make it more of a student-driven class where they're doing most of the work, and then we're prepping the work,” Tripoli said. “So that's kind of to make it more of a class environment where more people are involved.”

Tripoli described the class functioning like a newsroom, where students come up with ideas for the book and are given deadlines for their assignments.

Both teachers added that the books have been focused on photos but would like to include more writing sections in the future. One writing project is 24 questions for 24 Vikings, where students and faculty answer questions about themselves.

The yearbook class can be taken each year from sophomore to senior year, helping students grow into editorial roles to guide the underclassmen with their assignments. Tripoli said he wants the class to develop a system in which students learn from one another.

“Our goal is to have sophomores, juniors and seniors,” Tripoli said, “so that each year, the seniors teach the juniors, who teach the sophomores, and then they kind of help each other.”

The Seaford yearbook is available to order with prices starting at $145. For more information, visit the high school website at seaford.k12.ny.us/seafordhigh.