A lot of things have changed this year, and the yearbook (which is only $75 right now) is among them. Many challenges have arisen for those on the yearbook staff due to the strange school environment COVID has created.

“It’s harder to get pictures,” Says the teacher in charge of the yearbook, Ms. Baker, “because there aren’t as many students here.” Not only is this true, but because the yearbook is meant to represent all of Karns High School, representing the students who are doing online learning is difficult. The staff has had to resort to asking these students to send in their own pictures. Ms. Baker also states that many of the students in school are reluctant to take their picture as well. This isn’t helped by the fact that the cameras that are usually kept in the school aren’t around this year as a safety measure to protect from the spread of germs that would come with multiple people touching them.

This lack of content to put into the yearbook persists beyond the lack of students as well: “There aren’t as many things going on after school to photograph.” Several clubs—and school events, by extension—have been cancelled, and that not only makes it difficult to get pictures that go beyond a simple classroom setting, but also leaves the pages that they would go on empty. Coming up with new ideas for these pages can be difficult, and the trouble with getting pictures to fill them with adds to that.

This year is also different for the yearbook staff in a way unrelated to the pandemic. The book is being made with a new website that the school has not used before, so not only are the new members of the yearbook staff having to learn it, the returning ones are too. Deadlines don’t wait, though, so everyone has to learn this program while also making pages that will be printed into the book and seen by the school at the end of the year. 

If there’s one thing we can expect from the pandemic, it’s that it will leave no piece of our lives unchanged- the yearbook is no exception. With fewer students and new software, Ms. Baker and her staff have more than their work cut out for them.