Yearbook Editors Explain 2020-2021 Distribution Process

Le'Mario Somerville, Wired Staff Writer|February 22, 2021

The+2020-2021+Shield+Yearbook+will+have+a+fall+distribution+due+to+COVID-19.+

Ramya Iyer

The 2020-2021 Shield Yearbook will have a fall distribution due to COVID-19.

This school year has been filled with canceled events, masks and online school. These issues make it difficult to not only create a yearbook, but also distribute it to students safely and on time. Yearbook editors-in-chief Chiharu Shuai and Maren McDaniel said it’s been difficult making a yearbook during COVID-19. 

“It has been a bit of a struggle,” McDaniel said. “A lot of the things we normally cover like fall sports, and show choir and school dances have been canceled. Because of that, a lot of our pages about what got canceled and that’s not fun to read about. We are trying to stay a little bit more positive with our content, but it’s really difficult to fill the yearbook when all that is happening is COVID-19.”

Getting a yearbook will also look different compared to previous years. McDaniel and Shuai explained the new plan for picking up a 2020-2021 yearbook.

“This year, we decided on a fall delivery for next [school] year,”  McDaniel said. “The reason is we wanted to have a quality yearbook with a lot of pages and because we have a very small staff. Also, the pace was a lot slower this year due to COVID-19 and online learning. So, we decided to delay the book so that it could be of a higher quality.” 

A problem Shield faced was that a fall delivery would leave seniors and students leaving the district without a book for friends and family to sign. They came up with a solution for these students, however.  

“One change we did make is, because we’re doing a fall delivery, we want seniors to have something at their [graduation] parties or for people to sign before they leave,” Shuai said. “We’re going to have booklets, hopefully with the senior superlatives. It will be designed the same way as the yearbook so it will look cohesive. It will also have adhesive on the back so they can add it to their actual yearbook when they get it.” 

The price of the yearbook has also gone up since the beginning of the year.

“We had the price of the [yearbook] low at $60, because we didn’t know how long it was going to be,” Shuai said. “But, going back to green mode, I think we can do a 300-page yearbook. So, we bumped up the price to $75.”

More information regarding the Westside Shield Yearbook and how to order can be found here.