With student IDs in hand and library fines paid, students eagerly wait to get their yearbook at the end of each school year. A universal tradition in schools around the nation, the yearbook helps students reminisce upon the events of the past school year. In recent years, the DHS yearbook, Our Year at Deerfield, more commonly known as O’YAD, has been crafted throughout the year as a course taken for an applied arts credit. Due to low student registration, the class has morphed into an after school club for this year. The new club faces numerous challenges in the next few months to produce a familiar high-quality book with much less time and staff.

Since the founding of DHS in 1959, O’YAD has captured and captivated students by creating a yearbook that relates to the student body. The yearbook is filled with sections such as student life, athletics, performing arts, clubs, and more. The yearbook staff is also in charge of producing another 100 page book that is exclusive to the senior class. The students that participate in yearbook are usually given various tasks like taking pictures and gathering information that is later laid out on a page and sent to print.  

Junior Haley Epstein started on yearbook her freshman year, and is now one of two student editors, along with senior Ashley Suszek. Epstein says that she loved being in the class because it gave her an artistic outlet during the school day.

“It was just a really fun way for me to have a class during the day where I could…have an artistic outlet…it was just one big project…we did all year and it had a big payoff in the end,” Epstein said.

Yearbook has always been a club, but was limited to the people who participated in the class. This year, yearbook changed its platform due to low registration. Sponsor Mr. Moran is confident that in the future, O’YAD can return as a class, but enough students have to register.

Moran has been involved in yearbook since 2004, and has co-sponsored the club and class with applied arts teacher Mr. Regan. He looked back at the history of the yearbook and its changing platform between an after-school club and a class.

“Yes, it [O’YAD] was always a club too, but…it was more a club exclusive to people in my class…I need staff, so I went open to the public…we will try to make a new class again,” Moran stated.

Moran said that the biggest challenge confronting yearbook is getting enough pictures. When there was a class, students would roam around the halls to take pictures of student life. Now, the yearbook staff is having trouble compiling enough pictures from school activities and the student body.

Now, yearbook has the challenge of producing the same, high-quality book with less time and fewer experienced personnel. Meeting as a class made it easier for Moran and the editors to check in which staffers more easily and readily. Now, they are only given one opportunity each week to check in on the staff, making it harder to make sure students are on track.

“Transitioning into a club and only being able to meet once a week is going to be a lot harder because we’re going to have to delegate jobs…and we’re not going to be able to check in with people…and give feedback,” Epstein said.

Epstein also noted how keeping staffers on task is going to be another challenge brought on to the editors.

“Another challenge that the club might have is making sure people are on task. I think that if kids aren’t meeting every single day with Moran…and us as editors can’t keep them in-line, they could be slacking and we would have no idea because we can’t keep track of their work…it’s going to be very difficult,” Epstein mentioned.

This is a new challenge for the editors, as they have been able to check-in on the staff and make sure everything is going smoothly. However, this year, Epstein and her co-editor, senior Ashley Suzek, have to put trust into their new staffers and hope that they will get the job done.

Scheduling at DHS can be tough as there are so many credits that are required to graduate and with some classes more publicized than others. Though frustrated at the lack of interest in the class, Moran is hopeful that a club open to the public will spark people’s interests and convince them to register for the class, but is confident that this year will be filled with learning and growing.

“It was no one’s fault, they [students] just didn’t understand the ramifications of not signing up,” Moran said

Although the club is the only platform for the yearbook this year, Moran is hopeful it will return to the classroom setting in the years to come. Moran, Regan, and their staff are ready to take on the challenge and are determined to produce the yearbook Deerfield students love and cherish.

“I’m a little nervous this year, by all means, because of how things have changed,” Moran said, “But I’m hopeful, and I will make sure it happens.”