Publications

Publications

January 28th, 2018 by Colbyn Dinehart

"A Day In The Life Of The Publications Staff"

Publications first began in the 2008-2009 school year. Whether it was the school newspaper, including the one that was created in the 2004-2005 school year by the former advisor Ms. Pappa, and the "Peek At The Creek" that Mr. Amell started, or learning any usual stuff you would normally learn in Social Studies, as Mr. Ferguson said, "History is an important part of the news. We need background information to better understand current events," Publications was the best third period class in school, and third period is the perfect, and only, time that it fits in the master schedule. "I would prefer Publications to be in the afternoon," said Mr. Ferguson. Mr. Ferguson also pointed out, "I used to produce the Elementary yearbook," which is exactly why he has a few Elementary yearbooks in his room.

Whenever it came to being in Publications, everyone's favorite thing to do is work on the school yearbook, which involved photos of students, clubs, sports, and sometimes candids. Each yearbook has a theme, because, as Mr. Ferguson said, "Each class picks a different theme based on their interests." The yearbook has everything, except for one thing that the newspaper do have, and that is...articles. "We do not have room for articles in the yearbook," said Mr. Ferguson. "The yearbook only comes out once a year, we need four newspaper editions. Speaking of editions, the other thing that Publications students do is sometimes look at old and new yearbooks, especially from other schools, because they give us ideas for the Publications staff's current edition.

Another thing about the school yearbook is that every year, the yearbook has a dedication to other teachers, and sometimes students that are usually seniors. The yearbooks could be dedicated to those teachers because they either retire, such as Mrs. Robbins, Mrs. Liszewski, and Mrs. Houghton in 2012, Ms. Shiel and Mr. Amell in 2016, and Mrs. Elkin in 2017. There are also some teachers who recently passed away such as Mrs. Orr, who died of breast cancer possibly somewhere in the late 2000's and early 2010's, and the 2013 yearbook was dedicated to her. Or sometimes, the yearbooks could be dedicated to teachers who everyone adores. Besides the dedications, the yearbook also shows candids of different traditions, such as Spirit Week, the Homecoming Dance, the Senior-Junior Prom from the year before the yearbook was made, and sometimes the School Play that the Drama Club students perform.

Usually, when it comes to the school yearbook, students work with Balfour for their quality, service, price, and programs. However, there are other companies that some students can work for when it comes to the school yearbook, but Balfour is the best one. And besides the the school yearbook, the other thing that people do during Publications is work on the school newspaper. The differences between the newspaper and yearbook are that the yearbook is bigger than the newspaper, the newspapers have articles rather than pictures, and the yearbooks show the advertisements unlike the newspaper itself. Whenever it came to the school newspaper, every student writes an article focusing on the same things that the yearbook has photos and candids of, such as the clubs, sports games, Spirit Week, the Prom, the school's Drama Club play, the Band or Chorus concerts, etc.

Another thing that the Publications staff is working on is a compromise for the yearbook, and also, as Mr. Ferguson said, "the Board Of Education will make the decision," which is exactly why we need Elementary class (and club) photos for the pages of the hard-covered yearbooks, though the Elementary already has yearbooks with things like that. Usually, for the Elementary yearbooks, when it comes to yearbooks like that in Sandy Creek, it would include the past teachers who had previously retired, left this school to work at another place, and/or just those who have been here at this school for a long time. They would also have the Pre-K photos of kids holding a rectangle-shaped piece of paper that says the kind of jobs that the Pre-K students would want to have when they grow up. They wouldn't have pictures of the play that the Wisdom Thinkers have done in the past during the Morning Program, and the Elementary School doesn't have a Publications like this. The Elementary School yearbooks are more boring (as my opinion) and the yearbooks that we make in Publications are more cooler.

So there you have it. Publications is the only class where you can help out with the School Yearbook and the Newspaper, and talk about history and news stuff from other places. Social Studies has things like that, but it doesn't involve old news that you would learn about in Newspapers. Publications is the right class for that. It's the best class in the whole entire school, and the only third period class to do everything that you've never done when you were in high school. It may only be for Freshmen, Seniors, Juniors, and Sophomores, and students like that may already know what's going to be in the yearbook and newspaper, but as for the Middle School students, they can get involved in the kind of Publications that Middle School students work on the Middle School yearbook, and Publications students can buy their yearbooks before the end of the year. Publications has been around for ten years, and hopefully it will still be around in Sandy Creek.

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