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Despite outcries, the principal sends most books back Wednesday to correct a printing error.
By LENNIE BENNETT
© St. Petersburg Times, published June 3, 2001
ST. PETERSBURG -- Signing yearbooks was part of the ritualized and often emotional goodbye acted out last week by Pinellas County students, especially seniors. It did not happen at Gibbs High School.
The yearbooks were returned to the printer because of an error. The situation has generated some controversy.
The yearbooks were delivered to the school in the final week of classes before exams. Distribution began Wednesday during the first of three lunch periods. An error was quickly discovered: Page 156 was missing, and page 155 had been printed twice. Distribution was halted.
After that, said senior Jenn Atkins, "everything became a big mess-up."
Gibbs principal Barbara Shorter said she told students that the yearbooks that had not yet been handed out would have to be returned to the printing plant in Alabama to correct the error. Students who already had yearbooks had the option of keeping them or turning them in for correction. The printer said the books could be returned by Monday.
Some seniors disagreed with the decision.
"I got one so people could sign it," said Luke McEachron, a senior in the Pinellas County Center for the Arts at Gibbs. "Basically, I bought a $50 notebook. I didn't want to wait until Monday because none of the seniors are going to be there next week."
Most, he said, don't come to school unless they have an exam, and many seniors, especially those in the arts magnet program, are exempt from taking them. Shorter said that while skipping the final week of school is common custom if students have not missed their quota of absences, it is not condoned, and students are still expected at school.
Senior Candace Frank, the yearbook editor, said sending it back to be reprinted involved dismantling the books, reprinting 16 pages and resewing the books together. She was unsure the process could be completed in time.
"That is not true," said Shorter. "The printer showed me the process. They had one page to insert. It's been done, and the books are on their way back."
Ms. Frank said the printer offered the option of printing the page on paper with a sticky backing that could be inserted at school.
"The sticky thing would be a temporary thing," Shorter said. "And we do not have the staff to put them in."
Some seniors said they wanted the option of taking a yearbook as it was.
"We were kind of mad," Ms. Atkins said. "We thought if we wanted our yearbooks, we should get them. She didn't listen to us."
About 70 of the 600 delivered yearbooks had been handed out, Shorter said. "Over 60 percent of the kids who had gotten the books turned them in."
"I think it's a bone-headed decision," said Nolan Smith, a National Merit finalist who is also graduating from the Center for the Arts. Ms. Smith works part-time for the St. Petersburg Times in the Copy Services Department.
"I asked Mrs. Shorter to reconsider. I was irritated, but I made a point of trying to be calm because I knew she was having a horrible day."
Ms. Smith's mother, Susan Kane, said she tried to talk with the principal.
"It was just "That was that,' " Kane said. "It was so dictatorial. I know in some ways it's just water under the bridge. On the other hand, it seems to be part of a pattern."
"I'm very responsive," Shorter said. "People say you're unresponsive when you don't respond the way they want you to."
Graduation for Gibbs seniors is Thursday. All participating seniors are required to attend a rehearsal Wednesday afternoon, Shorter said. Afterward, she said they will have "plenty of time" to sign each others' yearbooks.
McEachron said some seniors carried around notebooks during last days of classes for friends to sign in the absence of yearbooks.
"I don't have my yearbook. It's graduation time, and I'm trying not to let this stress me out," he said.