No Senior Quotes?

When a students time comes to be a Senior, most of them expect a senior quote in the yearbook. It’s just another token that should come with the ending of a high school career. However, at San Dimas, the quotes have gone away in recent yearbook publications. Here’s why the senior quote privileges have been taken away. 

To start off, senior quotes were made with the intention to be messages of positivity, a final farewell, to an important chapter in a students life. Unfortunately, some students have tried to take advantage of this opportunity. The San Dimas yearbook advisor, Mr. Black stated that, “Every year that we have done senior quotes, since 2007, there’s always been people who have tried to sneak stuff in.” With all the seniors writing quotes, it can be hard to determine whether or not the quotes are appropriate. There may be an inside joke, innuendos or racist remarks that are hard to decipher. Being that it’s sometimes difficult to find any hidden messages, Mr. Black added that, “I’ve had other adults help me, I’ve had professionals help me but there’s just somethings that gets passed us sometimes.” 

The use of hidden messages and negative content in the quotes is ultimately what led to the termination of senior quotes at SDHS. The more serious reason for their termination is the legal liability on the school. If  there ever were to be a lawsuit against an offensive or negative remark in a quote, that would effectively mean no more yearbook. On this topic Mr. Black added, “It’s not about writing something dumb, it’s something that would offend people or something racist, then we would get sued.” Mr. Black also made it a point to emphasize the fact that the yearbook is based on a budget. This means that, worst case scenario were a case made against an offensive quote, the yearbook would have to take care of it out of their budget. In addition to this, all the yearbooks would have to be recalled without there being a way to fix the problem. Ultimately, students at San Dimas shouldn’t take it out on the yearbook team for their decisions to do what they can to save the yearbook.