High school yearbook published with errors on ‘pretty much every page’

The 2013-14 Winter Park High School yearbook contained so many errors that the Florida school’s principal is considering releasing a corrected digital version on DVD.

School yearbooks have been the subject of national news for the past few weeks. From Wasatch High School in Heber City, Utah altering photos to show less skin, to another mistake riddled yearbook from Barry Goldwater High School in Phoenix, Arizona, yearbook staff flubs are in the spotlight.

Randy Noles, whose son is graduating from Winter Park High this year, told the Orlando Sentinel, "My son brought the yearbook home and naturally, I started looking at it…I saw not only typos but spelling errors and misused words on pretty much every page."

Winter Park student Sienna White struggled to read some of the misspelled words out loud and told WKMG Local 6, “That’s really bad…It’s like they just did it and didn’t even recheck it.” The station reports that in just one paragraph, they found 14 grammatical errors. Other examples in the bungled yearbook include, "Three stunts where done and the crown was in awe" and "Once our coached gave us out pep talk i was able to get in the water..."

Mr. Noles is a graduate of Winter Park High and is also the publisher of Orlando Life and Winter Park Magazine. He told WKMG, “The yearbook is, you know, represents the school not only this year, but for generations to come and it just seemed like a very bad message to send, particularly when public schools are under so much scrutiny and criticism now.”

Mr. Noles was so upset with the mistake-filled yearbook, which sold for $50-$70, that he offered to help with next year’s publication and contacted Principal Tim Smith, and then Joie Cadle, the district representative school board member, with his concerns. According to Principal Smith, the yearbook adviser took a leave of absence mid-year and the pages were not copy edited before being sent to the publisher. An anonymous yearbook editor at the school wrote to WKMG,

"Due to our lack of funds for the yearbook program, we were forced to squeeze two months of work into two weeks, which explains the copious amount of errors in the book. As an editor, I do admit the book could have been a hundred times better, but as stated in a slip we single handedly place in each book, it is a student-made book and everyone was well aware of that when purchasing it."

Winter Park alumna Michelle Cherie Blake commented on the WKMG Local 6 Facebook page with more information. She wrote that she was editor-in-chief of last year’s yearbook, when the staff adviser had no experience producing a high school yearbook and had to be taught how to do the job by students and the yearbook company. She expressed sympathy for the yearbook staff and added, “…you should look into the competence (or lack there of [sic]) of the adviser and how the school administration dealt with the situation; if Winter Park is to have any hope of producing a good yearbook next year they need to fix that problem.”

Principal Smith is investigating the option of a corrected version of the yearbook. However, the Orlando Sentinel reports that Anna Diaz, Area Superintendent of Orange County Public Schools, said the publication’s mistakes are “unfortunate” but reissuing the yearbook may not be possible.

Video and more info: WKMG, Orlando Sentinel, Facebook/WKMG Local 6