I'm happy to report back that the yearbook is coming along just great! I am using Microsoft Publisher version 2003 which has a new feature called "Catalog Merge". This lets me merge all the kids photos along with their names into a booklet. The public school's in-house print shop is using a color copier to create the yearbook (in full color) and we can offer it at only $5!
Thanks for suggestions and offers of help.

We won;t be doing yearbooks next year with a yearbook company. Most student picture companies (Lifetouch, etc) send a disk that you can make your own yearbooks. The teachers will be given the option of doing one for their class only or shaing them with other classes. It's less expensive and most schools already have the basic software programs (Microsoft).

At my daughter's school we moved away from last year the PTO budgets for & purchases disposable cameras for the classrooms and gave to the teachers. PTO paid for developing and there were doubles of all the pictures done at processing. Yearbook staff got one set and other went to the teacher to use at her discretion! Worked great! I coordinated the yearbook along with planning a relocation with hubbys job and yearbook would not have been possible without help and the extra pics this provided with teachers taking the pictures. Give a deadline to have the cameras turned back in allowing time to have some of the class parties etc. photographed & make it clear if they do not turn cameras in they will not be in yearbook. 2 weeks after deadline I had to go to principal and she had to put a fire under some teachers to turn in cameras. I would have went to press without the pics if I needed to! This gives you alot of candid shots of day to day happenings in the school!

You know, it is A BIG PROJECT! I am the chairperson of our elementary school yearbook. This year, we have over 1350 kids in grades K-5. What we do is have a co-chair responsible for the pages in each grade level. Also, we have an advertising section to help defray costs, and we have a co-chair for that as well. IT IS SO WORTHWHILE!! Last year, a child said to one of our chairs, "Thanks for putting me in the yearbook, I've never been in one before!" Stuff like that made our day! We use Jostens to print our books and we have a beautiful hardcover book for $14 a piece! Their program wasn't too difficult to learn either. Our rep was very helpful in getting us started. Email me if you have any further questions! I'd love to help you out!

We are doing our yearbook "freestyle" this year and not using a company. Last year was the first time we tried it. What a savings! Also, the turnaround time was great. We were able to put in events that happened in early May and have the yearbook printed 3 weeks later.

However, we do it labor intensively by putting the pictures on a paper and taping it with creative memory special tape. What printing there is, is just done on Word. Our head shots were taken by local school photo company and they will lay them out as well, we just have to provide the class lists. They are also sending out a photographer to get group shots.

Our elementary has about 300 kids also and we (PTA) give all the fifth grade students a free book. We sell an additional 200 to all grades and make sure to include pictures of every classroom. What a lot of work for a committee (and well worth it!) but too much for one person.

The biggest challenge is always getting enough candid shots and we end up going in at recess and being photographers. Good luck!

to be honest.....if you have never done anything of this magnitude before, and being its a yearbook...i'd get away from doing this project esp when there are plenty of companies that do this stuff.