When a Photo Says More than it Should

My first principal’s job was at Saybrook-Arrowsmith Junior-Senior High School.  Saybrook was a small community of about 800 and its population was going down. Arrowsmith was even smaller with about 300 people and its population was also shrinking. The towns were located at the far eastern part of McLean County among some of the richest most productive farmland in the world. A Saybrook farmer annually won the world’s highest corn production per acre.

With shrinking populations came shrinking schools and school programs. The rich farmland financed the schools with enough money to keep going regardless of size.  The designation Jr-Sr high school was pretty common in that part of the country because there were not enough students to house in two buildings. Well before I arrived both communities had high schools. At one time, there were football teams in these small schools. When I arrived, the high school had eighty-four (84) students and forty (40) students grades 7-8. Even with eighty-four students in the high school, we were not the smallest high school in the county.

The small size, and relative isolation (30 miles from Bloomington and off a main road), led to some “small town” thinking. Some of this was a feeling that kids needed to enjoy high school, and that was the end of education. There were fine families that valued education and wanted college for their kids, but they were a small minority.

Enjoying high school meant basketball, hanging with friends, and parties on the week-ends. Everyone turned out for basketball games. With such a small population, a student had to partake in the parties or be restricted to an even more limited social life.

As a rookie administrator, I had a lot to learn about student discipline. Albany was a great place to teach, and school discipline was handled by the teachers. The principal at Albany could rely on them to control the students without his involvement. At S-A, like many high schools, the teachers would send discipline issues to the principal.

I made a concerted effort to organize the school discipline as well as an out of control curriculum. There were over 60 courses in the curriculum. I was not authoritarian, but I was a big change from the previous principal. I set down some basic rules in the handbook folder seen above. I included some recognition for students who were good citizens and not necessarily athletes. I formed a student advisory group that purposely included some students who were disciplinary issues. Some parents resisted, but many appreciated the structure.

The clash of cultures materialized when the senior class yearbook photo was taken. The students’ silent protest was not recognized until the day before the photo and final mock-up was to be mailed to the publishing company.

Saybrook is home to some of the most beautiful Norway and Sugar maple trees. The fall colors are striking in their brilliance. The photo was taken in a grove of these trees. All of the high school seniors were in the photo, sitting on student owned pick-up trucks. To keep down cost, this was to be the only color photo in the yearbook.

On a signal from one of the seniors, several people reached into the truck beds and sat and held liquor bottles on the truck box. The smiles from the group in one truck, were in part, because they had silently made the point that partying was very important to them.

The yearbook sponsor did not notice the bottles until making the final paste up of the yearbook. Missing the deadline would result in a large additional cost of publication, but the photo could not be used. The yearbook was not mailed.

Fortunately the photographer was a faculty member. Using some blackout liquid, he was able to color over the liquor bottles. Allowing for this to dry, pushed us to the day before the due date. Our only recourse was overnight delivery of the large package.

The photo is beautiful and is a nice beginning to the yearbook. Every student touching a liquor bottle got a bill for her share of the cost of overnight delivery. A close look at the photo will reveal the blacked out triangles where the bottles were located. All of them eventually paid the fine rather than disclose who was behind the plot.