Handing over the yearbook: a checklist for the old chair and the new one
A good yearbook handover fits on one page: the logins, the vendor agreement and its dates, where the photos live and who can reach them, last year’s numbers, the contacts, and an honest list of what went wrong. Below is a checklist for the outgoing coordinator, a template you can copy, and what the new chair should do in their first 30 days.
In many PTAs new officers take office on 1 July. The chair leaving in June has often already renewed the vendor for next year, so the person taking over inherits a company, a set of dates and a process they only half know. This page closes that gap.
Why does the yearbook handover go wrong so often?
Because the yearbook is spread across a dozen places that belong to one person: a vendor account in their name, photo folders on their personal Drive, a price agreed by email, a teacher who always sends photos late. None of it is written down, because it all lived in one head.
Most transition advice is written for school yearbook advisers, who can train a successor over a year or two. A PTA chair usually gets a coffee in June and a forwarded email. So write it down, and hand over access rather than passwords.
What should the outgoing coordinator hand over?
Work through these in June, while the year is fresh.
Access
- The vendor account: who is the main contact, and how to add or change people
- Photo folders: where they are, who owns them, and who has access
- Design files (Canva or the vendor’s editor), ordering links and any school codes
- PTA email address, newsletter tool, and any shared yearbook calendar
The agreement
- Whether there is a signed agreement, how long it runs, and whether it renews by itself
- Whether next year is already signed, and by whom
- The price per book, the family price, any early-bird price, and the fundraising margin
- Deposits, invoices and how they were paid
Last year’s numbers
- Books sold, and how many families ordered upgrades such as hardcover or personalization
- Page count, cover type, and extra copies for staff or the office
- Money raised, and the date it arrived
Content and files
- Last year’s book, or its PDF
- The ladder (the page-by-page plan) and any section owners. What a ladder is
- Cover art contest flyer, entries and the winner’s files
- 5th-grade quote forms, teacher message forms, ads and dedications lists
- Portrait files from the photographer, and who sent them
People
- Principal and office contact for rosters and the last day of school
- The school photographer’s contact for portrait files
- Teachers and room parents who reliably send photos, and those who never do
- Volunteers who helped, and what each one did
Dates
- Last day of school, picture day and retake day
- When ordering opened and closed, the photo deadline, and the approval date
- When books arrived and how they were handed out
What went wrong
- Missing children, misspelled names, thin grades or events
- Late photos, late approvals, orders that slipped through
- What you would do differently
Is there a yearbook handover template I can copy?
Yes. Paste this into a shared doc, fill in each row, and send the link to the new chair and the PTA president.
| Item | Details | Where it lives / who has access | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vendor and account contact | |||
| Agreement: term, renewal, signed for next year? | |||
| Price per book / family price / early-bird / margin | |||
| Books sold last year (and upgrades) | |||
| Page count, cover, extra copies | |||
| Money raised and date received | |||
| Photo folders (links) | Owner: / Access: | ||
| Design files and ordering link | |||
| Last year’s book (PDF) | |||
| Ladder | |||
| Cover art contest files | |||
| Quotes, teacher messages, ads and dedications | |||
| Portrait files and photographer contact | |||
| Principal and office contact | |||
| Reliable photo teachers and room parents | |||
| Volunteers and their jobs | |||
| Last day of school | |||
| Key dates last year (ordering, photo deadline, approval, delivery) | |||
| What went wrong | |||
| What I would do differently |
Many state PTAs ask every chair to keep a procedure book for their successor. This table is the yearbook’s page in it.
How should photo folder access change hands?
Deliberately. Yearbook folders hold a year of children’s photos, so the handover is a good moment to check who can open them.
- Add the new chair first, then remove people who no longer need access, including the outgoing chair once the handover is done.
- Share folders with specific people rather than “anyone with the link”. A link setting leaves photos reachable by anyone who ever receives the URL.
- If a folder is owned by someone’s personal account, move it to a PTA-owned account or copy what you need before that person leaves.
- If your vendor deletes photos after the year ends, download anything you want to keep before that date.
What should the new chair do in the first 30 days?
Week 1: get access and read. Confirm you can log in to the vendor account, open the photo folders and edit the design files. Read the handover doc and last year’s book cover to cover.
Week 2: confirm the agreement. Find out whether next year is signed, how long it runs, and whether it renews by itself. If you are free to choose, the questions in the first-time coordinator’s guide will get you to a shortlist quickly, and the elementary vendor comparison covers who does what.
Week 3: fix the dates. Get the last day of school and picture day from the office. Count backwards to your approval date and photo deadline, then put them on the school calendar before it fills up. The month-by-month timeline.
Week 4: line up people and folders. Ask the outgoing chair for one hour on a call to walk through what went wrong. Pick one job to recruit for at back-to-school night, such as a photo captain for each grade. Create next year’s photo folders before the first event.
If your school uses Rethink, what carries over?
If the school is renewing, the new chair does not start from scratch. The pricing, book settings, team and last year’s yearbook carry over in the dashboard. A few things matter at handover:
- Make the new chair the Primary Contact before you step back. Only the Primary Contact can manage the yearbook team.
- Add new people from the dashboard. Don’t ask them to sign up on their own: a separate sign-up can create a second school account by accident.
- Check the contact and shipping addresses. Both often belong to the person who just left.
- Download photos by 1 July. Rethink deletes the year’s photos around 1 August and keeps the final yearbook files longer, so a reprint is still possible later. If you collected photos in the Google Drive folder Rethink set up, save anything you want to keep before then.
- Download the distribution list from the Orders tab if the new chair needs to follow up on who received a book.
If something can’t be changed in the dashboard, email admin@rethinkyearbooks.com and we’ll change it for you.
Handover questions, answered.
When do PTA yearbook chairs usually change?
In many PTAs, officers are elected in spring and take office on 1 July, at the start of the PTA’s fiscal year. The yearbook handover is best done in June, before the outgoing chair loses access and while last year’s details are still fresh.
Is the new chair bound by the vendor the last chair chose?
It depends on what was signed. Some vendors use multi-year agreements that renew automatically; others work one school year at a time. Ask the outgoing chair and the PTA president for the agreement itself, not a summary of it.
What if the last coordinator left nothing?
Start with the vendor: they can usually tell you last year’s page count, books sold, prices and dates. The office has rosters and the last day of school. The rest you rebuild as you go, and you write it down for whoever comes after you.
Inherited a vendor you didn’t choose? Signs it’s time to switch, and how. Forms, flyers and templates for the year ahead are free in the resources library.
Starting fresh this year?
Get a per-book quote and a sample, or book a walkthrough and we’ll go through the year with you.