NEWS INFORMATION FROM

THE OFFICE OF MAYOR STEPHEN R. REED
City of Harrisburg
King City Government Center
Harrisburg, PA 17101-1678
Telephone: 717.255.3040

FOR IMMEDIATE USE
3 June 2004

CLASS OF 2003 YEARBOOKS WILL BE PROVIDED TO CITY SCHOOL STUDENTS

Harrisburg, PA—Mayor Stephen R. Reed today reported that students who graduated from Harrisburg High School in the Class of 2003 will get full hardbound yearbooks. The 200-page books will be printed separately but at the same time as when the Class of 2004 yearbooks are printed over the summer months.

Earlier this week, it became known that plans last year for the 2003 yearbook had fallen to the wayside. Efforts to reduce printing costs by having the yearbook printed in-house ended when it was determined the project was beyond what the District’s high-tech printing shop could handle, but no alternate arrangements were then made.

Reed said: “Until the matter was reported this week, neither this office nor the superintendent knew that the yearbooks had not actually been printed by alternate means. This is a communications gap that we find to be problematic and steps have been taken to assure it does not happen again.”

“The students will get a professional, complete and hardbound cover yearbook and not a soft cover edition that had apparently been discussed last year. The current graduating class of 2004 is getting the same thing and I am amazed the matter of the 2003 yearbook had not been resolved previously,” Reed said.

The Mayor said that the high school graduating class, instead of having the yearbook printed prior to graduation, have annually expressed a preference to have it printed following their commencement, so that the yearbook would have graduation photos and data included. The books get printed in the summer months and become available for distribution to those who ordered and paid for them prior to graduation.

This will now be done for the 2003 graduates.

Reed said private funds, and probably some school district funds, will be combined with the $40 already paid by 170 students from the 2003 graduation class to fund the yearbooks. The private funds are being raised from a variety of interested private citizens and businesses. “We are honored by their response to this project,” the Mayor said.

“We do not expect a recurrence of this problem in the future,” Reed said.

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