Senior quotes are traditionally a fun way for students to express themselves and leave their mark on the school. But for the past four years, seniors at Venice haven’t been given the privilege of leaving their message. 

“I think we should have senior quotes because it helps express ourselves in the way that we want to and to leave our mark in the yearbook, and it’s a tradition that all senior classes look forward to,” said Senior Jesse Fabian.

Principal Gabriel A. Griego is supportive of the students being able to choose their senior quotes.

“I think it’s a nice gesture to allow the seniors to say something nice about their experiences here regarding their peers that they associated with, or their positive experience in the classroom or on the athletic field,” he said. “To have something that they can share and leave forever is a good thing. We allow our students to have a voice in anything here at Venice, this is their school, so I think the students have the ability to bring them back.”  

The school is not trying to take away our freedom of speech or expression, but rather make it easier on the Yearbook Club who puts together our yearbook, according to Mr. Richard Valerio, assistant principal.

“I think one of the reasons there are no senior quotes is because there is a lot of time that goes into creating the yearbook and we have to turn it in months in advance before it’s printed,” he said. “I would get complaints from people on yearbook staff that putting the quotes in was taking up too much of their time. When it was done in the past, it was always difficult to get the quotes from the seniors and it came at the expense of other important deadlines. At Venice, we believe in unification, so if not every senior has the opportunity to have a quote, it’s not fair for the senior class as a whole.” 

Not all students believe that there is truth to these claims. 

“I am under the impression that our yearbook staff got too lazy to look through and figure out which ones would make it into the yearbook or not,” said senior Sam Wang.

Mr. Valerio said that in order for the Class of 2020 to get back senior quotes, students in both yearbook and ASB would have to meet to set a deadline for their class to turn in each of their leadership quotes. He finished by saying that students are welcome to join yearbook if they want to have a direct impact on the issue, or can follow the deadline when the two clubs come to an agreed date. Students may contact Mr. Valerio or Mr. Serna if they have questions about the issue.