On a page towards the back of last year’s yearbook, school pictures of 35 Junior Kindergarteners find their home. The portraits are fuzzy and a bit grainy, making them stand out from the refined 2018 photography that fills the rest of the book. Above the smiling four year olds lies the title “14 Year Gang.”

However, as students flip through their brand new yearbooks this Class Day, they won’t find the iconic page. As of this year, yearbooks will no longer include the “14 Year Gang” spread. In addition, senior Parent Tributes will no longer be incorporated into the book, but rather included in a separate publication. The 14 Year Gang page will be discontinued completely.

The 14 Year Gang spread is dedicated to the graduating seniors who have been at Parker since Junior Kindergarten. Seniors’ Junior Kindergarten photos are on one page, and opposite of their toddler portraits is a picture of the group currently.

The 14 Year Gang page has been a topic of conversation for years, according to Yearbook Advisor and Upper School Visual Arts teacher Travis Chandler. “As Yearbook Advisor, people come to me a lot with requests and ideas for future yearbooks,” Chandler said. “But one of the things that has been consistently going on for the last couple of years is faculty, staff, and students asking about the 14 Year Gang page and if it’s truly equitable.”

After receiving multiple comments about the page, Chandler decided to discuss with the administration about the mixed feelings and if it had a place in the yearbook. The administration recommended finding a “suitable replacement,” according to Chandler.

Most of the discontent regarding the 14 Year Gang comes from the feeling of it being “at its core, an inequitable club,” according to Chandler. “I’ve heard various kinds of criticism about it,” Chandler said. “But the theme is always that it’s just not fair, equitable. Some of the comments have been about whether it’s an accomplishment to have been here for 14 years versus a privilege.”

While some view the page as a symbol of inequity, other students, particularly 14 Year Gangers, have other feelings. “It’s supposed to be a fun tradition,” Senior and Yearbook Editor-in-Chief Amaya Contractor said. “Since I’ve been here for 14 years, the photo has been something that I’ve always looked forward to. Every year flipping through the yearbook, the photo has been one of the highlights for me.”

Although some associate members of the 14 Year Gang with wealth, Contractor doesn’t see it that way. “A lot of students who have been here for 14 years have been on financial aid for 14 years too,” Contractor said. “It doesn’t really have anything to do with your socioeconomic status.”

Contractor sees the photo to represent something else–– togetherness. “To see all of the people that in some way are closer because they share that experience of being at Parker for 14 years is powerful,” Contractor said.

Senior Annette Njei, a non-member of the 14 year gang, feels apathetic towards the photo. “I was very curious as to why Parker would include a photo like that one in a school publication,” Njei said. “But I really have no emotion towards it.”

With Chandler, Yearbook Editors and Seniors Simran Jain, Sydney Garelick, and Contractor tried coming up with alternative ideas to keep some reminets of the tradition alive. They thought of creating photos for every number of years students attended Parker, including 13, 12, and 4 year gangs. Another idea was to replace the 14 Year Gang photo with one of every senior wearing a tee shirt from their middle school. However, neither of these will be included in the yearbook.

In addition to the 14 Year Gang photo, students will no longer find the Parent Tributes in this year’s yearbook. The change was based on “a long standing conversation that I had been having with the administration about just how crazily inequitable those ads were,” said Chandler.

Previously, parents had to pay for their tributes to be published in the yearbook, and could purchase as many as they liked. Tributes were expensive, with a full page in color priced at $750.

Tributes will now be published in a separate book this year and only distributed to the senior class. In the new book, tributes are priced at $100 a page, and families are limited to two pages.

The old system created an apparent distinction between those who could afford tributes and those who couldn’t. “You would have five or six full colored spreads for one student,” Chandler said, “And then no imagery or tributes at all for another. Trying to find a solution that better represented the senior class seemed like something that we had to do.”

Contractor is excited for the change. “I think the new parent tributes are such a good idea. It was so obvious as to who could afford to drop thousands of dollars on a page of pictures of their kids, and it became this competition,” Contractor said. “I think this way it’s a lot more inclusive and allows every member of the class to be shown and represented and have something to look back at in their yearbooks.”