Free Yearbook AI Policy Template
Use this one-page policy to decide what AI belongs in your yearbook. It turns the four-part test from our guide, Can Yearbooks Use AI-Generated Images?, into rules your staff can follow. Copy it, adapt it to your district, and have your administration review it.
Free for any school to use and adapt, whether or not you work with Entourage Yearbooks. This template is not legal advice. Adapt it to your district's policies and state law.
[School name] Yearbook Program: Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Adopted: [date] · Next review: [date]
Adviser: [name] · Editor-in-chief: [name] · Administrator review: [name]
Purpose
Our yearbook is a true record of our school year and the people in it. We use AI to help us build a better book, faster. We never use it to change who our students are or what happened.
The 4-part test
Before any AI-assisted image goes to print, the editor and adviser confirm all four:
Authentic. Any edit to a real photo is true to the purpose of the original.
Consented. Anyone whose likeness is generated or altered has approved it before print. For students who are minors under state law, we follow district parent-consent rules.
Honest. The image does not present a person, scene or event that didn't happen as if it did.
Labeled. Any AI-generated image that is not obviously AI carries a badge, a "photo illustration" credit or a colophon note.
Allowed
AI tools for organizing, tagging, captions, layout and workflow.
Background removal, and color, exposure and glare correction.
Light portrait cleanup, such as blemishes, consistent with our school photographer's standards.
AI-generated illustrations, backgrounds and theme art with no real people in them. These must not use trademarked characters or brands without permission.
Not allowed
Generating or altering a student's or staff member's face, body or likeness without their prior approval.
Placing real people in scenes or situations that did not happen.
Presenting AI images as real photographs.
Uploading student photos to AI tools the district has not approved.
Missing coverage
We never generate a likeness of a student who is missing from our photos. Instead we:
Reshoot, or collect a photo taken to our specs.
Use a real candid, with the student's OK.
Print "not pictured."
Process
Staff record any AI-generated or AI-altered image on the page ladder.
The adviser reviews every flagged page before submission.
Likeness approvals are kept on file for at least one year after distribution.
Signed: Adviser ____________ · Editor-in-chief ____________ · Date ________
Suggested language for your school board's photo-consent review
For the board's consideration during its next photography-consent review. Advisers should not add this to forms on their own.
Student images may be processed by district-approved software, including tools that use artificial intelligence, to organize, tag and prepare school publications, consistent with FERPA, the district's directory-information policy, and applicable state student-privacy and biometric laws. A student's likeness will not be generated or altered using AI for any school publication without prior approval from the student and, for students who are minors, a parent or guardian. AI-generated images in school publications will be labeled when they are not obviously AI-generated. Families may ask which vendors process student images and may request deletion of their child's images according to district policy.
Questions for the board:
Which vendors may process student images with AI, and does any use face recognition?
Who must approve AI likeness changes?
How long may vendors keep student images?
Must AI images be labeled in all school publications?
Read the full guide: Can Yearbooks Use AI-Generated Images? A 4-Part Test for Advisers →