60% of Long Beach seniors missing from yearbook after staff changeover

Nearly 70 of 116 graduating seniors at Rancho Dominguez Preparatory School discovered their portraits were absent from the Class of 2026 yearbook after a staffing change left an entire alphabetical section of students unaccounted for, ABC7 Los Angeles reported.

The omission — which the Los Angeles Unified School District called unintentional — has sparked anger among students and families just as the senior class prepares to graduate, leaving dozens without a permanent record of one of their most significant milestones.

The gap traces to a personnel change: the school's yearbook teacher retired early in the year, and a replacement employee who assumed the role failed to include portraits of students whose last names fall alphabetically between C and H, according to ABC7 Los Angeles.

Senior Jada Denton said she spotted the problem the moment she opened her copy. "I noticed that from letters C to H, there's a cut-off of students and there's like a whole section missing, and I'm part of those students who are missing," Denton said.

Classmate Isis Sanders put the scale of the exclusion in stark terms. "So when we got the yearbook and there was maybe 70 of our 116 class in it, it was disheartening, to say the least," Sanders said.

Senior Aubrey Gregory said the experience stung both personally and financially. "I'm one of those people. It really sucks because I took time this summer, paid for that picture ... and it's not even in it," Gregory said.

Alicia Johnson, the mother of Denton, said the omission undercut her daughter's entire senior experience. "It breaks my heart because this is her experience. This is going to be her only experience as a senior. She worked hard, she made honor roll, she did her time, she put in all the work that she needed to get to where she's at, and it almost feels like they're just discounting all these seniors like none of it matters," Johnson said.

An LAUSD spokesperson said the school had already reached out to affected students. "The school apologized over the weekend to the seniors whose photos did not appear in the new yearbook. The omission was unintentional, and the school is working on a solution," the spokesperson said, according to ABC7 Los Angeles.

LAUSD had not announced a specific remedy as of the article's publication, according to ABC7 Los Angeles.