CENTRAL — Central High School students and recent alumni expressed their displeasure online with the use of artificial intelligence throughout the school's 2025-2026 yearbook. 

Class of 2026 graduate Serenity Stewart, 19, posted several pictures of the yearbook in the "Central Rants and Raves UNCENSORED" Facebook group. Stewart noted that real photographs of students in the "superlatives" section were altered by AI. 

"Half of the students don’t even look like themselves, and some of their pictures are so screwed that the faces aren’t even properly 'made,'" Stewart wrote. 

She also called out alleged hypocrisy from school administrators, saying they criticize and "hound on" students for using AI only to "use AI-generated slop on a yearbook."

One anonymous user noticed in their copy that the wrong name was listed for the Class of 2026 valedictorian. According to the user, valedictorian Charleigh Hale was printed as Ainsley Hale. 

Another anonymous poster claiming to be a recent graduate shared images of other pages featuring art styles reminiscent of those consistently seen in AI-generated content. 

"Hey Central High School, please explain to me the lack of effort and laziness within the yearbook this year. There is no way that around $100 was paid for our students to be AI’d into the yearbook," the user posted. 

The yearbook's chief editor Elaina Newman responded in a comment under Stewart's post, saying the AI usage was a product of strict deadlines and last-minute changes. 

"Our class put a lot of time and effort into creating this yearbook and trying to make it inclusive and unique. We, as a group, understood that not everyone would love the design decisions we made, but that is simply part of creating something, especially for a large group of consumers. Of course, the feedback provided by everyone is much appreciated for the future yearbook classes to take into consideration!" Newman wrote. 

Taylor Keowen, a digital media and marketing teacher at Central High, also commented that AI was used for the superlative pictures because they did not have pictures of just the winners together. According to Keowen, only two of the featured seniors showed up to the scheduled superlatives picture day. 

"So the students in yearbook did the best they could to fit the theme without having actual pictures of the recipients," she said.

She also said students on the yearbook staff used AI to generate cartoon-style photos to fit the theme of Cartoon Network and compared it to using clip art in past years.

"Sadly, the original cartoon [images] from cartoons actually on Cartoon Network are all trademarked and could not be printed without written permission from the owner of the art," Keowen said. "So overall, to stick with the cartoon theme, they did [the] best they could with the short timeline they had to change all of the trademarked art."

Many commenters agreed with Stewart and the other students upset with the AI usage, with some calling for reprints or refunds. 

Some had no issue with the yearbook and enjoyed the images, theme and colors used. 

"Well, I’m gonna be the odd one out I guess. I went through every page of the yearbook and think it’s super cute!! No, I didn’t have an AI picture of my son, so maybe I would feel differently but all the 'real' pictures are awesome. This book is very bright and colorful. The AI images are maybe 5% of the whole book and just give an added touch," one Facebook user commented. 

The Central City School Board was not immediately available for comment.