Treering Blog

Yearbook coverage ideas might be our favorite topic: brainstorming ways to represent more students, resulting in a more authentic narrative of the school year. It could also mean more photos, interviews, and work for you. After a colleague shared Kingsbury Country Day School’s yearbook, a lightbulb went off. Yearbook coordinator Kara-Jane LaVoisne created the perfect layout that includes over 60 students, highlighting their impact and participation in school events.

Why we love this template

This spread packs a punch because it covers a large span of time in little space. It covers 24% of the school across two pages. It showcases events that would not be covered elsewhere. This template is also well-designed: it’s clean and has multiple reader entry points.

Home for smaller events

Oftentimes, we have several photos that don’t fit on a larger spread. This is especially common in books that do not take advantage of modular design. LaVoisne took advantage of those moments to create a means to include them.

Versatility

While LaVoisne used this template for a school-specific year-in-review, you can use it once per section or season. For example:

1. Fall, winter, and spring PTA or ASB events
2. An overview of the sports seasons
3. Semester rundown of student life

If you’re feeling ambitious and have the content, an hour-by-hour review of a major school event such as the talent show or homecoming weekend could be a showstopper spread for your yearbook.

What’s most important: your yearbook team celebrates the people in your campus community. This layout is just one way to cover more students in your yearbook. For more creative yearbook coverage inspiration, check out:

• Collage Page Ideas
• Six Ideas to Fill Pages
• 3 Content Ideas for Portrait Pages

Parents, your 2025 memories deserve the spotlight! Share your funniest, proudest, or sweetest moment and tag @TreeringCorp and use #Treering2025Memories for a chance to win something for you.

Three winners will take home a one spa day, treat box, or a week of coffee on us. Your memory might be featured on our page!

Eligibility

• U.S. parents or legal guardians, 18+
• No purchase necessary

Treering Memories contest entry period

• Starts Monday, December 15, 2025, at 8:00 AM PT
• Ends Thursday, December 18, 2025, at 11:59 PM PT

Steps to enter

1. Follow @TreeringCorp on Instagram
2. Share a funny, proud, or sweet memory from 2025 on your Feed or Story (must be a public profile to be visible)
3. Tag @TreeringCorp
4. Use #Treering2025Memories

Winner selection and notification

Treering's social team will select the winners based on creativity and originality. Winners will be announced on Instagram during contest week.

Prizes

Three winners total will receive one of the following:

• Spa / self-care gift card
• Delivered treat box
• Coffee for the week

Release

By sharing your photo, you have verified the approval of the original photographer and anyone pictured, and you approve Treering to use your name, write-up, and school name for any marketing purposes, including but not limited to treering.com, social media, and mass media.

Additional information

• Content must be appropriate for all audiences

Contest not sponsored by Instagram

One of the top questions we see in yearbook adviser and yearbook coordinator Facebook groups involves yearbook gear such as cameras and organizational supplies. Using a combination of funds from budget money, yearbook fundraiser proceeds, or a grant, you can build a media room that achieves your goals.

This list is not meant to be comprehensive, rather a smattering of options. Tailor your shopping list to match your program’s goals as well as your population. Do you really want your elementary yearbook club students passing around a $2000 camera? Conversely, should your competitive high school team aim for a Pacemaker with just point and shoot cameras?

Cameras

Camera bodies

The camera body, or box, is where half the magic happens: the shutter release, mirror, viewfinder, and controls live on the box on a digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera; see mirrorless camera below if your head is going to explode. Your yearbook photographers will control the settings here.

Purchasing a camera kit from a big box store or online may seem like a great deal. The lenses that accompany those kits usually aren’t “fast” enough to take photographs in the gym or an auditorium when the light tends to be tricky.

A used camera kit from a resale website is always an option for schools looking to buy yearbook equipment with limited funds. Save the money for a fabulous lens that will help you get the sharp images you want. Most bodies built in the last 5-10 years will have the ISO, autofocus, and shutter speed capabilities you need, even for those frustrating low-light gym photographs.

Some great beginning boxes are:

• Canon Rebel
• Nikon D3500

Mirrorless cameras

Being lighter, and a potentially less expensive investment, mirrorless cameras are slowly replacing some DSLRs in yearbook classrooms. Mirrorless cameras will help emerging photographers because there isn’t as much gear to tote and they can look less intimidating.

Highly recommended mirrorless cameras:

• Canon R6
• Nikon Z6

Lenses

In many cases, investing in a lens aka glass will be more critical than a body. If all your school’s sports are outside, then the lenses that come in your kit will be perfect. If you photograph volleyball and basketball in a gym or musicals in a dark auditorium, then you are going to want a lens that can use the full ISO, aperture, and shutter speed range of your box. When buying any lens, make sure it marries your box. There are some off-brand lens brands such as Sigma and Tokina that are less expensive than their Canon and Nikon counterparts.

Two lenses to have

• 35-70mm f/2.8
• 50mm f/1.8 (more on the nifty fifty below)

Nifty fifty

If you add anything to your cart this year, make it a 50mm lens. The depth of field and low-light capabilities you have are what the young people deem clut

Lens cleaning essentials

Each camera bag in your yearbook program should contain a camel hair cleaning brush.

Pro tip: A pencil eraser is a great tool to keep in each camera bag to clean the battery connectors.

Photography essentials

Lens filter

These aren’t the photo-destroying filters your social apps provide, but screw-on glass filters for camera lenses. Use this circular filter for cutting glare and reducing light specifically with outdoor photos. Before setting out on a yearbook assignment with a polarized filter, take some time to play with it. Because it increases color saturation and cuts bright spots, it takes some time to learn.

Reflector

Reflectors, next to the nifty fifty, are one of the best, inexpensive photography items your yearbook program can use. They help you control light for outside portraits (think of fun ways you can take those pull quote pics up a notch) and also maximize limited lighting when doing studio shoots. A fun, and less traditional way to use a reflector is as a background.

Ring light

With mini ring lights being a cell phone staple in the early stages of influencers, pros have used the big ones for years. Ring lights surround your subject and eliminate most shadows over which three-point lighting enthusiasts geek out. (If you play around with your ring light and reflector, you can simulate the three-point look!) They make eyes pop. 

The best ring lights are at least 18”, and they come with both warm and cool light settings as well as a dimmer. Some tripods also have cell phone and tablet holders in addition to the traditional quick-release plate.

Studio kit

Studio kits look impressive, but are they essential yearbook gear? Here’s how we’ve seen Treering advisers use studio kits:

1. Class favorites, superlatives, or standouts
2. Photo illustrations
3. Pull quote portraits
4. Retakes when your pro photographer won’t come back for a third (or fourth) shoot
5. Setting up a photo booth at dances and school-wide events for a fundraiser

Many of the kits you can buy pre-packaged online will suffice for your yearbook program. Soft boxes vs. flashes are something to consider when looking at the rest of your gear.

Memory cards and card readers

Memory cards are temporary storage. They are temporary storage. Memory cards are not permanent storage. Phew! PSA over.

WiFi SD cards are game changers for busy yearbook staffs: they transfer files from your camera to the predetermined storage space without cables and card readers. Some cards even have an app so you can review photos on the spot. These make for effective teaching moments.

If you don’t have the budget or tech capacity, for something like wifi cards, it is nevertheless imperative to buy at least two memory cards per camera bag. Make sure you have a card reader in each bag as well as a card reader on each computer in the yearbook or media room.

Additional Yearbook Gear

• Rain Sleeves: keep your camera dry during outdoor events, such as soccer matches, in inclement weather
• Cell Phone Lenses: clip-on lenses run less than $30 and can add wide-angle, omnidirectional (aka 360), or fish eye capability to most smartphones. We love these for fun runs, homecoming rallies, and school carnivals.

Yearbook/media room

Yearbook gear is not limited to photography equipment. In fact, providing environmental tools is as essential as camera gear.

Cubbies and mailboxes

Magazine holders from the dollar store or cast-offs from the front office make great boxes for your students. Use them to send out important communications, such as emails from teachers regarding upcoming classroom events or new SD cards. Students can also use them for gift exchanges, camera check out, and peer edits.

Notepads

Doodling, brainstorming, and note-taking on paper are healthy parts of the creative process. In the early planning days, practice both digital and paper-based workflows so your team can decide which works best for them.

Mini fridge and snack subscription

An exclusive yearbook fridge in the corner of your classroom becomes a perk of the position. Waters, juices, and the occasional box of popsicles serve dual purposes: appreciation and fuel. Involve parents in keeping it stocked: at back-to-school night, start a signup sheet for yearbook parents to supply your students with snacks each month. Parents may even opt to share the cost of a snack subscription service.

Coffee maker

This is as much for you, Yearbook Adviser, as it is for your team. (And if you’re getting exasperated with us for suggesting you give children coffee, remember, cocoa pods and tea pods exist as well.) The point is to create a warm, hospitable environment for the hardest working people on campus.

Bulletin boards

This is where you brag on your students by sharing a photo of the week and any awards they may have earned. Pin thank you cards and any positive emails you receive regarding the yearbook for all to see.

When I say yearbook, you say theme. Yearbook! Theme! While that's not the actual rallying cry of yerds everywhere, it's pretty close. Yearbook themes dominate our club meetings and search history. Graphics, layouts, and backgrounds comprise the visual aspects of a yearbook theme package. Idiom dictionaries and pun generators comprise the verbal.

The value of a theme package

If you're not ready to create your own style guide from scratch, a theme package will help save you time and simplify the design process by

• Taking the guesswork out of creating a color scheme
• Organizing graphics and text in collections
• Modeling quality design
• Unifying your book with a consistent look

Fully editable layouts complete each yearbook theme package, like the portrait spread below. In addition, your chosen yearbook theme could also become the foundation for the yearbook marketing campaign. Create social posts or share PDF proofs in displays around campus.

Three ways to choose a yearbook theme package

The main purpose of a yearbook theme is to capture the uniqueness of the school year while setting the tone for the story the yearbook will tell.

Without a unifying theme, our yearbook contains only arbitrary events and students. Theme functions as the understated but essential ingredient to make this year’s story meaningful.

Theme 101: visual and verbal elements

When it comes to yearbook themes, many of us stop at the visual. When you have a great theme package, it's easy to do. Combining both visual and verbal theme elements take your design to the proverbial next level.

Visual

This is the easy part: making it pretty. When you have a codified collection of graphics plus a color palette, you can use your visual elements to do more than make your book pretty. Check out the example above: graphic elements are used to draw attention to the pull quotes. Stylized numbers (really an editable shape under a text box) match the photo to the caption.

Verbal

The vocabulary you use in your yearbook further communicates your yearbook theme. These verbal elements can be punny headlines or idiom derivates from your theme. While you don't want to overdo it (think the Coco Chanel rule), take time to add a lexicon to your theme brainstorm.

Here's what it looks like: the yearbook theme is Stay Gold. Students look up idioms for gold and compile lists of how they can be used. For example:

• Golden Age of the Bulldogs (opening)
• Heart of Gold (staff section)
• Gold Feet (soccer)

Whether you’re a Treering user or not, we hope your students' stories are told beautifully and authentically from cover to cover.

Some yearbook articles practically write themselves (looking at you, sports and activities), but a great yearbook will feature additional articles that give a holistic view of your high school’s student body. Coming up with ideas for these articles is as simple as considering what the students will want to remember. We’ve broken down some potential ideas into categories. Even if you don’t use any of these exact ideas, we’re sure they’ll get your brain kicking into high gear.

School life

Academics are important, but high school is also about socializing, gaining responsibility, and becoming an adult. Some of the most vivid memories are created outside of the classroom.

• Most embarrassing moments
• Hitting the snooze bar: do or don’t?
• Homework style: git ‘er done or procrastinate?
• Worst school-related nightmares
• Locker or backpack?
• Passing time during passing time
• This year I was proud of…
• Backpack must-haves
• Favorite class experience
• Lightbulb moments
• Making time for everything
• School uniforms: love or loathe
• What’s your commute: busing, driving, or walking?
• School rivalries: why we’re the best!
• Morning routines

Coming of age

Throughout high school, students are growing up. Each year brings unique challenges and changes. It’s fun to celebrate these milestones.

• First concert
• Getting your driver’s license
• Rock the vote: politics in school
• First jobs
• Taking the ACT/SATs
• What’s next?
• Summer job earnings: spend or save?
• Have you ever been grounded?
• AP classes or college in the schools
• Too old for toys?
• Childhood foods you’ll never let go
• Curfews
• Doing chores
• Naps: be a kid again

Leisure time

Sometimes school is more about the fun over the fundamentals. Reserve some space to tell the stories that are happening when the students are kicking back and listening to cassettes on their boomboxes (they still do that, right?).

• Gaming
• Fantasy football
• Favorite books
• Obsessions (Taylor Swift, TikTok, binge-worthy shows, etc.)
• Social media
• Hangouts
• Friday night social
• Garage bands
• Non-school sports (skateboarding, snowboarding, figure skating)
• How we shop: in-store or online?
• Constant communication: how many texts do you send in a day?

Current events

One of the most fun aspects of the yearbook is that it is essentially a time capsule. Up the ante by overtly including current events, music, and trends of the year.

• What’s in the news this year?
• Fashion trends
• Style inspiration
• All about hair, makeup, and beauty
• Favorite TV shows
• Music: best bands and favorite concert experiences
• Dance moves of the year (The Git Up)
• Knowing all the words to your favorite song
• Movies and blockbusters
• Seeing it first: midnight showings
• Your go-to memes/gifs
• New technology: wearable tech and hoverboards

Lunchtime

Whether it’s chatting with friends, playing games, or finishing up some late homework, a lot of stuff goes down in the cafeteria. With these ideas, you can focus on the food or the fun.

• Healthy or not?
• Best lunchtime traditions
• Droolworthy school lunches
• Who packs your lunch
• The best playground games
• Cafeteria workers tell all
• What school food will be missed the most?
• Who do you sit with during lunch and why?
• If you were cooking for the school, what would you make?

People

The most interesting part of anything (including high school) is the people. There are loads of fascinating dynamics, talents, and relationships to explore.

• Siblings
• Nicknames
• Unsung heroes: custodians, school nurses, and admin
• Friends since...
• Fresh faces: a spotlight on new teachers
• Who do you look up to?
• Hidden talents
• How did you become friends?
• Your biggest change in the last four years
• Legacies: kids who go to the same school as their parents

Places

Every story needs a setting, but these ideas turn the setting into the story.

• Rumors about the school: secret hallways, ghosts, hidden treasures
• If you could change one thing about the school, what would it be?
• The best restaurants in town
• Regional specialties (growing up near the beach, Texas football, big city living, etc.)
• Fun facts and quirks about the school building
• Spring break locations
• Where do you want to travel?
• Must-see locations in town
• Indoors or outdoors: where’s the fun?

Time of year and events

Over the course of the year, a lot of specific activities take place based on holidays or the season. You can use these triggers as a launch point to look back on the year.

• Homecoming parade
• Halloween: costumes and scares
• Thanksgiving and being thankful
• Seasonal activities: summer, fall, winter, spring
• New Year’s Eve: school resolutions
• Valentine’s day: love or loathe?
• Can we have class outside?
• Field trips
• Science fair
• Graduation

Categories lead to brainstorms

Hopefully some of these ideas will lead to some winning articles for your high school’s yearbook. If not, no biggie (we won’t take offense). You can still use these categories to springboard some new article ideas of your own design. Ask your students what they want to remember, and go from there.

Thanks to Pantone, earth tones are at the forefront of trending colors. Organic design is being toted as the “new minimalism”—even Martha’s in on the craze. We’ve broken down how to bring the outside in… your yearbook. Using Treering’s pre-designed themes gives you a curated collection of nature-inspired graphics for your elementary or middle school yearbook. 

The power of nature in design

Beyond trend appeal, using natural elements in design can be a metaphor for our school communities. It’s why we see so many motivational posters featuring grandiose sights. 

Additionally, nature is powerful. It positively affects our physical and mental health. It's timeless. Harnessing the power of nature in your yearbook theme requires creativity to evoke the natural world in print.

Ideas for visual yearbook design

Your whole yearbook doesn’t have to be a path through the woods with milestone markers along the way. (But if it is, would you send us a copy?) Of Treering’s 200+ cover-to-cover yearbook themes, these five have the call of the wild.

Here’s why they work and how you, if you’re a DIY-er, can create a yearbook design that feels as alive as the real thing:

• Use color to capture nature’s energy (they're called plum, grass green, and seafoam for a reason)
• Add dimension by layering objects
• Emphasize elements using organic shapes and natural patterns
• Create movement with flowy or circular patterns

How to build a narrative around nature

Illustrate personal and academic growth with graphics such as the life cycle of plants or the changing seasons. Other visuals such as roots, rivers, or the stars show our interconnectedness.

Elementary nature theme ideas

• In Full Bloom
• Grounded in Greatness
• Pathways of Promise
• Rooted in Growth
• Sky’s the Limit

Middle school theme ideas with an organic vibe 

• Branching Out
• Forest of Dreams
• Move Mountains
• Seasons of Change
• Trailblazers

We love seeing student interpretations of these verbal themes with cover art contests. You can also involve the school community by using students’ photos of nature on dividers and theme pages. 

You planned your year and recruited your team. Roles are set. Parents and teachers are submitting photos. And then, an unreliable volunteer sets back your yearbook exponentially. Take heart: you’re not the first yearbook adviser to experience this!

Volunteer unreliability factor 3/10 - deer in the headlights

Ready, set… nothing. Whether fear of failure or a general spirit of uncertainty are acting as hindrances, it’s time to step in as a coach. Let’s face it, many of our parent volunteers are publishing and journalism amateurs. Take some time with the new recruits to show not tell: design a layout together, photograph an event together, get students' quotes together. Build confidence! Consistent communication, including genuine appreciation, inspires unity and helps volunteer yearbook staffers push on towards your goal.

Volunteer unreliability factor 7/10 - oops… (s)he did it again

Early detection, while uncomfortable, can eliminate problems later on. The first time someone is a no-show, address it (kindly). 

When you do get that face-to-face moment, maintain your professionalism:

• Communicate with specifics: instead of “You’re always unreliable,” try “You volunteered to take Fun Run photos and did not have a backup in place when you were a no-show. What is your plan to get pictures?”
• Keep it focused: the conversation should center around yearbook responsibilities and not on personal issues. You’re not meeting to be a relationship counselor, life coach, or even a friend. You’re a project manager looking to complete a job.
• Be proactive: document what will happen next. If your yearbook co-chair wants to remain in the role, write out what it will look like with clear expectations and deadlines. Also include an “out” clause if your volunteer continues to be unreliable.

A word of caution: it’s easy to fire off a text or email, and like we tell our children, easy isn’t always best. As we know, much of communication is non-verbal, so a face-to-face session allows you (and your volunteer) to assess body language and tone.

Volunteer unreliability factor 10/10 - the worst-case scenario

What do you do when a volunteer up and quits in the middle of your yearbook and is unreachable, unresponsive, and, frankly, unrepentant?

1. Plan for human error and phone a friend
   Within your yearbook staff, build in a group of utility players; this may be a working mom who cannot help at every event or a school secretary that does too much already. Have a few friends you can call to help with one-off tasks. The leader of your parent org may have a list of volunteers to plug in.
2. Promote from within
   Your next yearbook co-chair may just be on your staff already. Once you’ve communicated the need—again using specific, job-focused language—the team may have a solution! (You recruited the best for a reason!)
3. Flip your lid
   Not really. It was just fun to write.
4. Remember your purpose
   As cliche as it is, remember the kids. It’s the students who will open the yearbook you helped create, pour over its pages, and never once reminisce on the unreliable volunteer who temporarily thwarted progress. Why? Because you're a project manager who completed the job.

Yearbook portraits comprise up to 40% of your book. Pause and contemplate that for a sec: row after row of awkward head tilts and half smiles with the same speckled background your mom had in the 70s fill the bulk of your pages. If you want to change up your layout and use the space to add additional content and cover even more students, we have a blog for that. This one, however, will help you nail the core of your people section.

Work with your photographer

If you’re not the picture day coordinator (lucky!), meet your school photographer and find out when you can expect to get access to your portraits. The two-to-three weeks between makeup day and when proofs arrive should be a part of your workflow. Spend that time prepping:

• An accurate roster
• Fall event yearbook spreads
• Poll, survey, and academics content you will incorporate in your portrait section

Extra credit: learn the how, what, and why of portrait files in the Treering Help Center.

Portrait pages: faster than a cup of coffee?

Treering’s engineers know we have a diverse group of users, so they included automation—such as portrait autoflow—in the arsenal and DIY features. Absent and new students can be flowed in after the fact, and your portrait pages will automatically re-alphabetize. What a relief!

PDF proofs for portrait pages

Editors tell us the secret to an accurate portrait section is utilizing the free PDF proofs in your editor dashboard. Some of the ways schools check names are:

• Distribute proofs to classroom teachers to ensure all their class is pictured
• Post PDF proofs in the lunch room so students can sign off on their names and grades
• Work with school administration to comb through portrait proofs and match them to the school’s database
• Share PDFs proofs at a PTA/PTG/PTO meeting for parents to check (this is also a hot marketing tip)

The more eyes that you have checking the spelling of names and making sure that the photo and name match up correctly the better.

In honor of the season of giving, Treering will match up to thirty yearbook donations per school account. From Tuesday, December 2, 2025 through Tuesday, December 31, 2025,  one community book donation equals one Treering book donation. Editors can re-assign these books to teachers, promoting students, the principal, or students in need.

How the donation match works

1. Enable the Book Donation option on the dashboard
2. Let your campus community know 'tis the season to share the (yearbook) love
3. Re-assign the yearbooks so recipients can customize or order non-custom books to hand out

This promotion ends at 11:59 pm PST on December 31, 2025. Matched yearbooks will automatically be added to your account by January 30, 2026.

The Fine Print

• Maximum of 30 donated books will be matched per Treering school
• Promotion ends at 11:59 pm PST on December 31, 2025
• Matched yearbooks will automatically be added to your account by January 30, 2026
• Donations may not be combined with any other promotions
• Donated yearbooks cannot exist on ship-to-home, invoiced, or PO orders; credit card or PayPal orders only
• Ordering donation books will not be available for After Deadline Orders

Yearbook surveys and polls are a great way to get a pulse on your school community for a specific year.

Not just any survey will do that, though. Your yearbook poll results will be way, way better if you ask great questions and help people give great answers.

Inside this post, we’ll show you how to do just that. And, as if teaching you how to fish wasn’t enough, we’ve got Atlantic salmon on deck: over 50 of our most fantastic survey questions to get your gears turning. Read on to get them.

How to write yearbook survey questions

Yearbook survey questions should be low-stakes and, more importantly, fun. They shouldn’t relate to anything that might spark controversy or offend anyone --politics, religion, etc.--

Structurally, you want to create questions that pair obvious inquiry-based words (who, what, where, when, why, how, etc.) with a specific set of responses.

Questions can range from “what was the song of the year” to “best place to buy jeans” to “snacks the cafeteria should start stocking” (though that last one could start a small riot). These are fun questions, great for putting students at ease, and building trust before asking them to share personal opinions and anecdotes.

Recycling the same questions every year isn’t necessarily a bad thing (provided the list you’ve created is full of excellent options). And of course, it goes without saying, you’ll have to change the answers listed to reflect the inevitable cultural changes (hello 20-21 school year changes).

Source Multiple Choice Responses Like a Pro

You’ve got three phenomenal resources at your disposal when it comes to generating the response options for your yearbook survey questions. Let’s take a look at them:

• Last year’s book. As we mentioned earlier, re-using older questions is perfectly fine: using old response-options? Not so much. That being said, they’re a fantastic jumping off point. Maybe Justin Bieber isn’t one of the best male singers this year. Perhaps Chipotle will cede its crown as the go-to pregame dining spot.
• Your staff. You might think you’ve got your finger on the student body’s pulse, but your student staff members are infinitely more plugged in. Grab a couple of pizzas one afternoon and have a brainstorming session to come up with responses. Not only will this help craft great answers, it’ll let you find if your questions actually resonate with students.
• Social media. Simply by paying attention to what’s happening in the student version of the world you can generate oodles of survey response ideas. Look at what’s trending on Twitter or TikTok and start keeping a running list.

When it comes to good multiple choice questions, you want to make sure you limit your responses to no more than 5 choices. Any more than this and students could have a hard time selecting only one. It might also become hard to read when you transfer the results into your yearbook, thereby missing the benefit of capturing this information for your students.

Now, without further adieu, here’s our list of over 50 yearbook survey questions.

Over 50 yearbook survey questions for better polls

Perhaps the easiest way to tackle this big list of questions is to divide them up the way we divide all questions: Who, what, when, where, why, and how.

The biggest reason for doing it this way? Doing so gives you a bunch of options when it comes to laying out your yearbook polls spreads.

Who...

• Is the best male singer/band?
• Is the best female singer/band?
• Would you you like to see speak at graduation?
• Was the most memorable performer (student)?
• Was the best actor (professional)?
• Was the best actress (professional)?
• Had the best athletic performance (student)?
• Was your favorite professional athlete?
• Wrote the best book?
• Made you turn off the TV?

What...

• Were the biggest differences between this year and last?
• Is your favorite professional sport?
• Do you wish the cafeteria had served?
• Was the most difficult class you took?
• Was the most memorable quote?
• Subject do you wish you tried harder in?
• Food did you try for the first time?
• Genre of music was most popular?
• Word did you hear most often when roaming the halls?
• TV show was everybody talking about?
• Jingle gets stuck in your head all the time?
• Accessory can you not live without?
• Is your favorite school outfit?
• Is the weirdest trend of the year?
• Decade would you pick to grow up in?

Where...

• Did you go after prom/school?
• WOuld you like to go this summer?
• Would you most like to take a nap in school?
• Would your team go to celebrate a victory?
• Are you happiest?
• Do you like to shop?
• Is the best pizza in town?
• Should there be a field trip to?
• Would you spend a free period?
• Are the school’s most comfortable chairs?
• Did you spend most of your allowance?

When...

• Did senioritis set in?
• Did you submit college applications?
• Did you start considering what you’d like to do after graduation?
• Do you get to school in the morning?
• Did you stay up the latest?
• Are you most productive?
• Do you do your homework?
• Did you cheer the hardest (school event)?
• Was the student body most excited?
• Is it okay to stop playing Pokemon Go/scrolling TikTok?

Why...

• Should school start 30 minutes later?
• Do you want to go to college?
• Do you prefer books to screen-reading?
• Aren’t there more students on the yearbook staff?
• Did [thing] happen on [show]?

How...

• Many books have you read this year?
• Many social media platforms do you use?
• Often do you send Snaps?
• Can teachers better-use technology in the classroom?
• Should the school go about picking new electives?

Got all that? Good.

Great yearbook survey questions (and great multiple choice answers) will help you elevate any polling coverage you might include in your yearbook. Even better? It’ll help you spot trends that can lead to story ideas.

Treering Yearbook Heroes is a monthly feature focusing on yearbook adviser tips and tricks.

Mom of triplets and one of Treering’s sales directors, Ansley Cheatham, fell into yearbook advising at Augusta Circle Elementary School after knowing she wanted to be involved at her children’s school. But what she didn’t know is that she would also fall in love with yearbook creation.

As soon as Ansley’s three boys headed to kindergarten, she started looking for a way to become involved with the PTA and was asked to assist with the yearbook. As some of you readers may know, the yearbook adviser role can be a challenging position to fill, but Ansley was all in.  

To date, Ansley has made five yearbooks for Augusta Circle, each creatively capturing the school year they represented. And while all the yearbooks hold a special place in Ansley’s and the elementary school’s heart, the 2020-21 yearbook was unique and challenging in a different way.

Learn more about Ansley’s journey creating a yearbook this past school year. 

How do you think COVID-19 impacted your yearbook and yearbooks across the country?

At Augusta Circle, we were lucky to go back to school safely in October, but it looked different than any other year. I wanted to be sure to highlight that in our yearbook in a way elementary students could understand and remember in a positive way.  The pictures weren’t what you were used to seeing in a yearbook, but I think that was part of its charm! In all of our group photos, our kids were wearing their masks. If the kids were alone, they didn’t have to have a mask on, so we had a lot more solo pictures as well.  

The hardest part was that I couldn’t go inside the school to take pictures like usual. I had to rely on teachers and parents to submit them to me. Treering has an app that many parents used to quickly drop into my collection and most of the teachers used Google Photos. I also pulled a lot directly from Instagram into the book. The process was so easy that I will actually use the same one next year, even if I am allowed in the building!

In addition, I had my son, who is in 4th grade, write a summary of the year from a child’s perspective.  Describing what was different, e-learning, wearing masks, and how the kids adapted. He also talked about things that were new to our entire culture; defining words like “social distancing” and sports teams playing with cardboard cutouts for fans. He detailed things that all the kids will want to look back on and maybe show their own kids one day!

What is one of your favorite parts of your yearbook this school year?

One of my favorite parts in our yearbook is in our fifth-grade quote section. We asked them all, “Where do you see yourself in 20 years?” The responses are so much fun to read! We had future NFL stars, doctors, interior designers and vets to name a few. It’s a great addition to our yearbook and I know the students will love to look back on it when they are older and laugh at what they wanted to be in fifth-grade!

What is something you think is fun about your yearbook that makes it different?

Every year we hold a cover contest! Kids are so creative and we get so many fabulous submissions! This is one of the ways students feel like they were involved in the yearbook process since we don’t have a yearbook club. It’s special to our school and makes each book unique and nothing like any other yearbook across the country – it speaks to us and our students.

We also sell celebration ads to parents. The parents design them on Treering’s website, drop in their own pictures and write sweet messages, quotes or something special to their child. They look so good when they all come together in the book, plus they are unique and personalized!

Treering Yearbook Heroes is a monthly feature focusing on yearbook tips and tricks.

As a parent volunteer and part-time teacher at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic School in Elk Grove, CA, Katie Thomas took over the pre-K through 8th grade yearbook, inheriting boxes of unsold books from previous years. Her first mission: to not waste people's money or the school's.

What challenges did you face as a new yearbook adviser?

Looking for a yearbook publisher that would allow us more time to complete the book so we could include spring events was a priority from the start. I also didn't want the stress of having sales quotas. Since I made the preschool pages with our previous publisher's software, I can appreciate how easy it is to create with Treering's software. That and the three-week turnaround really sold me.

At the time, I taught three-year-olds and I would transition to leading middle schoolers in the yearbook club. We started with the Treering yearbook ladder to decide what would go in the book and planned from there. It's still a work in progress on how we finalize page assignments, and for the most part, 8th-grade students create their section, and the 6th- and 7th-grade students do sports, activities, and class pages.

You sold 65 books in one week. How did you achieve that?

Really, I'm not one for pushing sales. I tapped into these existing channels to reach parents. Our school communicates through student council announcements and email blasts. When we neared our final deadline, I ensured parents knew it was the last chance to buy it for school-wide distribution, and if they waited, they'd have to pay shipping and handling. I had a handful of them. Seventy-six percent of the school community purchased books.

Also, joining Yearbook Club webinars helped. I've learned classroom management tips such as having a job board for students between projects and how to organize photos in shared folders.

What are you doing differently this year?

We started sales early and leveraged the 10% discount. We are also involving the school in choosing the look of the book: the yearbook club narrowed the themes down to five and the entire school will vote. The school’s annual motto is “Embrace Joy” and we will tie that in with the book to make it uniquely 2022-2023.

Last year, I grabbed laptops and phones to AirDrop photos to myself to upload because grades couldn't mix due to COVID protocols. I did a lot of texting to parents. This year, we are using the built-in crowdsourcing features: the students are creating their own flyers with QR codes to shared folders. The flyers say things like, “You could be featured like these photos in this year’s yearbook. Send us your back-to-school photos.”

The other big thing is I will order my printed proof sooner and try to get everything finished earlier.

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