Treering Blog

Not every yearbook coordinator is an Emmy Award winner, but Katie Parish is. The gold hardware on a shelf over her shoulder should be intimidating; after all, Katie knows the value of a quality interview. Two seconds in, and I’m completely disarmed as we talk about volunteering, yearbooking, and being WFH moms.

How did you move from the newsroom to the classroom?

I retired from my television job when my daughter started kindergarten, and I needed something to keep me creative. A lot of people shy away from the PTA, but I really found a wonderful community and was like, “Can I please help make the yearbook?” I started small, just helping with some of the pages.

A lot of people shy away from the PTA, but I really found a wonderful community and was like, “Can I please help make the yearbook?”

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When we moved schools, I was helping with social media, and the yearbook mom disappeared. I just jumped in and I instantly loved Treering so much. It was so easy to use I totally got it. While I had some previous experience, it just was so much better than the platform we had at my previous school. You have immediate access to photos when parents share them and there are a plethora of graphics and fonts. It’s super simple to lay out the pages and add graphics.

Over 80% of your school community bought yearbooks last year. How did you do it?

My community is a late adoption community: they upload pictures late and they buy books late. I actually leave holes in my spreads because I know I’m gonna be getting more photos second semester.
Over a two-week period, we promoted a class contest. We said whichever class buys the highest percentage of books the week after spring break will win a sweet treat party and the teacher will receive a $25 Target gift card. It’s really important when you have teacher buy-in. The winning class sold 100%, the next one was at 98%.

I love the idea of a marketing contest. How else do you involve the school?

On Halloween, our principal dressed up as Where’s Waldo. I mean, what was I supposed to do? I put him on 13 pages in the book and the kids had to find him. That was just a little interactive thing, and that’s something else that’s so fun about yearbook: it’s organic. During the year, you can build into the book and make align with your community in this specific moment.

We always do a cover contest. Students draw something school related and they have always had to include the name of the school, our key words—Ready, Responsible, and Respectable—and the year. The yearbook committee narrows it down to the top 20, and then the PTA narrows it down a little bit further. The teachers and front office staff, admin, everybody who helps run the school, gets to vote on the winner. I paste all the final covers onto some poster board and have them available to be seen in the office. Then, the winner goes on the front, and the six runners up on the back cover.

Next year is the school’s 20th anniversary, which is the platinum anniversary. So we’re gonna do some silver foil on the cover.

How does your experience as a yearbook coordinator help in your role here at Treering?

Because I work full-time as a Customer Success Manager and I have two kids that I have to run all over creation, and I still volunteer for the PTA, I know what a busy plate looks like. I can help editors prioritize and schedule their yearbook lives, and help them figure out what they should be working on and when so that we’re taking small bites out of the book at a time.

We start with planning out their ladders which translates into an accurate page count and shared photo folder organization. Do you know what’s so great about crowdsourcing? This could be a whole yearbook about your kid, but when you have that option for everyone to contribute, and you make it easy for them to access it, it just gives you so much more diversity in your book of faces.

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Since 2009, you’ve trusted us to capture and print your priceless memories, and we reflect on this honor every holiday season. In addition to helping schools raise nearly $2 million in the 2022 school year, we printed over 600,000 custom pages in 2022—that’s a lot of joy. Thank you for trusting us with this invaluable task. We wish you all the best this holiday season and we can’t wait to get to work in 2023. Happy holidays!

What to Expect in 2023

• Semi-monthly training through Yearbook Club
• Design contests for editors and parents
• Your memories arriving within three weeks of clicking Print Ready
• New predesigned “About Me,” “Year in Review,” and “Best of…” pages
• Superior support as you design, market, and distribute your best book yet
• Weekly blog articles to provide inspiration and resources – subscribe and have them sent to your email

Staff pictured

Top: Chrissy K. (Customer Success Manager), Jason S. (Customer Success Manager), Jen C. (Customer Success Manager), Niri B. (Customer Success Manager), Brian M. (Director of Engineering) with Titan

Bottom: Melizza T. (Community Advocate Team Supervisor), Codey V. (Community Advocate Team – Quality Assurance), Daneesha B. (Community Advocate Team), Ramona E. (Community Advocate Team), Robelyn O. (Community Advocate Team)

In honor of the season of giving, Treering will match up to five yearbook donations per school account. From November 29 through December 31, one community book donation equals one Treering book donation. Editors can reassign 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, 2022. Matched yearbooks will automatically be added to your account by January 30, 2023.

How to Get the Word Out

Think about how your school communicates: social media, TalkingPoints, or email. One of the best ways to share this information with your school community is to use our email notifications which are found in the promote section of the application.

Download and share these images to share on social.

The Fine Print

• Promotion ends at 11:59 pm PST on December 31, 2022.
• Matched yearbooks will automatically be added to your account by January 30, 2023.
• 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.

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Whether you’re excited to get the kids out of the house and into the classroom or kind of dreading the hussle that back-to-school season brings, another year is here! Fear not, we’ve got your yearbook back, cover, custom pages, and everything in between. We’re a yearbook company after all! The first six weeks of school are the best time to set up your yearbook for success.

This might sound overwhelming given you already have to absorb a million new routines, teachers, rules, and other back-to-school rituals, so we’ve simplified it to 5 simple steps to yearbook success this school year.

Set the Yearbook’s Tone: Enthusiasm is Contagious

The first six weeks of school are when everyone is ready to take photos. Welcome back Moma-razzi! It’s a new year, with new friends, new teachers, and new pencils. Bringing this energy into the yearbook can set the tone for the entire year (with rough patches, obviously. We’re all human). The more excited you are to start the book, take and collect photos, the more excited everyone around you will be. Enthusiasm is contagious and engagement is demonstrated by leaders. If the yearbook editor and/or committee is excited, then it’s way more likely everyone else will join in.

Be in the Know: Reboot Your Inner Gossip Girl

Ok so maybe not exactly like the Gossip Girl reboot, but you get the idea. If you’re editing the yearbook, this is the time to know what’s going on. Since most yearbooks show the year in chronological order, be prepared for the first day of school photo opportunities like the car line, opening assembly, and bus drop-offs. You can even reach out to teachers (who are yearbook editors’ best friends) and try to either get inside a couple classrooms for first-day activities or ask them to share all the amazing photos from the day.

You’ll want to know all the back-to-school plans from the school —including the PTA calendar of events. Once you’re in the know, you can work with other parents and/or teachers to take some photos so you don’t feel like you have to be everywhere. If you’re working with students in yearbook creation, make sure you’re in the know about what you’re going to be teaching. Treering has a free curriculum and Adviser Handbook to help.

K.I.S.S.: Keep it Simple Silly

Alright, you’re excited and you know what’s going on the first day of school! You’re almost ready for a fantastic year of yearbooking fun, but we highly recommend getting ready for yearbook by setting up an easy photo system for contributors, whether they are coming from teachers, parents or students. Yearbook can be hard and stressful, so that’s why setting up a system where parents can upload pictures, like a Google Drive, or using a hashtag that’s specific to your school can be beneficial. By using a hashtag, you can tell parents that if they use it, it gives yearbook staff permission to use the photo. This can really take some of the burden off. Your unique hashtag can help you categorize the photos, and, since we’re all on social media these days, possibly get more photos than past years.

Another easy system to think about: Set up a regular posting cadence on the parent Facebook page, PTA group or the school’s main social media to encourage anyone with great photos to submit to the yearbook. Setting a realistic schedule up front makes it easier to stick to, and contributors get used to hearing from you. Starting a bi-weekly schedule up front instead of reaching out after the first six weeks of school will likely result in more photos. After all, it’s a lot less intimidating to send a couple photos at a time versus the “photo dump” some parents or teachers may have from the first six weeks.

Pay Attention to Your Yearbook Provider: They’re Your Friends

Pay attention to “getting started” emails from your trusty yearbook company friends. The friendly yearbook companies – the ones with excellent customer service, not to name any names – will help you get your yearbook started, you just have to pay attention. Keep an eye out for email blasts to help kick off yearbook creation by walking advisers through back-end aspects of yearbooking. (Yes, it IS a verb!) Depending on what you’re looking for, you can get a mini-course on how to create a yearbook, more advanced design resources, marketing assistance and more. For a #MarketingMoment, brainstorm with your yearbook team on capturing your theme in your group photo. For example, if your theme is an anniversary book, you may want to photograph each member with a past yearbook. Another #MarketingMoment idea: Hype up your last yearbook to the PTA, students and teachers, and sprinkle in all the new plans you have for the first six weeks to build excitement!

Find Your Yearbook Crew: Even if it’s Just One Other Parent

Finding someone that can help you manage shot lists, reach out to teachers and come up with ideas is so important. As you know, and it bears repeating, yearbook is a lot, but it’s also a treasure for kids growing up. That’s what’s most important and what makes getting involved so worth it.

Food-for-thought on where and how to get involved:

Get in with the teachers. Classrooms can become like second homes to students, and their teacher is always there – that’s why they’re your best friend for photos. Ask to bring food and drinks to a staff meeting in exchange for 15 minutes to talk about the yearbook. Give teachers and administrators easy blurbs, talking points and material about the yearbook to include all of their back to school communications. There are some teachers who will not allow us to pull kids for interviews EVER, and some who prefer the first or last 15 minutes of class, so be prepared.

Start a “gotcha!” list. Using the early enrollment roster from the front office, make a card for each student with their name and grade. Once a week or so, go through your coverage report/index and mark off the students you’ve captured. Set a goal to interview or photograph every student at least three times with questions of the day or activities they’re involved in.

Celebrate! Set easy wins to give yourself, your crew, the PTA or school a reason to celebrate. Oh, you received 50 photos from the first day? BAM! Let’s go get dinner. This classroom submitted the most photos after the first six weeks of school? BAM! Reward that teacher and students with a little prize. Even small milestones deserve a celebration, and each celebration will motivate more people to participate.

Have questions on how to start building a better yearbook? Check out our Help Center for customer support.

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• “Headers & Footers”

Wrestling

This yearbook page shows several headlines that work well for a wrestling spread. A number of bold headlines make a statement while still bringing the main headline “Pin and Win: Every Move Matters” to the reader’s immediate focus.  The other titles maximize rhymes and take advantage of sports lingo: “Hustle and Tustle” and “Pin and Win” both rhyme and make references to wrestling jargon.

Here are some other fun slogans you can use for your school’s wrestling spread:

• “No Pain. No Gain”
• “Ready to Rumble”
• “Rock Solid”
• “Pin It to Win It”
• “Out on Top”
• “Toughest Six Minutes There Is”
• “Grapple Up”

Swimming

In this yearbook layout, “Staying Afloat Through Changing Times” is an engaging headline that both cleverly references swimming and makes the reader curious to know what changes have happened. The “Press Play” headline complements the film roll aesthetic of the photos next to it.

For more swimming spread-related slogans, check out some of our headline ideas:

• “Instant Athlete: Just Add Water”
• “[Your Team Name] Made Waves”
• “Sink Or Swim”
• “Life In The Fast Lane”
• “[Your Team Name] Made A Splash”
• “Dive Deeper”
• “Testing The Waters”

If you want to get your readers paying more attention to your main story, dig into your theme, your school’s culture, and sports terms to find ways to add a dose of clever to your winter sports spreads. It’ll help you steal a smile from your reader or unify your theme across multiple pages. In short, it’s worth the creative effort.

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