Treering Blog

This is the time of year when all those shared photo folders are filling and your spreads are mostly blank. It’s time to build the book. And if you don’t know where to start, check out a sample yearbook ladder to see how one of our Treering schools organizes its book. 

Principal’s letter

Some of the best advice I ever received on principal letters came from a veteran adviser: “Connect to the theme.” The yearbook theme serves as the unifier between all the clubs, activities, sports, and classes that take place throughout the year. So it makes sense that, as the leader of the school, the principal’s message both unifies and sets the stage for that theme. Incorporating the theme is a way to also recognize the hard work of your yearbook team and a subtle show of support.

When meeting with your principal, communicate:

Depending on your relationship with your principal, you may be able to present a first draft for him/her to finesse. Generally speaking, the principal’s letter appears at the opening or closing of the book or in the staff section.

Classroom photos

Photographs of students working in the classroom give a true portrait of their day. (Lame pun intended.) American students spend roughly a quarter of their day in school. Let’s showcase their contributions and celebrate their achievements. 

‍

Elementary school events

Fundraisers, dances, parades–oh my! These all-school events showcasing your student body's unity are must-haves for your yearbook, as are the class distinctions: 5th/6th grade trip, 100th Day of school, faculty vs. parents soccer game, reading buddies, etc. 

Don’t feel like you have to devote a double-page spread to each! One spread can feature all the class parties, and another the fundraisers. 

Candids/Lunch

Just as the academics photos are valuable, so are the in-between moments when students are at lunch or during transition periods. Playgrounds and lunchrooms are daily photos ops for volunteers and teachers to snap these carefree moments. You may want to include photo collages between grades (i.e. upper and lower school recess and lunch) or as the perimeter for autograph pages.

Portraits

Much of your elementary school yearbook will be portraits–these tend to take up an average of 40% of the book! You can organize these:

• By grade and feature some fun facts about each group (e.g. miles run at the Jogathon)
• By grade and teacher with classroom candids sprinkled in

Heads up: this is where you want to be extra diligent with your proofreading strategy. We suggest handing out your PDF proofs to each teacher to approve or hanging them in a conspicuous place to make sure names and classes are correct.

Extra ideas for your elementary school yearbook

Table of contents

In an elementary school book of 20 pages, will you need a table of contents? Probably not. If you want to help guide your readers, add a small one to your title page. Larger books should divide themselves into sections. A table of contents is a great place to drop in some extra photos of students.

Special recognition for promoting students

Parents love bragging about their children. (Present company included!) If they are not adding copious custom pages, they may appreciate the opportunity for a recognition ad. You'll appreciate the opportunity to raise some additional funds for your program.

Because you know your elementary school community best, you know what they will want in the yearbook. We're here to help!

Yearbook captions provide the context and information to help tell the story behind each photo. They explain what's happening, who is in the picture, and why it's significant. Without captions, many images may lose their meaning or context. Conversely, it is not a storytelling photo if you cannot write about it.

Try this: open your middle school yearbook and try to name all the people on page 24. Can you do it without looking at the captions?

Three types of yearbook captions

Ident captions

Also, called ID captions, they do just that: identify who is in the photograph. Often used in photo collages, ident captions preserve the names of individuals for posterity and historical record. At a basic level, knowing the names of the individuals can make the yearbook content more personal and relatable, and, from a student’s point of view, their name equates to their mark on your campus community.

Summary captions

These captions tell a brief story or narrative related to the photo. They engage the reader by presenting the photo as part of a larger, unfolding story by answering who, what, when, why, where, and how in a sentence. Summary captions are always written in the present tense.

Start by being Captain Obvious and use the why and how to give readers more information.

Expanded captions

Writing an expanded caption for a yearbook involves providing more context and detail about the photo. It’s journalism. It requires practice. It’s a skill. Each expanded caption is a three-sentence story that adds depth to your spread and supports the whole year’s narrative.

Expanded captions have three parts, four if your yearbook has a lede.

How do I write expanded captions?

Because writing is a process, each of the following steps takes time and attention to be effective.

Step 1: observe and analyze the photograph

Identify key elements, people, objects, and actions using who, what, when, why, where, and how. Be sure to consider the emotions, expressions, and details within the foreground and background of the image. 

Verify names and activities before moving to the second step.

Step 2: prepare interview questions

Use open-ended questions to gather more information, opinions, and insights from individuals. Find out what happened before and after the photograph and the relationships between the people in the image. Remember, it’s better to have to cut down content than scramble to fill space.

The goal of your interview is to provide additional context and meaning. Showing up and saying, “Give me a quote for the yearbook,” isn’t going to achieve that.

Step 3: put it all together

What not to do

Avoid editorializing and jokes. It’s not your job to critique what is happening (Romero’s awesome painting) or change the narrative (Is that Bob Ross? No, it’s Ezekiel Romero). Your job is to report. Quotes should be used to convey the feelings or reactions of the people involved.

Get more caption help with the writing module in Treering's free curriculum.

By adding captions—ident, summary, or expanded—you not only describe the photo, but also provide a deeper understanding of the moment and its significance, making your yearbook more engaging and informative.

A colleague who studied violin using the Suzuki Method shared that he was able to succeed because he didn’t go from 0-60 in a few lessons. He mastered a concept, then added another. This anecdote inspired me to make “Easy +1” my MO. I use it as a guide for teaching my students to read, increasing the palate of my toddler, and improving each yearbook of which I am part. We don’t have to do it all.

You don’t have to do it all.

With the right support and the resources we picked for you below, choose one thing (yes, one!) as a focus for this year. Get in the details. Fail. Learn from your mistakes, and to paraphrase Michael Scott, create “even harder.”

3 photography helps

Improving yearbook photography is going to have an immediate impact. Why? The assumption is that the yearbook is a book of photos. While I truly wish people went as crazy as I did about the wordplay in ledes and headlines and understood the thematic verbal-visual connection, knowing parents, teachers, and students are sharing storytelling photos is part marketing genius, part one-less-thing-this-adviser-has-to-do. 

1. Set up a sports photo submission process

Tap into whatever system your school uses to share files using Treering’s crowdsourcing tools. In addition to shared folders, Treering also has Dropbox, Facebook, Instagram, and Google Drive integrations. Remember to include groups such as the marching band, poms, cheer team, boosters, and the spirit squad which are also at sporting events.

2. Teach photography

(Spoiler alert: if you’re not a photographer, you can learn alongside your yearbook team.) We created these five mini-lessons to level up your photography.

3. Create a shot list (or use ours!)

Classroom photos highlight the bulk of a student’s in-school day. And I promise you, they aren’t lined up against the classroom centers with fake smiles. Do yourself and the staff on campus a favor: show and tell. Show examples of action pics in the classroom. Tell them what you need. Professional photographers use shot lists to ensure they take all the essential photos and their clients receive what they need.

How to include more students in the yearbook

Yearbook coverage is a personal soapbox. Our job is to create a yearbook that accurately reflects our student body from price point to the people pictured. Here are five ways to improve yours.

1. Crowdsource content for a more equitable yearbook

If you want your book to look like your school, your school needs to help you build your book. 

2. Develop evergreen content

Using these 40 open-ended interview questions, you can get students talking. Start with a question of the day and have your yearbook team members connect with five other students. The next day, there is a fresh question for five different students. And so on. 

3. Change how you cover holidays

Many of us parents grew up with the adage: politics and religion never make for polite conversation. By focusing your interviews on the individuals—versus the religious or cultural practice—you will see their POVs.

4. Create topical collage pages

There’s a difference between a printed pile of pics and a well-designed layout. 

5. Shrink your portraits and add content to portrait pages

Personality profiles, responses from the evergreen content (see #2 above), and infographics can increase the impact of your class pages. Feature those students who aren’t starring in the spring musical or beating school records.

Level up your layouts

You can upgrade your yearbook’s design by applying hierarchy in your layout design. 

1. Design hierarchy basics

Identifying dominant, secondary, and tertiary elements will help you see why some pages “work” and others do not.

2. Mild, medium, or spicy design?

Yearbook Hero Lauren Casteen developed a scaffolded approach to teaching yearbook graphic design to her students and created these adviser resources.

3. The truth about yearbook fonts

Your font choice will affect and effect your buyers. Choose wisely.

4. Mastered the above? Try modular design

Design hierarchy is essential when going modular: each mod has its own dominant and secondary elements that fit into the structure of the spread. When done well, modular design improves consistency, collaboration efforts, and coverage.

We took the first step in gathering lessons, examples, and tips from other editors. It’s your turn to take the next one.

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

Driven: just one of the sweetest words used to describe the diligent students at Langston Hughes High School in Fairburn, Georgia. These words came straight from former graphic design teacher, adviser, and yearbook manager Deja Rolle (who is pretty driven herself, if we do say so ourselves). As a first year Treering user, Deja wanted to show the perseverance of her students throughout the challenging pandemic in this year’s yearbook.

Deja, like yearbook coordinators everywhere, knew the importance of capturing the true essence of the school year with its in-person, virtual and hybrid formats. Once Deja heard about Treering and how it gives schools the flexibility to create custom yearbooks, using collaborative tools without the constraints of deadlines, she knew it would assist in producing a unique yearbook (alley-oop for us).

Langston Hughes High School students showed their perseverance to create an inclusive yearbook. Deja, with Treering’s assistance, was able to preserve this special show of character in an unpredictable year. 

Learn more about how Deja showcased the students of Langston Hughes High School in their yearbook.

What led to you creating this past year’s yearbook with Treering?

Just like nearly every school last year, there were a variety of new challenges that came with the pandemic—and the possibility of not having a yearbook was one of them. As the school year continued, I knew someone had to take responsibility to summarize the scope of the year during COVID-19. And I knew it had to be me. I love these students and I just couldn’t take the thought of not celebrating them.

While brainstorming the best way to capture this school year, I came across Treering, which allowed me to be flexible and unique with the way I formatted the yearbook.

How did the LHHS’s students handle this past school year (2020-2021)?

If the pandemic revealed anything about our students, it’s how amazing they are, their passion for success and their entrepreneurial spirit. A lot of our students stepped up to the plate when their families needed help this year and have the proof to show it. There were a slew of entrepreneurs this year who sold all kinds of products including masks, earrings, hair wraps, clothes, etc. 

Also, our students not only brought income into their families, but some even used their time at home to pursue associate degrees. In our yearbook this past school year, we had two whole pages dedicated to students who were able to receive their associate degree while graduating from LHHS! All the students' work just drives my passion to see our students succeed.

What made this past yearbook stand out from the others?

Last school year was just crazy—everything stands out! It was so different from anything the students or I had ever experienced and will probably never experience anything quite like it again, I hope. I had to capture that in the yearbook. Since lessons were being taught in three formats, I really wanted everyone to feel included whether it was a photo submitted of their virtual workspace or text quotes from the seniors. This book really aims to capture ALL, I want to repeat ALL the students and their stories. Every year, we include everyone and their story, but what stood out the most this year was how much work it was to include everyone. 

Also, in this year’s class pictures, our students had the freedom and choice of what they wanted to be showcased, which I think was a little more fun for the students. Depending on preference, we had students submit their own portraits while others submitted selfies! This allowed our students to choose the picture they wanted to present of themselves rather than the school choosing. 

Deja Rolle now teaches at the STEM School Global Impact Academy.

Unpopular opinion: senior quotes are problematic because they are unoriginal and full of risk. Before you click away from this perceived pessimistic view, put on your journalist hat and look at the facts. This position is not an anti-expression rant but a push to develop original, authentic content for our yearbooks. Here’s how I replaced senior quotes 15 years ago. 

Three reasons to start a new senior tradition

1. Participation and originality

A struggle we see from advisers is a small percentage of students submit their senior quote. Those who do use a quote from a movie, song lyric, or timestamp, not their own thoughts. That’s not journalism. These pop culture references may have a place in a module or personality profile elsewhere in the book if it relates to your theme.

2. Vetting process

Do you know the periodic table? Are you fluent in slang, TikTok trends, drug euphemisms, and veiled sexual references? Does your district have a hard line on what is free vs. hate speech?

3. Senior quotes can equate to bad PR

A quick news search for "yearbook senior quotes" yields myriad results of senior quotes gone wrong. Allegations of bullying in the yearbook and “unlawful accessing” the online editor abound. Schools have even cut the pages from their books due to the quotes in print. 

Ideas to replace senior quotes

Thanks for sticking with me. Below are ways to celebrate the seniors on your campus and capture their voices (rather than Michael Scott’s).

Brag sheets

If your seniors want to leave their proverbial mark, include their school contribution with their senior portrait. A Google Form listing all the activities, clubs, and teams offered on your campus makes it quick for students to click through. Partner with a department and ask for it to be the bell ringer or exit ticket for a day. 

You could also include class stats, such as athletic participation rate, percentage of students in leadership, and volunteer hours.

Include more quotes with expanded captions throughout the book

If your yearbook program is journalistic, it should have storytelling and reporting at its heart. Expanded captions include direct quotes. By using them, you are creating a yearbook full of original voices and senior, junior, eighth grader, etc. quotes. Here’s how it works:

• Identification information: who is doing what when and for what purpose? (Use present tense.)
• Secondary information: what is something you wouldn’t know from looking at the photo? (Use past tense.) This could be the result of the play or experiment pictured or the relationship between the students.
• Quote and attribution: include a direct quote from the subject that adds emotion, opinion, or information that isn’t obvious. Identify the quote with last name (grade) said.

Create a survey based on thematic coverage

Theme is king in yearbook. You selected it because it was the guiding story and look for your book. When you are developing your theme, create interview questions using this language.

For example, Rock Academy’s theme “Give + Take” yielded interview questions such as “What’s your take?” or “Give me five…” (songs, class activities, places you go on campus, etc.). Pro tip: use an idiom dictionary to search for such spin-offs for your theme.

For their book “Speak Life,” Sequoia High had a running module throughout the book called “Speak Your Piece” with quotes from students about a specific moment. 

Sell ad space

Yup. I said that. When you pay to play, there is a little more consideration and propriety. Some schools offer 1/8 page to all their seniors and give parents the option to pay for upgraded space. (You'll have to get creative with the alphabetizing.) Others create a section with the index to feature ads. 

With Treering Yearbooks, families also have two free customizable pages that print only in their book.

Stay the course

Full disclosure: my first year, there was a little heat from students and a petition. By year two, students (of all grades) saw their voices in every corner of the yearbook, and no one questioned it. The standard response became "We have senior quotes on every spread in the yearbook."

Modular design for yearbooks is an approach to layout and design that emphasizes flexibility (just like your favorite yearbook company) and ease of content organization. Small, self-contained modules include photos, copy, and other theme content. With multiple reader entry points, a modular layout contains three or more, each telling a different story.

Four modular layout ideas

Because modular design has many interpretations and applications, we pulled together four different looks.

Idea 1: let your story be your guide

This spread covers the middle school schedule, media program, study habits, and electives in six modules. There is a large amount of copy beyond the feature story and a quote "sidebar" running down the middle of the spread.

Idea 2: give the whole picture

This varied collection of mods includes a quote package, personality profile, election results, and event coverage. In a chronological yearbook, such as this, modular layouts help organize myriad stories on a single spread.

Idea 3: start small

Not only did the six polls reveal more about the faculty, but the yearbook editors added quotes and cutouts to teach us more. Adding a mod to the people or reference section is one way to add voices to an otherwise flat section.

Idea 4: drag and drop

Low on copy, high on images, this sample spread with four modules provides ample space to detail aspects of art creation. As-is, this layout is available with the others in the Maximalist theme under layout and design for Treering Yearbooks editors. Other modular themes include Tropical Chronicles and Tied Together.

Layout tools and tips

Treering Yearbooks' built-in tools to help you create your own layouts and modify ours in a few clicks.

Treering design school in under 18 minutes.

Pros and cons of mods

While modular design increases coverage opportunities, it takes more planning from your editorial team. 

Pro: coverage

Devoting a spread to one topic limits the coverage to one group. Opening up a sidebar or two increases your possibilities to tell more of the year. 

‍

Pro: collaboration

On larger teams, modular design facilitates collaboration among a team of yearbook contributors. Section editors can distribute interview and photography assignments by topic.

A quick note for advisers: assigning module topics is also a way to combat the “I have nothing to do” line that tends to get tossed around the newsroom. 

Pro: consistency

Recurring modules maintain a consistent look and feel throughout the yearbook, which strengthens the theme and overall design.

Con: planning

Frankly, some content may not neatly fit into modular structures. It’s fetch. And if not managed carefully, modular design may lead to overusing the same design elements. There’s a fine line between consistency and monotony.

Yearbook module ideas

The most popular yearbook mods tend to be sidebars with a question-and-answer format. If you want to add something new to your yearbook layouts this year, this is one way to increase coverage and develop open-ended questions. 

Consider building in these additional modules:

• This or that: fashion, fandoms
• Matching: teachers with their first jobs, the shoe to the sport
• How-tos/step-by-step: prep for an inside and outside pirouette, outline a DBQ essay
• Flat lays: teachers’ desks, backpacks
• Essential gear: art kit, robotics team
• Timelines: getting ready for a school dance, fundraiser from start to finish
• Lists: five ways to welcome new students, 10 reasons people auditioned for the spring musical

This blog is adapted from Liz Thompson’s Design 201 session from TRL 23: Start Here. Thompson, a former high school yearbook adviser, serves as a customer success manager with Treering Yearbooks. 

Thinking critically about yearbook coverage is an editorial mind shift. Shiny things such as theme art and backgrounds often take precedence. Yearbook coverage highlights all the memorable people and events. And there is a flip side: planning yearbook coverage is also a conscious decision on what you’re not going to cover. 

Coverage limitations

Yearbook price, page count, and–gasp–traditions limit coverage. For Treering schools, page count directly influences the price point. Your per-book price is based on the core page count (does not include custom pages), and cover finish.

Page count and coverage budgets

For those with a class or club, a coverage budget helps you and your team be intentional. Start by listing the sections in your book. Then budget spreads to each section.

Yearbook traditions

We don’t mean the fun ones like Yerdsgiving or distribution. No matter the school size, there is an element of expectation on you as the adviser. Be aware of the sacred cows of your yearbook program. These can range from color palettes to the ultimate sacred cow, senior quotes. (We interrupt this blog to give you the resource you didn’t know you needed: three reasons to get rid of senior quotes and how to replace them.) 

If you're willing to take the energy to fight tradition, and have a clear reason, go for it. 

For example, when my school hit 11 years, my students deviated from alternating purple and black covers. They created a blue and red book, with PK-6 on one side and 7-12 on the other. Their reasoning? For the first time in school history, there were separate principals for the upper and lower schools. 

My students wanted to highlight how each grew independent of the other, and instead of pushing to do two smaller books, recognized the power of us all still being in one building. The yearbook students saw it as a picture of unity; the other students saw it as the school spirit equivalent of treason. Bottom line: blue and red make purple. Once that line made it around campus, everyone loved the book. Ten years later, we have not published a purple or black book. 

Change takes time.

People over events

This is our coverage mantra. When you highlight people, your yearbook develops an emotional connection as students see their art, stories, meaningful quotes, and photos of their experiences. Every student wants to know they were in it. They were included. Their story was deemed valuable enough to be in the yearbook. 

We're always going to highlight people over the events. People happen in the context of the events, and in each event, highlight those behind the scenes, up front, and watching. Remember:

• Set up and take down
• Fan and audience reactions
• Snack bars, spirit shops, and the bench
• The booth: announcers, tech crew, coaches, press

You need not think each will get a spread. Modular design is a way to fit more content in and do it stylishly. (If you don’t want to start from scratch, Treering themes “POV,” “Tied Together,” and “Crafted” have modular layouts from which you can model.)

People first ideas

We want to move away from students opening the book, finding their name or face, and moving on. Below are some ideas to help you add stories and make them dynamic so people pause their perusal to get personal.

Dedications, Retirements, and Unsung Heroes: Every school has one teacher, volunteer, or student leader who positively impacts school culture. Honor their impact with a small write up or a full-spread dedication.

Future Plans: Publish elementary school “What I want to be…” and high school post-graduation plans.

Trends: Waterbottles, fashion, and laptop stickers are great. The stories behind them are better.

Personality Profiles: We love making room for additional stories by shrinking portraits and adding content.

Pets: Pets are an easy way to cover camera-shy students or get families started with crowdsourcing.

School Map: Students spend 8-12 hours on campus. Find out where the best study and nap locations are. Interview athletes from each sport who practice on the turf. 

Interactive Pages: One thing we saw multiple times during the duration of TRL 24 was “Guess Who?” spreads and modules:

• Guess Whose… eyeglasses, water bottle, ect.
• Match the baby photo to the 5th grader or teacher
• Match the teachers to their first job

People also loved the Treering About Me pages.

Yearbook blacklists and BOLO boards

Many students are easy to cover three times because they fell into the 1-2-3 coverage pattern:

1. Portrait
2. Extracurricular
3. Academics

For those who do not, use the coverage ideas above to get them in the book. 

We understand that the same events occur year after year. Challenge yourself to cover them in two new ways. How will you and your yearbook team give a fresh take on the students on your campus this year?

This blog is adapted from Brent Mikolaycik and Erika Lin Payne’s Coverage Ideas session from TRL 24 POV: I’m on the Yearbook Team. Mikolaycik and Payne came to Treering Yearbooks after nearly two decades as classroom teachers and high school yearbook advisers.

Like its namesake, evergreen content stays fresh for a long time, unlike the tie-dye loungewear we are still trying to forget. While you should definitely include polls and trends in your yearbook (it is the story of the year after all), open-ended interview questions (such as the 40+ we are giving you below) should remain in your repertoire for three reasons:

For ease of use, we organized these interview questions by yearbook section. Grab your editorial team and create your list!

Student Life

Because some of your formative moments occur outside the classroom, be sure to include all that goes into the school day.

Campus Life

Routine

People

These questions make great sidebars to go along your portrait pages.

Milestones

Interests

Academics

Athletics

Bonus: Trending Topics

Add content on the following to complement the evergreen content in your yearbook.

For even more interviewing tips, check out the yearbook storytelling module from Treering's free curriculum.

If you’re considering whether selling yearbook ads is right for your staff, you’re probably looking to take your team to the next level. Of course, it might also mean you’re hoping to satisfy a financial obligation to your yearbook publisher.  

Yearbook ad sales can represent a fantastic learning opportunity. This process can empower your students with real-world skills, from pitching to potential clients to designing captivating advertisements. And the proceeds that come from selling ads to parents and local businesses can help offset or even eliminate the cost of many wish-list items.  

However, if ad sales are necessary to offset yearbook debt instead of a way to benefit your program, Treering can help.

Define your goal

Before you think about ad sales, ask yourself: what’s our objective? Generally speaking, schools sell yearbook ads for one of four reasons:

• To teach business skills (sales, advertising, negotiation, and more)
• To purchase new equipment
• To help students pursue related learning opportunities
• To pay back existing yearbook debt

If your aim aligns with the first three, congratulations! Purchasing hardware and software that, in your staff's well-trained hands, will enhance your program for years to come is a fantastic achievement. And being able to do so self-sufficiently is even better! If you find yourself here due to the last reason, however, read on.

Cultivate favorable terms

There are many reasons your yearbook organization could be in debt. Perhaps you bought too many books last year (tip: not every company requires a minimum order quantity). Maybe unexpected charges surfaced on your final invoice or your per-book price seems high. Regardless, if ad revenue is solely meant to cover existing debt, it's a signal to reassess terms with your publisher.

The solution? Negotiate more advantageous terms. Open communication with your publisher can often lead to mutually beneficial solutions. Many publishers are willing to collaborate to foster goodwill and ensure continued revenue.

If renegotiation proves challenging, consider evaluating other publishers. Look for a partner that offers flexible terms, never requires contracts or minimum purchase requirements, provides inclusive per-book pricing without hidden fees, and offers school-friendly ways to raise funds.

Selling yearbook ads: the potential of your program

Your yearbook has the potential to not only capture memories but also generate revenue for your program. If you find it becoming a financial burden instead, it's a cue to reassess your strategy. Selling yearbook ads should be a positive venture, enhancing your students' skills and contributing to the success of your yearbook program. As you embark on this journey, keep the focus on empowerment, learning, and the enduring impact your yearbook can have on your school community.

If starting the year with a yearbook debrief wasn’t possible or 3rd period publications popped up on your schedule the day before school started, start here. Keep, change, stop is a conversation to have as a team. Thumb through the yearbook, project some spreads on the wall, and complete a matrix. What aspects of your program are proverbial home runs and should be keepers? What needs to be changed? (Remain proactive and brainstorm solutions.) What needs to be stopped? At TRL 23, we sat down with four advisers to learn their takes.

Watch the full interview on Treering’s Facebook page.

Katie Thomas, Elk Grove, CA

We first met Katie Thomas when she became the yearbook coordinator for her daughters’ K-8 school midway through the year. As the lone parent volunteer, she sold 60 yearbooks in a week and now oversees the middle school club.

For Thomas, cover contests are a keeper. She said each year the school has a theme and she loves how the yearbook club chooses to “intertwine” it with the theme they select.

Moving forward, she’s going to change up the interview process for students in favor of more journalistic writing. “We want to make sure that there are more voices heard,” she said. “This is a student-produced yearbook.” 

This year she stopped having multiple editors share a spread. “I learned the hard way,” she said about having students edit each other’s work without a formative peer editing process. 

Janet Yieh, San Francisco, CA

Like Thomas, Janet Yieh began as a parent volunteer. Now, she’s transitioned the club from an after school activity to a school day program with 19 middle schoolers. 

For the foreseeable future, Yieh will keep giving away yearbooks. Last year it was 100. “We are in San Francisco, and it's an urban environment. We have many families who qualify for free and reduced lunch,” she said. To ensure all eighth graders leave with a yearbook, she adds a small fundraiser to the cost of each book and pushes Treering’s early discount. Since many families take advantage of the sale, Yieh “buys into every single fundraising dollar.” To distribute the books, she creates a contest to win a yearbook so no one is singled out.

She is going to change up the class structure by inviting more experts to share with the club and creating some lesson plans for her students. Last year Yieh piloted this idea with her boss who went to design school. This year, an English teacher will guest teach on writing. “I'm a mom. I'm not a teacher,” said Yieh. “I'm trying to personally create curriculum for them to follow each week.”

While Yieh’s students led the design concept, she’s stopping their theme-less tradition. “If we create a foundation, it will be much easier when it's time to actually pop the photos into their pages.” 

Chris Frost, Hemet, CA

“I was a student editor on this exact book, which I'm super proud of,” Christ Frost said. Because he knows the value of ownership, he keeps the tradition of a student-led yearbook program. “Our students decide everything. They pick our theme. They pick and design our layouts by hand because they like to struggle and fight with what a design should look like.” He and co-adviser Billy Valenzuela advise by keeping students on track towards their deadline.

The big change is how Frost’s students will increase representation in their yearbook. Historically, the team at West Valley High covers 80% of students beyond their school photo. That’s not enough. In repose, they created a B.O.L.O. (be on the lookout) wall with “ASB’s Most Wanted” using their coverage tracker. “It's also going to help us see who are those people that are hiding in the shadows that are in that background,” Frost said.

“This is their memory. This is their keepsake. This is a historical document. This is something that 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now, they're gonna pull out and show family and there's nothing worse than opening that book up and your kid going, but where are you?”

Chris Frost

He stopped the way students received page assignments: instead of individual assignments, they are now in teams. Each team of five, led by one editor, works on five spreads at a time. Frost said, “They can delegate amongst each other… so it gives kind of a broader range on the pages.”

Beth Stacy, Huber Heights, OH

As a class adviser, Beth Stacy knows how much work her students do to identify each featured person in a photo, write body copy and captions, and place it beautifully in an effectively designed layout. 

Without hesitation, she would keep grading spreads. “Every grade or every spread is graded on pass/fail,” Stacy said. The end goal of having all spreads submitted to Stacy print-ready means students are in control of their grades. 

Stacy said, “Probably 95 to 98% of our book is taken by one parent who has kids in a bunch of activities, one teacher who is an amateur photographer, and then our professional photographer.” The yearbook culture change is student photography. She’s motivated by the fresh energy the younger team in her class brings. 

Stopping the blend of chronological and traditional coverage is top of her list. After trying it for their 75th anniversary book, she said, “It got messy and didn't work very well.” Focusing on the traditional sections such as people, student life, and sports will help returning students train new ones and also balance the load for the few dedicated computers they share. 

For more from these advisers, including their tips for getting started, favorite Treering hack, and application processes, watch the full video on Facebook.

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

In high school, Sarah Coleman joined the yearbook staff for the varsity letter. As a competitive dirt bike racer, she could not earn one through school-sponsored sports. 

The yearbook became more than just a means to a jacket.

What value did being on the yearbook team bring to your high school experience?

Student journalism was a means to be involved in everything. I got to know all the students on campus—they didn’t know me—through this inside look. I was the first-ever editor of both the yearbook and newspaper. My focus was on writing (there was another editor who led the design aspect).

Now, you’re an adviser! How have things changed?

I never thought I'd be working on the yearbook again, ever in my life. Being able to knock it out with ease was pretty cool. Photos are so much easier to upload. I see in real-time what my edits do. Also, the printed proof is the actual book. I know that even this past book, I overlooked things from the computer side that I caught on the print side. I remember we used to have paper proofs. There were no tools to show us duplicate images or an easy way to duplicate layouts. It seems archaic compared to what Treering offers.

For example, during my senior year, in February, someone knocked over our server, and we lost our entire yearbook. We had a few weeks to rebuild the layouts. It was horrible. We got it done, but it was horrible. The entire book was due by March so that we could get it by the end of the year. We also made an insert with a sticky back to include more events. It was mailed out in the summer. That was the dumbest thing. What I like about Treering is that you can go all the way through the end of the school year and still get the book back in less than a month.

You’re about to begin your second yearbook for your school. What do you do to make it special?

Because we are a smaller school with a little over 120 pages, every student gets their own spread. Their fall and spring pictures are there to show growth. I put every event in the book: big ones, like a foam party, and even the little ones, like crazy sock day.

Kids loved the custom pages. They're so excited because they made their yearbook all about them. 

How do you get all the photos?

I take photos whenever I’m out and about on campus. I tell the teachers to let me know whenever they are doing something like an experiment. Teachers tell their students, “The yearbook lady is coming; look alive.” I really hate staged photos.

Our kindergarten teacher showed the others how to put the Treering app on their phones so they could share. The church secretary also takes a lot of photos. We also encouraged our parents to log in and create an account so they could add theirs. Two moms contributed a bunch. Now that the school community has seen the yearbook, I’m hoping more will participate next year.

I’m also working on getting a digital camera for teachers to use.

Any other takeaways from your progression from a student editor to a yearbook adviser?

Treering is also economically pleasing to work with. The books are a great price and nice, thick quality. You don’t have to be a professional to have a good book. The designs available just elevate everything. 

I come from a strong yearbook culture. My mom bought every yearbook for us, and I do the same for my kids. I love that if people didn’t buy one early, they can still order it. As a creative person, it’s nice to be able to make something for others. 

Coleman's photo courtesy of Fenceposts Photography, LLC.

When “outsiders” think of yearbooks, they imagine little beyond the portrait pages. They see the obligatory blue background and big grins that accompany a moment in time many of us, as students, dreaded. (C’mon, we all didn’t receive the Glamor Shots by Deb experience!) Since this is a part of students’ permanent record, it's a necessary component. It is a part of the historical record of the school year. It’s also not our students’ favorite. Long ago, this adviser decided to decrease the size of yearbook portraits, while increasing specialized content. Here are three ideas to break up your portrait pages by adding rich, personal content.

1. By the numbers

Use stats and surveys to provide a quantifiable portrait of the students pictured on your pages. Begin by understanding what is important to your students and then ask questions. For example, if your school’s focus is on health and wellness, break down how students and staff contribute to that goal by including content such as

Pair the numbers with photographs of students engaging in the activities and quotes for an even more personal approach. What does it mean to be a part of a community so encouraging of physical activity? How do students balance their school work with tournaments and performances?

2. Keep content class-y

Grade spreads in your portrait section are ideal for academics or class-specific coverage. Highlight the unifying aspects of school life, such as class trips or advisory periods, and then ask students about their individual experiences with each. Grade sections could also include:

3. Get personal with portraits

Personality profiles and student life modules both create opportunities for an inclusive yearbook by targeting lesser known students or students with interests outside school-sponsored arts and athletics. These content modules add voices to the portrait section of your yearbook!

Take advantage of the additional space you'll create by shrinking portraits to pull out more content from your student body.