Yearbook curriculum

In my credential program, I missed the comprehensive graphic design, marketing, journalism, editing and proofreading, photojournalism, contract negotiation, and volunteer management track that would prepare me to be a yearbook educator. Over the years, an idea library on my classroom shelves slowly came about: other school's yearbooks, folders of magazine spreads worth emulating, Treering's Big Idea Book and Marketing Un-Stumped, plus gobs of digital files. If your yearbook advising journey is relatable, try these small changes that will make an impact on your book's visual look.

This blog was adapted from Yearbook Hero's Lauren Casteen's Teaching Yearbook: Graphic Design webinar. If you're interested in joining this professional community to grow your yearbook pedagogy or to score some PD hours, register for one of our free webinars on Zoom.

Graphic Design Self-Analysis

On a scale of 1-5, how do you currently feel about teaching graphic design? Keep in mind teaching and doing are two different skill sets.

Mild, Medium, Or Spicy?

Below are some suggestions based on your self-reflection. This year, you may be Mild, and next year, you'll apply some of Casteen's tips and be Medium with a hint of Spicy.

Yearbook Theme

A theme helps keep your yearbook unified so it doesn’t look like a different person did every page (even if they did).

A theme does a lot of the graphic design work for you: it's like giving your students fill-in-the-blank notes as opposed to having them copy them by hand.

Lauren Casteen

Mild

Choose a yearbook theme from Treering's Theme Gallery. Commit to it by using it for your whole book: each theme package includes layouts, backgrounds, and graphics you can mix and match. Using powerful tools such as auto page layout, you can create a beautiful book while learning.

When you're ready, move to Medium.

Medium

Casteen falls into the Medium category: she says they start with a Treering graphics package that supports the verbal theme, and then they adapt it. The 2022 Polaris team wanted a newspaper feel to go with "A Year to Remember." The staff blended QWERTY, which had a modern media feel, and Venture, which is filled with vintage items and textures, to create their book.

Spicy

You can design your own theme. Have students come up with a color palette using an online palette generator; use Treering’s font bank to match fonts. To build a unique look, consider including student drawings or artwork.

A style guide will help your designers remain focused. It will also help you, as an adviser, provide detailed feedback on how to improve the design. Here's Casteen's.

One Graphic Design Concept at a Time

Since graphic design is an entire professional field, and you could spend beyond four years in college studying it, there is entirely too much graphic theory and practice to complete in one semester or year of yearbook. By breaking it down, you can focus on what's essential for your team this year and build as you and your team grow. Here's how to do it:

Find the Golden Ratio blog and others on the design page of the blog.

Balancing First-Year and Returning Yearbookers

If you have returners on your team, some of them may be Medium or Spicy, and that's OK. Now that you have some scaffolding, tailor your projects for your student by skill level.

You can revisit each topic each year with your returning staff members to make it more challenging. For example, maybe your newcomers are choosing a pre-made layout instead of doing it themselves, or maybe they are designing a layout for a module rather than an entire yearbook spread. Focusing on one specific skill at a time makes it easier for you as the teacher to differentiate.

Copy From the Masters

The masters are "masters" for a reason. Whether it is a magazine ad or a social graphic, inspiration is out there. You can apply a photo treatment you saved from Pinterest on a divider page or emulate a car ad layout in your yearbook.

Get Started in Graphic Design

Lastly, here are the action items from Casteen's session. Select one for your launch plan:

• Pick a theme if you haven’t (or maybe choose a few for your students to narrow down) 
• Look through Treering blog articles to find a focus skill to teach
• Make yourself a Sandbox page and start playing around
• Find inspiration for a page to replicate

If you're interested in joining another of our working webinars, check out the entire Yearbook Club webinar schedule.

It’s different: there are no grades, no minimum enrollment requirement, and no mandatory, as in state-mandated attendance, slot in the schedule. While running a yearbook club is going to look different on each campus, we hope these tips from other club leaders help you grow your program.

Offer Incentives for Club Members

Everyone starts with “What’s in it for me?” so add value to their hard work. Your students don’t get paid to work on the yearbook outside of class–heck, most of us don’t get paid to create the yearbook! We’re saints. That said, we’re the only ones who get it. Make a big deal of your students. Your yearbook club deserves to be celebrated, at a minimum, in your classroom. 

Consider the perks:

• Free yearbooks (that they receive before the student body)
• Pizza work parties
• Club shirts (consider coordinating these with your yearbook theme)
• Press passes (aka yearbook IDs for lunch and free periods)
• Free game and dance admission when they’re “working”
• Snacks

Pro tip

Yearbook Hero Janet Yieh from San Francisco suggests setting up a rotation at larger events, such as the spring dance. Photographers compose their pictures differently and, with middle schoolers, you'll probably receive different samplings of friend groups too.

What Does a Yearbook Club Do?

Successful club advisers know their budding journalists and designers need direction. We can build a structure in which they’ll thrive. 

1. Schedule Regular Meetings

Two meetings a week is what most advisers told us works for them. In the beginning of the year, the first meeting can be focused on all the how-to instructions with more and more independent work scheduled as the year advances or it can have a specific focus, like photography. (See what we did there?)

Pro tip

Sandy Violette from New Milford, CT spends time building a ladder before assigning pages. Then she sits with each student and uses the notes space in the Treering app to collaborate on an action plan for each spread.

2. Set Up a Google Classroom for Yearbook Club

Breaking down the yearbook into manageable chunks is one way to make it appear more doable for student volunteers. In order for these parts to become whole, communication needs to be consistent and in a form with which they are familiar.

Pro tip:

Janet uses her Google Classroom to keep track of homework assignments, do event sign-ups, and post open jobs, such as tagging, that need to be accomplished. She also holds 1:1 coaching sessions because she knows, inevitably, students will have questions they won’t ask in class.

3. Do the Grunt Jobs Yourself

Advisers should coordinate picture days (portrait, sports, and clubs) and flow the portraits. They should run the index. These are two tedious, yet critical jobs when it comes to accuracy.

Does the Honor System Work in a Yearbook Club?

Both Violette and Yieh agree: students show up and get their jobs done. They said there will be minimal issues if you set the expectations early and follow through. Communicate early. Communicate often.

If the need arises, revisit the expectations your student and their parent agreed to at the start of the year.

• Address issues early
• Follow the model: revisit the agreed-upon expectations, identify what went wrong, and document what will happen next
• Always leave it open for reconciliation

Yearbook Club is a vital record-keeping entity on your campus. Thank you for making it happen.

Volunteered or volunTOLD? However you ended up as the yearbook coordinator, you'll walk away with four strategies to help you start and finish your yearbook! But first, pin, save, or bookmark the essential yearbook timeline. Are you taking over a yearbook class? Check out our six weeks of lessons to start the year and our free Google Drive templates. Getting a late start? Here's how to build a Yearbook in 60 Days.

The Five Ws are as relevant to yearbook coordinators as they are to writers:

• What am I doing?
• Who is going to help me?
• When will I be finished?
• Where am I going to get all the photos?
• Why did I ever agree to do it?

Strategy 1: Plan With Success in Sight

Yearbook coordinator, meet the ladder; ladder, meet the yearbook coordinator. Your yearbook ladder is your plan. Use it to determine how many pages you will put in the yearbook and what will go on each.

Four veteran yearbook advisers shared theirs with you. You can make a copy to edit and adapt them to your school community's needs. Remember, there is no "one way" or "right way" to do this.

You'll know you successfully managed your program when you've completed these spreads. (Better yet, since it's digital, you can add, subtract, and move spreads as needed.)

Strategy 2: Phone a Friend

Now that you have a plan, it's time to ask for help. Look at your ladder and see how you can partner with students, parents, and school leadership.

Yearbooking is a contact sport.

Tweet

Build a Team

Boosters, parent groups, teachers, and students are all stakeholders in the yearbook creation process. Involving them will make your job easier as the yearbook coordinator. You can crowdsource content through:

• Shareable folders
• Social media
• Targeted email asks (e.g. parents of students who went to camp)

You can also recruit team members to help you build and market the yearbook. With Treering, you can set permissions and assign pages to help delegate your workload. Additionally, parents and students can help gather content and promote book sales.

Students

Students have a pulse on campus life and are invaluable for determining what content is valuable. Work with them to get photographs from in-school activities and events: labs, presentations, assemblies, and lunch candids.

Parents

Partner with parents to get yearbook sales information in PTG/PTO/PTA newsletters and social channels, promote campus organizations, and plan distribution events.

Remember this clip from the Golden Age of TED Talks? To create a movement, you just need one to jump on board. As yearbook coordinator, you're the lone nut (sorry, not sorry). How will you nurture your first follower?

Your Publisher

Check with your yearbook publisher to get access to their training. Treering offers free Yearbook Club webinars throughout the year plus our signature event, TRL: Treering Live during National Yearbook Week.

Connect with School Leadership

From obtaining a student and teacher roster and seeing the master calendar to getting the principal's message and coordinating picture day, all the proverbial magic happens there. The front office is your go-to resource. Chances are, they will also reach out to answer the inevitable, "Did I buy a yearbook?" question parents will send their way all year. If your front office doesn't have dashboard access through Treering Yearbooks, consider sending a weekly sales update to help them help you.

Two questions to ask:

1. When may I get student and staff rosters?
2. Who is the school photographer? (Remember to request your portraits in PSPA format.)

Also, find out who your club and sports leaders are then send an email to introduce yourself and request photos. Ensure your shared photo folders are set up so they can submit photos.  Regular reminders—think a day after that tournament down in Simpsonville or after the choir nationals in Chicago—help get those folders filled.

Strategy 3: Build

Remember the tortoise and the hare? Spoiler alert: slow and steady wins. The same is true for your yearbook. We feel like it has to be complete asap as possible, and when you're setting your own deadlines, proper planning puts you in control.

Fall Tasks

1. Select your theme (or stir up some excitement by letting the school vote with these editable surveys ES, MS, HS)
2. Update your rosters in Treering before promoting book sales
3. Order your free flyers and start promoting sales
4. Upload portraits
5. Start building pages as events happen (first day, Halloween, Dot Day, etc.). Trust us, you’ll feel better in the spring if you don’t wait to do it all.

Spring Tasks

1. Send purchase reminders
2. Finish up your spring activity spreads
3. Download a PDF proof and have teachers approve their class pages to ensure students’ names are correct and no one is missing
4. Order your free printed proof to ensure fonts are easy to read and the cover looks good
5. Double-check your order list and add homeroom teachers to any student that doesn't have one listed for easier distribution
6. Redeem any free books you earned or use your fundraiser to purchase extra copies
7. Hit Print Ready!

Strategy 4: Know It's OK

It's OK if everyone is not 100% passionate about what you're doing.

It's OK if it's not perfect.

It's OK if you had more fun than you thought!

It's OK to be glad it's finished.

Whether you just inherited the yearbook or are a seasoned adviser, the need to streamline processes is very real. We collaborated with middle and high school advisers, copy editors, marketing pros, and PTA officers to create free, editable yearbook templates to help you stay organized in your yearbook program.

Yearbook Planning Templates

Yearbook Ladder Template

Think of your ladder as your yearbook itinerary: it’s where you’re going to go and when. Using the school calendar and last year’s yearbook (or a few prior years’-worth), chart what will go on which spread. 

We like to take our ladders and create a content calendar from there. Is the Turkey Trot scheduled for November? Well, so is Mrs. Jimenez who volunteered to take photos. Are track and swimming beginning in February? Then Jayne knows to contact the coaches in January.

Does pre-planning equate to inflexibility? No. It just means you’re ready for whatever comes your way.

Editable Yearbook Syllabus

From course objectives to parent acknowledgment, we have you covered. We’ll walk you through how to make it your own. And if you’re using Treering’s free yearbook curriculum, we’ve already aligned it to the national CTE standards.

Yearbook Staff Application

How do you separate the wheat from the chaff? An application helps. Staff recruitment might be the second-most important planning piece.

Yearbook Grading Templates

Spelling out exactly how your students will be assessed is a really important part of establishing expectations for the upcoming semester. A yearbook grading rubric is a perfect way for teachers to give students the grades they earned as well as the feedback they need to make a better yearbook. There’s no guesswork for them and your expectations are clear.

We made two rubrics for your yearbook class (heads up, they are in the same spreadsheet).

• Design Rubric
  You might be tempted to break the elements of design into a handful of granular rubrics (one for photography, another for layout: you get the picture, pun intended). While there’s nothing wrong with doing this, ensuring that the individual elements work in concert is as important as the quality of those elements in their own right. Your end product is a spread, therefore, it’s graded as such.
• Copy Rubric
  By assessing the writing on each page, you achieve two things. First, you give your students a tangible grade for their hard work. Second, you can vet the copy on every page of the book, which gives you an idea as to how everything fits together tonally and whether the book as a whole adheres to your established style guide.

Yearbook Marketing Templates

Because everyone needs to see your yearbook team’s work, you need to get the word out. Marketing the yearbook is not just about sales: we have two templates below to help you get books in the hands of your school community and get more assistance in building an inclusive yearbook.

The Only Yearbook Sales Flyer You’ll Need

Yes, you should have a table at registration, parent conferences, and any all-school event with laptops or iPads so parents can shop on the spot. Many parents have yearbook sales as part of their back-to-school to-do list.

For those who don’t, we’ve heard year after year: this is the greatest flyer. It assures buyers they are in the book. Pair this with custom yearbook pages that print only in your copy of the book, and you truly have the story of your year.

Social Media Calendar

To market your program, you have to—to (mis)quote Ariel, “Be where the people are.” Use our social calendar to market to parents on Facebook and Twitter and pump up students on Instagram and TikTok. 

We hope these customizable templates help propel your program to the next level. Keep it simple and happy yearbooking!

Project manager. Social media marketer. Volunteer luncheon coordinator. Teacher liaison. Journalist. School historian. Memory maker. Yearbook coordinators wear all these hats and more! Below, we’ve taken one thing off your to-do list and compiled all the things on the definitive yearbook timeline so your planning and production resources are in one place.

When Last Year's Book is Complete...

Don't freak out. Keep scrolling if you were just handed the reins to the yearbook.

https://blog.treering.com/7-things-to-do-when-the-yearbook-is-done/

Fall

If there's one thing we hear from advisers around the globe, it's that they wish they started earlier! And while we can’t give you the gift of time, we can hook you up with some ideas to save you some.

Create a Plan

(Note to self: planning and controlling are two different things.)

It's impossible to think about yearbooks without considering yearbook themes. Whether you use a pre-designed one or create your own using Treering's design application, make sure it tells the story of your school this year.

Gather the school calendar, and PTA-sponsored events, previous yearbooks, and, with your team, start your ladder. This will be the overarching plan for the year(book). Your yearbook details should align with your ladder.

From there, add your team, create shared folders, and decide how to assign spreads. You’ll want to schedule follow-up meetings and track progress on this timeline.

Pre- and post-event check-ins ensure expectations are set and met. 

Tweet

Start Marketing

When we think of marketing, we think of yearbook sales. It’s so much more. Your marketing plan should include

• Crowdsourcing efforts
• Yearbook staff recruitment
• Yearbook sales

No one will know what you do (create the most epic yearbook ever), what you need (photos, photos, and more photos), and how they can be a part of it (upload photos, join the team, host a party) if you don’t tell them. 

Back to school is the ideal season to begin selling your yearbooks for two reasons: early discounts and the opportunity to earn free yearbooks. We’ve created a marketing plan template so you can stay organized.

If you are using your yearbook as a fundraiser, once again, work backward from your goal. For instance, is the PTG trying to earn money for more books in the library or playground equipment? Is your yearbook team trying to invest in new equipment? How much per book is needed to earn that amount of money?

https://blog.treering.com/5-things-to-do-to-sell-more-yearbooks-in-the-fall/

Gather Content

August through November offer myriad opportunities to capture content and begin building your book:

• Student orientation
• First day
• Halloween
• Yerdsgiving
• Classroom shots
• Homecoming
• Spirit week
• Fall sports

Seize the [Picture] Day

Portraits comprise 40-60% of the average yearbook. If you aren’t on a first-name basis with your school photographer, it’s time to change that.

Touch base with your photographer and double-check they will export the photos in PSPA format (this is industry standard, but not everyone uses it) and confirm how they will deliver them to you. Copy your picture day coordinator on all correspondence (and offer up this professional school photographer's advice).

Winter

When you hit winter on the timeline, there is a shift at school: everyone becomes vacation-focused, and the list of things to do multiplies. (Late to the party? We have you covered with our yearbook quick start guide.)

Stay the Course

By now you have a rhythm: Your team has their assignments and together you’re tracking progress. Fall event pages are drafted and in the yearbook. Portraits should arrive momentarily. You follow up every event with an ask for additional POVs. 

Begin Proofreading 

Treering Yearbooks allows you to download a PDF proof of your book throughout the design process. Here’s how we use them:

1. Hand our portrait pages to teachers to help verify names and classroom placement
2. Project pages and evaluate them as a team
3. Track coverage
4. Post sneak peeks on campus

We have a whole module in our free yearbook curriculum on editing.

Cover Year-End Festivities

Fall and winter are the seasons for Bodhi Day, Christmas, Diwali, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, and Thanksgiving. Consider adding family celebrations to your coverage timeline as well as class parties.

https://blog.treering.com/including-a-diverse-set-of-holidays-and-traditions-into-the-yearbook/

Inspire Generosity

‘Tis the season to be selfless! Treering’s donation option makes it easy for families to gift yearbooks to the school. Advisers and coordinators then share the love by distributing yearbooks to those in need or gifting them to staff members.

Spring

It’s time to spring into action and finish the book! (Heads up: it’s also time to get those yearbook spreads and personalized pages ready for Treering Yearbooks’ spring contests.)

Finish Strong

If winter was the season everyone is ignoring you, in spring, everyone has questions. Can I have more time? How do I get my photos in? How do I buy a yearbook?

Some easy ways to help save your sanity are:

• Be proactive and share the personalized pages tutorial online (seasoned advisers hold their own training session).
• Use templates or the auto page builder to start your layouts. You can always modify them.
• Make sure all teachers and the front office staff have the ordering info. You may even want to share a QR code for them to place in newsletters.
• Add Year in Review and Trend pages

Let It Go... and Celebrate!

Before you hit print ready, ask yourself:

1. Do we need to order extra books? (Some schools like to keep a copy in the library.)
2. How do we want our books sorted?
3. Where should our books be sent? 
4. When will they arrive and do we need expedited shipping?

https://blog.treering.com/yearbook-distribution-ideas/

Summer

High five! You did it! 

https://blog.treering.com/summer-yearbooking-how-to-prep/

QR Code is a registered trademark of DENSO WAVE INCORPORATED.

There are two schools of yearbook coordinators: the first, would never click on this blog, and the second, is ready to prep for the following school year. We’re glad you’re ready to lay the foundation for your yearbook over the summer and hope these three steps relieve stress because you’ll enter the school year more prepared than ever, and help you tick off some boxes so you can fully enjoy your summer vacation.

Step 1: Build your Team

Yearbook finished, check! Distribution party a success, check! Use this momentum to recruit a new team. Before you hand out your yearbook staff application, debrief with your current team and state your goals for the upcoming year. 

Are you creating a memory book? Be sure to build a team of photographers to capture the emotion behind the events as well as some marketing mavens who will pump up crowdsourcing efforts.

Are you looking to go more journalistic and create a history book? You’ll need writers/reporters in addition to your layout designers and photographers.

Are you creating a spirit book? You’ll want people who are passionate about your school community.

If you lead a student class or club:

• Make sure your recruiting message aligns with your goals
• Highlight the transferable skills
• Solicit recommendations from the faculty as well as your current team
• Build your syllabus and bookmark these rubrics from our free yearbook curriculum

Summer is a great time to do some introductory training with your team. Some advisers do a two- or three-day minicamp and select the theme, colors, and fonts for the year. Others host team-building events to build trust before jumping into design.

If your team is comprised of adults:

• Make sure your recruiting message aligns with your goals
• Set specific expectations for involvement
• Follow up, follow up, follow up
• Offer opportunities for all parents and teachers to contribute

Step 2: Start a Ladder

A ladder is the lifeblood of yearbook organization because it serves two functions:

• It helps you create a schedule
• It helps you determine your page count

https://blog.treering.com/need-yearbook-ladder-planning-efforts/

From your ladder, you can reverse engineer your yearbook from the final deadline to all the photoshoots that need to be scheduled in between. Since this doc is an overview of the entire book, some yearbook staffs like to post it and use it to check off spreads when they are finished. 

Using this yearbook organization module will help you with all the back-end administrivia. 

Step 3: Relax and Wait for School to Start

We’re working parents, so we get it: it’s easier said than done. Yes, you’re going to want to solicit summer vacay photos for the yearbook, so grab you-time when you can. From an extra five minutes of privacy in the bathroom to hours with a great book, we wish you well. 

To echo the signatures in our yearbooks, have a great summer!

Congratulations! The yearbook is done… Now what? I remember the years before I found Treering Yearbooks, when my publisher called in the pages at the end of February. A whole quarter of yearbook students with “nothing” to do was a pedagogical nightmare. Even with a three-week turnaround, Treering advisers everywhere need inspiration, motivation, and a few learning outcomes to finish the year. After talking with several advisers, we compiled this list of things to do to make the end of the year even more meaningful.

1. Keep, Change, Stop

This is a conversation to have with your printed proof in hand. Thumb through as a team, 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? (Use this time to brainstorm solutions.) What needs to be stopped?

How it worked in San Diego, CA

After ten years at a K-12 private school, the yearbook staff said they wanted to stop having a purple yearbook. It was a sacred cow we were ready to take off the altar. We color-coded the book in warm reds for the upper school and cool blues for the lower school. When we did the reveal, some of the lifers were enraged until the editor explained, “Blue plus red equals purple.” Cue tears. 

It was another five years before we did a purple book again. Had we not had the Keep-Change-Stop conversation, the journalism program would continue to limit its creativity and every book would essentially be a spirit book.

2. Honor the Yearbook Heroes

Grab a stack of thank you cards from the dollar store and take time to recognize the people who helped you create the book, from the office team who gives you the roster at the start of the year to the mom who tirelessly uploads photos from the pick up line. If you are not acknowledging the yearbook heroes on your campus in your colophon, think of a public way to do so:

• School marquee
• Social media post
• Special luncheon
• Send a THNKS a latte

How it worked in Olathe, KS

Being unable to set foot on campus last year was certainly an obstacle, but with the help of our amazing PTO members, school staff, yearbook committee, and community of parents, we were able to still capture the year in a holistic way. We worked with parents to showcase our year in and outside of school.

Because it was a collaborative effort, and we really do have such an awesome community of parents who make this all possible, it was easy to make a video and celebrate our yearbook coordinator through Treering’s #YearbookHero Contest. 

3. Make Time for Fun

How many of us Type-A advisers focus on business and forget to play? When the yearbook is finished, it’s the best time to celebrate. Some ideas for stress-releasing fun include:

• Craft time
• Digital escape rooms
• Potlucks
• Game nights
• Sundae bars

How it worked in Clarksville, TN

All of us brought in a board game to play. Our adviser made us rotate for a week and try one another’s. I learned Exploding Kittens, Sequence, and Mancala. It helped us break down the stress of finishing the book and focus on celebrating as a team. After the week, we went back to business and got ready for our signing party.

4. Hold a Social Media Bootcamp

The period between going print-ready and distributing your yearbook is the ideal time to teach new skills, such as social media marketing. If your school has a social presence, adding yearbook-related content is one idea to keep what you and your committee are doing top of mind.

Tweet

Before you bring in a marketing professional or check out a professional course, set the goals and expectations with your team. Do you want to

• Recruit volunteers?
• Sell more yearbooks?
• Crowdsource content?

How it worked in Arlington Heights, IL

Going social was the best thing we did for our yearbook. When I saw the social media calendar, we adopted it, and it increased our followers, which increased our yearbook sales and crowdsourcing efforts. 

We also created a hashtag for our yearbook, so if any parents posted a photo—if they used the hashtag—we would consider it for publication. This helped us get a bunch of photos we wouldn’t normally have: boarding the bus, friend groups at events, and cultural events.

5. Brainstorm Evergreen Ideas

Evergreen content for yearbooks is a collection of interview questions, infographic topics, and story ideas that can be used throughout the year. (Here are 40+ to get you started. You’re welcome.)While we want to have a yearbook that reflects the current year and trends, having a timeless collection for reporters and designers serves two purposes:

1. Something to do: in that first-of-the-year lull, students can build out evergreen modules and work hard to incorporate less involved students.
2. Fill coverage holes: sometimes an event doesn’t happen (hello 2020). Sometimes a student doesn’t cover an event. Sometimes you just have holes. By having a collection from which to draw, you will always have usable content.

How it worked in Williamstown, KY

I remember the first time a student missed an assignment. As a second-year teacher and rookie adviser, I felt like a failure because I didn’t have a contingency plan. My editor actually came up with the idea to have a question of the day. She would text the question in the morning and everyone would ask three students. They would then input the responses into a Google Form. 

We kept all the questions related to our theme, Give + Take. They were simple like “Give us your top three songs” or “If you could take a class on anything, what would it be?” Since they were thematic, it was a perfect complement to our book. If we needed a student for coverage or had a blank spot on the spread, we had the material for an instant quote bar. Using Google Forms also allowed us to track and sort the answers by the respondent.

6. I Do, You Do, We Do

I Do, You Do, We Do is a teambuilding idea as well as a way to add in professional growth. It works like this:

1. I pick a skill to teach the class and demonstrate it
2. You learn and apply the skill
3. We do it together

How it worked in Miami, FL

We decided we wanted to use Doodle as our theme for next year and wanted to create coloring book-style pages in the book for dividers and such. None of us are Photoshop pros, so our adviser suggested we learn. Each of us on the editorial team for next year picked a video on YouTube to watch. Then we taught our classmates how to do it. Teaching my friends to do something I just learned made me proud and they listened well. 

7. Practice Interviewing

It’s easy to fire off a text that says, “Give me a quote for yearbook,” but yearbook staffs don’t do easy journalism. Spend some time refining your reporting using the yearbook storytelling module of Treering’s free curriculum.

How it worked in Lakeside, CA

Our district hired a branding company to re-do the website, marketing materials, and our social presence. They brought in a photographer to capture student life and take professional headshots of the staff. When the final products came out, they were incomplete. No one knows the Warriors like the Warriors, so I seized an opportunity: hire out my yearbook students.

We wanted to improve our writing, so we created a list of questions to ask teachers and re-wrote all the staff bios for the website.

Your Turn

With these seven actionable ideas, you can find a place of rest going into summer. If you want to get a head start on planning for the fall semester, check out six weeks of yearbook lessons, including rubrics and a yearbook class syllabus.

May 2-6 is Teacher Appreciation Week and it’s time to plan your strategy! An attitude of gratitude can propel the faculty through the last weeks of school. While it’s generally not the yearbook team’s job to organize Teacher Appreciation festivities, we know there are parent contributors and class-act students who love to spread joy. 

Yearbook Donation Drive for Teachers

Treering’s donation option makes it easy for families to gift yearbooks to the school. Advisers and coordinators then share the love by distributing yearbooks to staff. Some schools even do an online auction for the principal’s yearbook. Since donated yearbooks won’t arrive during the week, make sure your yearbook team has a card or certificate to present to recipients.

Staff Tributes in the Yearbook

If your yearbook deadline is mid-to-late May, Teacher Appreciation should have coverage. Even if Teacher Appreciation Week comes after your final deadline, you can use the yearbook to showcase your on-campus heroes by:

• Leaving space for staff candids
• Interviewing the Teacher of the Year, department heads, and new members of the faculty
• Highlighting pregnant teachers with a “Future [Mascot]” module

Last-Minute Teacher Appreciation Ideas

We know you’re busy [finishing the yearbook], so here are some no-prep appreciation strategies you can do with your yearbook staff.

• Print and write a postcard (aka a social science lesson on what a postcard is)
• Hold a mini supply drive to replenish teachers’ stock⸺ it can be as simple as cracking open a Costco pack of Expo markers and sharing them among the faculty
• Compile a list of all the free food in your neighborhood so your teachers know where to grab dinner each night
• Create a hall collage with classmates by each bringing in a thank you drawing; if you start small Monday, it could create a movement by Friday
• Use an e-gifting platform such as THNKS to digitally send an  'I Appreciate You' A Latte or a You're Spec-Taco-ular Lunch. It takes seconds.
• Go social: record a video or upload a photo of you and your favorite teacher(s) using #thankateacher, #teacherappreciation, #teacherlove, #weloveourteachers, #thankyouteachers, #teachersrock, #treering
• Download photos and create a slideshow of staff members to display on a screen in the office, on your morning broadcast, or share it with the school community in the May newsletter.

What did you do? Tag us on Facebook and Instagram to share your successes.

You did all the work. You submitted it. And boom: boxes arrive, filled with memories and awaiting signatures. You could deliver a stack to each classroom, wipe your hands, and prep for next year. Or, you could create an epic yearbook distribution and signing party to further cement the yearbook’s role on your campus. Yearbook distribution doesn’t have to be a total mic drop moment (it can), but rather a unifying event to help close the year.

Make Unboxing a Moment

Unboxing the yearbook can help build excitement for yearbook distribution because it tells the campus community the yearbooks are here! A few ideas for social media posts are:

• Put a GoPro or tape your cellphone on the boxes as they get wheeled into the building
• Film your team cracking open the first box (make sure they smell the ink!)
• Photograph a box of yearbooks in various “seats” around campus: the principal’s chair, a student desk, a key locale in the caf
• If your yearbook company doesn’t label your books individually by buyer and organize them by class, do a time-lapse video of your team organizing the books for distribution

Start Distribution with the Yearbook Team

Being on yearbook staff has to have perks, and one is a fancy-pants dinner before yearbook distribution. (Please note fancy is a relative term: if an Oreo shake is your thing, you’re our kind of people.) 

Think of your typical sports banquet: the coach (adviser) stands and speaks a few remarks on the team then hands out the awards. Traditionally, the yearbook staff unwraps their yearbook and shares it with their family. It’s special because they have the first copies and it’s an individualized time for parents to see all the work their child accomplished. Do you have parents creating the yearbook? Celebrate these yearbook heroes!

Distribution Parties

The last month of school is full of events and celebrations, yearbook distribution should be one of the reasons your community comes together. Here are three ideas for yearbook distribution parties our advisers hold, and since we’re all lovers of a good theme, we put together some end-of-the-year playlists for you. 

The Extended Lunch

Work with your school’s faculty and administration to add 15-25 minutes to the end of lunchtime for yearbook signing. Create designated areas for each grade with class color-coded pens to distribute the yearbooks and then play music while students mingle. 

The Afterschool Special

When yearbook distribution and singing are a family event, you build even more community. Meet at a public park’s gazebo and pass out books and play. Moms hang, kids hang, and the teachers breathe easier because they didn’t have to plan it. 

The Bundle and Save

For anyone thinking, “I don’t need one more thing to do,” this is for you: add a yearbook signing party to an existing end-of-the-year event such as award night or an all-school carnival. All you need to do is make a cluster of tables (velvet ropes optional) and have an organized distribution center. 

Want to make it next level? Have your distribution area next to a bounce house. Students get their books at the bottom of the slide as they celebrate bouncing to the next grade.

How will you celebrate? Be sure to tag @treering on Facebook and @treeringcorp on TikTok and Instagram to show us.

Some of these ideas originally appeared in our yearbook traditions blog.

Building a yearbook program relies on building traditions with your staff and school community. When we build school traditions, we create a culture and expectations while transmitting values. That doesn’t equate with inflexibility, rather it provides a guide within which we ebb and flow. While the greatest tradition is the yearbook itself (more on that in a second), here are six others to build a lasting program. 

An American institution since George K. Warren took photos of graduates in the late 19th century and sold them as prints to share, yearbooks are the definitive school tradition. What started off as a college-only record book now extends to elementary schools. 

This adviser has watched students from world history classes grab yearbooks from the idea library and scour copies from other schools while awaiting the bell to ring. With no connection to the students, these school desk critics compared how our programs—such as ASB, athletics, and the arts—matched up with theirs. They evaluated the theme, mainly the visual components, and gave me a three-minute critique. [Pats self on back for not laughing.]

1. Staff Traditions

Yearbook Wedding

Trending with middle and high school staffs, yearbooks weddings are a pre-production celebration where students pledge themselves to the task. 

1. The yearbook staff writes vows. This can be as simple as providing a positive atmosphere and completing assignments on time, or as specific as SMART goals for coverage and sales.
2. The adviser invites parents and stakeholders (admin, student leadsherhip, coaches, parent org leaders) to attend
3. At the ceremony, students recite their vows and receive a ring
4. Everyone eats cake

#Yerdsgiving

First of all, yerd means yearbook nerd and it’s polarizing: people loathe or love it. (For those of you playing along at home, I'm the former.) Regardless, #yerdsgiving is the annual gathering of journalism students over food before Thanksgiving break. Some students lead crafts or games, some practice the art of gluttony. Most take the time to craft thank you cards to school staff and students as well as vendors and parents who helped the yearbook team gain momentum at the start of the year. This yearbook tradition is also an avenue to invite alumni to inspire your current staff or even families to celebrate.

Holiday gift exchange 

While it seems like you have a gift exchange for every group with which you’re involved, keep it simple:

• Hold a re-gift exchange where students bring in something they received and don’t want. 
• Exchange variations on a theme such as socks or snacks
• Put dollar store stockings up with 3x5 cards so classmates can write notes of encouragement

Yearbook Banquet 

Being on yearbook staff has to have perks, and one is a fancy-pants dinner before distribution. (Please note fancy is a relative term: we’ve done everything from a chain Italian restaurant to a steakhouse to a revolving sushi bar.) Think of your typical sports banquet: the coach (adviser) stands and speaks a few remarks on the team then hands out the awards. Traditionally, the yearbook staff unwraps their yearbook and shares it with their family. It’s special because they have the first copies and it’s individualized time for parents to see all the work their child accomplished. 

2. Thematic Marketing

Theme surveys are a fun way to raise awareness that yearbook sales began as well as get buy-in from your school on the theme. While yearbook purists believe a theme should apply to one year only, you may find several coveted visual aesthetics from Treering Yearbooks’ theme gallery. 

The big reveal can happen once you receive your printed proof and you can make videos and social media teasers with your staff. Some schools make it one of their back to school traditions to reveal the yearbook theme at the start of the school year and use it throughout to market the book and generate content by

• Making T-shirts and wearing them when they are photographing events (remember that QR code to buy!)
• Creating thank you cards, Google slide presentations, and posters via theme graphics
• Asking related questions via social media; for example, with a theme “Give + Take,” ask for multiple takes on the fun run or invite athletes give their top five songs for warm up
• Keeping everything yearbook-related in your theme colors

3. 3x Yearbook Coverage

Maximizing coverage should be a tradition for every yearbook staff. If we are truly telling the story of the year, it involves everyone on campus. From a yearbook marketing perspective, if students know they are in the book, they will want the book. If they want the book, parents will buy the book.

We love thinking of yearbooks as memory books—they are—they are also a component of the historical record.

4. Staff Recruitment and Announcement

Your yearbook team is a big deal. Say it with me, "We are a big deal!" Create yearbook staff traditions around recruitment and the announcement of who made the cut each spring. Some ideas include

• Host a party and pass out applications
• Crown your staff publicly (feather boas, sashes, and capes work well too)
• Publicize who is on your yearbook team in newsletters, on social media, and in the front office so parents, coaches, and prospective volunteers can get in touch with you

After all, your yearbook team is a big deal.

5. Freeze time

You don’t have to be Doc and Marty McFly to time travel. Year after year, yearbooks create a personal history; the yearbook might be a few hours of reading during summer, and when you fast forward five or ten years, it will be so much more. Moms, let’s face it, our yearbooks give our kids license to laugh at our hair, clothes, and priorities.

The value of a yearbook does not end at graduation.

6. Dedication

Does your school have a tradition of dedicating the yearbook to a member of your staff or community? If not, skip to the next section. This gets political.

A yearbook dedication could

• Thank a teacher for being a yearbook champion
• Recognize an administrator who is retiring
• Honor a member of the faculty who impacted the school community
• Be a blanket statement to a group on campus, such as the robotics team who went to the national championship for the first time
• Congratulate the promoting/graduating class

7. Yearbook Distribution Party Traditions

Many schools have a special, extended lunch or tie distribution to an all-school event to celebrate the end of the year. A word of advice: if this is a new tradition for you, connect with school leadership early to plan your distribution day.

The good

A simple party with pens, tunes, and tables is all you need. Always invite non-buyers to include them in the signing. More than likely, they'll be the first to buy a book next year. (And if you're using Treering Yearbooks to publish, parents can still buy a book!)

Pizza, a DJ, and pens that correspond to class colors take it to the next level.

The extra

One K-12 school I know used to have students line up outside a bounce house. After they climbed up and slid down, they'd receive their yearbook.

Another elementary school invites the middle school cheerleaders to the signing party. They perform and pump up the 5th graders for fall.

Whichever yearbook traditions you employ, make sure they match your community. If you're just getting started, select one and own it. Once it's routine, add another.

QR Code is a registered trademark of DENSO WAVE INCORPORATED.

Celebrating the students on campus—all of them—is what we love most about inclusive yearbooks. This year, the theme for Scholastic Journalism Week is “Amplifying Voices.” If you’re participating, or here for inspiration, here are some ways to integrate Scholastic Journalism Week into your school and get more students heard.

Monday: Participate in #MakingConnections

From PTA/PTO councils to journalism teachers, there are people willing to share best practices. It’s one of the reasons we love to share about Yearbook Heroes. Identify:

• Who is doing what I want to do?
• What can I learn from them?
• Who can inspire my students?
• What similar stories do we have on campus?
• Who is disconnected? How do we amplify their voice?

You may be the one to teach others—share your story! 

Tuesday: #teachmeTuesday

Because this is a celebration of scholastic journalism, take some time to teach journalism. Start with a writing lesson or practice interviewing. Collectively, you could tackle intorduce media literacy or a difficult reporting assignment such as covering the recent wildfires or tornadoes. 

Wednesday: be about the business of #SharingStories

Take advantage of our pre-planned social media calendar to jumpstart your shares. Make sure your posts feature diverse grades, activities, and subjects. This way, you show students the value individuals make to the whole of your school community.

In your yearbook, you may want to include quote packages or fill-ins to amplify voices and give students the means to share their stories.

Thursday: always fit in a #throwback

Throwback Thursdays are fun because you can do nearly anything:

1. Feature stories from alumni (don’t forget to use their yearbook photo!)
2. Collaborate with a social science teacher on campus to integrate journalism's impact on history 
3. Print and display favorite yearbook spreads or covers from the previous years

Friday: #DemocracyInAction

JEA encourages schools to use the last day of Scholastic Journalism Week to share how their schools and communities value the freedom of the press. Here are some ideas on how to participate:

Elementary Schools

• Memorize the First Amendment
• Start student-led media projects

Middle and High Schools

• Have a conversation with school administration over the Principal’s Guide for Scholastic Journalism
• Learn to evaluate sources
• Memorize the First Amendment

Your participation in Scholastic Journalism Week 2022, be it one day or all five, will show your journalism students their voices matter as well as the responsibility they have as campus advocates to be the voice of others.

With most of the school year in the proverbial book, we are counting down until summer vacation. End-of-the-year celebrations aren't complete without a yearbook. If you're the one wearing the yearbook coordinator crown, it's time to circle the wagons and quickly create your elementary school yearbook without sacrificing style. We have live webinars on Wednesdays to help jumpstart your second semester.

Step 1: Upload Your Student Roster

Your first step is a quick visit to the front office (remember to bring some lattes) to get a community and student roster. This seems tedious. It will save you hours if you do this first. You will easily be able to

• Tag to ensure inclusivity or to create an index
• Start marketing and selling your book
• Receive your yearbooks sorted by your choice of grade, teacher, or last name which will save you tons of time once they arrive

(We promise, you'll thank us later.)

Step 2: Get the Word Out

With an updated student roster, you can now effectively communicate with your community and launch marketing campaigns that support yearbook building and orders. Examples of communication that will help you build a better book include emails asking for photos, how to purchase books, and special features like creating personalized pages and showing your students/parents how to create e-signatures.

If you really want to ramp up sales and raise awareness of your yearbook project and photo needs, use this month of Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Twitter content. There's also a full marketing module in our free yearbook curriculum.

Step 3: Collaborate with your Community

Following strong communication, you are set up to collaborate on the yearbook with ease. Crowdsource photos from school staff, other parents, coaches, and students.

When possible, assign class pages to others. No yearbook coordinator is an island (or something like that). By building a team, you'll capture more, include more, and stress out less!

Step 4: Upload Your Students' Portraits

Whether your elementary school was able to take professional portraits, or you are sourcing portraits from parents, upload these to your yearbook next. Your yearbook provider should have a solution for adding these to your book. You can even use these yearbook spreads to add more content.

Step 5: Build your Book

Now that you’ve connected with your community and begun sourcing ideas and visuals for your yearbook, you’re ready to select and set up your book themes and styles. In addition to designing your own themes, Treering offers a free library of professionally designed themes. Each theme package includes layouts, font pairings, and graphics to tie your look together. You can also 100% customize your own.

Set spreads aside for

• School events such as fun runs and book fairs
• Sports (If your school doesn't have teams, crowdsource photos of students on their outside sports team)
• Holidays
• Trends
• Clubs
• Class favorites

Build a beautiful yearbook with features like auto-page layouts that magically lay your photos out beautifully on a spread or pre-designed pages that cover the Best of the Year and Year in Review plus student-generated content through fill-ins for a quick elementary school layout.

Step 6: Set Your Yearbook to Print Ready!

Drop the yearbook and walk away. In all seriousness, hit “print-ready” to send your files to the printers and, if you're using Treering, you'll quickly have your books in hand in three weeks or less! If for any reason you want a little more time, it’s easy to adjust print-ready deadlines too. As the yearbook coordinator, you're in charge!

Step 7: Distribute the Yearbook and Celebrate!

All this work is worth celebrating! Work with your parent group to host a yearbook signing party. It doesn't need to be fancy or cost you additional money; this could be something special like

• Playing music at lunch
• Offering a jeans day to yearbook buyers if you're a uniform school
• Allowing yearbook purchasers to bring a stuffed animal to school
• Setting up signing tables at a year-end school event

QR Code is a registered trademark of DENSO WAVE INCORPORATED.