The 2020-21 school year was unique to say the least. It presented many challenges for teachers and students, as well as for parents. However, one PTA mom was determined to see that the students at Beaver Math, Science and Technology Center received an accurate account of the school year in their yearbooks.
Tevis Diaz, a graphic designer, has created eight of her children’s yearbooks. As a mom, she understands the importance of yearbooks as a historical record. So, it was important to her to see that the students’ experiences in the year of the pandemic were documented.
“It was really a passion project for me,” Diaz said. “I used Google and I also found a blog with great yearbook ideas that really inspired me.”
She acknowledged that it wasn’t a typical year and that the yearbook might not look like past yearbooks.
“I had to quit trying to create a book that was like what we’ve always had and think outside the box to do something different,” Diaz said.
Photo collection
So, she began with TreeRing, a yearbook tool she has been using for five years. Then she started to collect pandemic-related photos. She gathered photos of Beaver MST students in classrooms separated by plexiglass and students wearing masks as well as photos during group activities via Google Meet. Diaz also included a timeline that included pertinent information as well as Garland ISD’s pandemic-related tweets.
“I included the kinds of things that when you look back on them, they make up a timeline and would show some things that we wouldn’t have seen any other year and hopefully won’t see again,” she said.
She added a mask fashion page as well as photos from the few drive-thru events that were held. In addition, she created a page that featured the new pandemic-related vocabulary – words like “remote learning” and “social distancing.”
Diaz collected screenshots so that she could include a spread of every digital classroom.
Only about half the students at Beaver MST had school portraits done so she requested portraits from their parents. They also sent photos of their children doing science projects on the driveway and art projects on the kitchen floor. She asked the teachers to send selfies.
“I got a picture of a child sitting at a desk but he’s sitting inside a cardboard box doing his schoolwork at a desk,” Diaz said. “There were all kinds of learning environments.”
One of her favorite additions was headlines about the students doing significant things throughout the pandemic. For instance, they raised money for hand sanitizer. There are positive headlines about the kids doing various amazing things.
She worked on the 84-page yearbook for hundreds of hours but said that it was worth the work.
“I feel like this was the most important book that I’ve created,” Diaz said. “Yearbooks are a record of history, a time capsule. I wanted the kids to be able to look back and remember the names of the teachers that really made a difference or a best friend that moved away and maybe even look these people up later.”