PARENT EMAIL ON SELFIES | DECEMBER 9, 2020
You’ve read about it in Dr. Hilden’s weekly bulletin, and you may have seen it on social media, but we wanted to reach out to you directly about our yearbook staff’s goal to collect a “selfie” from every Haven underclassmen by next Wednesday, December 16. Thank you for encouraging your student to submit their selfie at this link today! (It takes just a few minutes.)
For this unusual year, the spirit of this shot is ‘SELFIE’—not a professional photo—for the class sections in the 2020-2021 yearbook. We will not be using the professional Lifetouch photos for underclassmen in this year’s yearbook. Our student editors agreed that ‘selfies’ match the spirit of this unprecedented school year. We love that our student staff developed this goal, and that our administration supports it, too.
Our yearbook staff discussions started with trying to solve a problem: How can we include every student in the yearbook when so few have been able to attend our four scheduled professional portrait sittings at school? We looked at many samples and discussed logistics and strategies. As our discussions progressed, two themes emerged:
- It feels very warm and personality-driven to use the selfies, in a year when our warmth and personality sometimes feels like it’s hiding behind screens.
- There are lots of reasons why many students have not been able to visit the school for the scheduled portrait sessions. It seems most fair to ask for a photo that everyone is able to access.
Everyone is excited to make these unique pages come to life. The samples that we have reviewed look amazing! Our underclassmen section editors have emailed all our underclassmen students and posted announcements about this plan to their Classroom pages. You can read those announcements here. Selfie guidelines—including some wonderful samples from our student staff—and submission link can be found on our new Haven Yearbook website.
Again, thank you for your support during this unusual school year. You’ll find lots more information on the Haven Yearbook website. We also invite you to follow us on Facebook, and on our student-run channels on Instagram and Twitter too. Any questions, please contact us.
Gratefully,
Ms. Plows, Ms. Duffy + the Haven Yearbook Staff
PS: For families who ordered photo packages, the Lifetouch portraits were delivered to the SHHS main office this week. We’re working out the logistics of delivering these photos to the families who ordered them—ordinarily, this would happen through homerooms, but this year presents a few new challenges! Please stay tuned for information by Friday.