Source: Bill Rettew brettew@dailylocal.com at the Daily Local News

GLENMOORE—For what has been a unique year, students at Springton Manor Elementary School will have a yearbook to remember it all.

In the past, signing a fellow student’s year book was reserved for high school students. Elementary students now have a chance to remember with a keepsake.

Thanks to the company Treering, chief editor, Stacey Sherman, Springton Manor’s parents, staff, and students themselves, lasting memories will be created and remembered long after the kids graduate from high school. Fifth-grade teacher Frank Chindemi runs the yearbook club.

For the Mindful Mustangs, it was a year of masks and hybrid learning, but through the challenges of this year students and staff alike showed resilience and created memories.

Sherman’s son, third grader Gideon Sherman, is looking ahead.

“I think I’ll look back in 30 years at this yearbook and be like, Wow! There will never be anything more challenging than that year,” Gideon said.

The Treering 100-page yearbook will act as a history book, capturing a year like any other in education. Springton students will be able to look back at the year they wore masks and sat six feet apart.

In the past, Editor Sherman and the yearbook club photographers shot most of the photos. For the 2020-2021 school year, parents and teachers took many of the pictures.

“This year, more than ever, I reached out to our teachers and students’ families to gather photos that through Treering’s shared folders represented the virtual and socially distant parts of our school year that were impossible for me to capture,” Sherman said.

Principal Steve Pron noted that staff worked hard to establish relationships over Zoom, while creating safe learning environments and engaging lessons.

“The kids are living through this experience and are so adaptable to it,” Sherman said about the pandemic. “This year has had a huge impact on each of them whether they realize it or not.

“I have been so passionate about this year’s book because it will remind our Mustangs how resilient there were in the face of the pandemic,” Sherman said. “They adapted so well and the entire community rose to the occasion to make it a memorable and positive year.”

Each hard or soft cover yearbook comes with virtual features. Two pages of personal photos taken of their children by parents are included. Parents build pages to spotlight their children’s schooling, including the home experience.

And in addition to conventional pen and ink messages and notations to fellow classmates, students will be able to share signatures digitally.

“The digital signatures are awesome because you don’t have to be in school to sign your friend’s yearbook!” Gideon said.

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