At the end of each school year, many students walk out with yearbooks in hand, signed by their friends as something they can look back at to relive their favorite memories.
It's almost like a rite of passage, but for students with visual impairments, the joy of the past can get lost in the pages. That's what prompted the group behind Warrior, the yearbook at Utica High School, to make a change.
Led by Editor-In-Chief Angel Augustitus-Bell, Warrior students did a feature article for the yearbook on two students who have visual impairments, Calli Bowman-Tomilson and Sara Zivkovic. The group didn't want them to miss out on the yearbook or reading the article, so they decided to print the entire yearbook in Braille.
With their theme of "This is US," they wanted to make sure everyone was included.
"One day, a couple other editors and myself were working on a deadline after school, and were looking over the personality profile on Calli and her dog and how she wouldn't be able to read the article about her and Q," Augustitus-Bell said. "So my yearbook adviser did some research and found another school had their book printed in Braille, so I was like, 'well why don't we do that?'"
The group also decided to give Q some love, reserving a spot for him in the yearbook.
"When the yearbooks came out, all the students were taking pictures of Q and posting it to social media," Adviser Stacy Smale said. "Lots drew hearts around the dog's photo and loved that he was included."
According to Augustitis-Bell, they worked with the school's special services department to print it in Braille.
Augustitus-Bell said she had to copy the entire yearbook into a word document to help get it translated into Braille. It was a process that she said took nearly two weeks.
"It was a very long process, but it was worth it after seeing Sarah and Calli's reactions," she said. "And when they got their yearbook, they were so excited to have their own book. Neither of them had ever had a yearbook before."
The yearbooks were distributed during fifth hour on May 22.
“It makes me feel excited that the students are aware that visually-impaired people are here, and they're trying to help,” Bowman-Tomlinson said.
“This is my first year getting a yearbook,” Zivkovic said. “It’s great because Calli and I can read it ourselves this time.”
