Orange Glen yearbook staff wins 2025 Diversity Award

The 2025 Diversity Award winner is The Torch Yearbook staff at Orange Glen High School in Escondido, California. Alondra Perez Lachino, Elizabeth Gudino and Amy Ledezma Gonzales, along with adviser Jessica Young, MJE, have built a culture of creativity, compassion and inclusion for The Torch staff and for the OGHS family.
Walsworth Yearbooks representative Carlos Giron said he has seen the Orange Glen High School yearbook program grow from simply documenting events to truly celebrating and embracing the diversity and richness of their student body. In the year coming back from the pandemic, the staff wanted to make a statement with their yearbook theme. They chose the theme Familia: no matter what your background or culture is, we are one big family, and just like family, we help each other. This was the first time the staff introduced multilingual coverage.
“Since then, they have dramatically increased coverage in both English and Spanish,” Giron said. “This year they are taking an even bigger step forward and trying to include a bilingual element on all their primary content pages. This is no small feat, but if any yearbook staff is equipped to pull it off, it’s Orange Glen High School.”
Assistant Principal Tessa Riley said the plan for multilingual coverage will especially benefit the English language learners.
“With a large English language learner population on campus, this initiative ensures that anyone picking up a copy of the yearbook can find a story they understand and connect with,” Riley said. “Through its dedication to storytelling, accessibility and representation, the Torch not only documents the year but also strives to foster a deep sense of belonging and pride among its students and community.”
SoCal JEA President Adriana Chavira, MJE, said the diversity of The Torch doesn’t only focus on race or culture. The staff is inclusive of students with IEPs and/or with disabilities.
“Adviser Jessica Rogers [Young] is a firm believer in diversity, equity and inclusion, and she’s made sure that her yearbook staff is representative of the student body,” Chavria said. “In turn, her student journalists make sure that the student body is represented in the pages of their publications.”
Young said The Torch staff recognizes that all students, from all backgrounds, ethnicities, religions and identities deserve to have their stories told.
“When conducting interviews and working directly with sources, staff members ask students for their preferred pronouns and surnames, even if those differ from what may be on record with OGHS,” Young said. “Ultimately, The Torch staff wants to tell the stories of their peers – and what those peers look like, sound like, what they believe in and how they identify themselves doesn’t change the value of the story they have to tell.”
Diversity Award runner-up provides leadership in Michigan
Christina Hammitt, CJE, of Cranbrook Kingswood Middle School for Boys in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, is the Diversity Award runner-up.
Michigan adviser Cody Harrell said Hammitt’s work in scholastic journalism for middle schoolers and commitment to elevating diverse voices in all the schools she’s worked in is a tremendous service for the Michigan Interscholastic Press Association.
When she served as MIPA president, she guided the board through creating a state middle-school journalist of the year award, and their first winner was named JEA’s Aspiring Young Journalist.
“Even now as immediate past president, she’s pushing the board to find more ways to recognize middle school journalists so they can take their momentum and bring it to high school programs everywhere for the betterment of her district and her students,” Harrell said.
Additionally, Hammit works with a program through her school called Horizons Upward Bound Program, which is a group within the state of Michigan that works to provide academic support for lower-socioeconomic students.
When Hammit joined the HUB team she introduced journalism as an elective, teaching the basics of content creation, design and photojournalism. The student staff now runs the annual HUBCAP publication, maintains an Instagram account for photo sharing, and launched a two-year podcast on Spotify. Last year, Hammit added weekly newsletters to keep the community informed. The program is fully inclusive — open to all sixth through eighth graders, including students with 504 plans and English language learners.
“Christina’s dedication to cultural awareness, inclusivity and representation has made her an innovative force in scholastic journalism,” said Michigan adviser Kaitlin Edgerton, MJE. “Through her leadership, her student media programs have become models of equity, fostering an environment where all voices are heard and valued.”