Reflections
Welcome to the 2023-2024 Reflections contest for Arlington county!
April Maddox will be our CCPTA Reflections Chair, helping our local units run their Reflections contests, and wanted to share the information below. April can be reached at reflections { @ } arlingtonccpta.org with questions (new email - please update your address books).
1) Theme: The 2023-24 theme is "I Am Hopeful Because..." Please send an announcement to your school-level PTAs this summer informing students/parents of the theme for next year so that students can begin preparing for the contest this fall. Beautiful art does not happen over night (it took five years for Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel) so the more time we give these students to prepare, the better.
2) September 18th Informational Meeting: Virginia PTA is hosting a virtual Reflections informational meeting on Monday, September 18th at 7pm. Please register for this meeting here.
3) 2023-24 Deadlines: Given the elimination of the district-level of the Reflections contest in Virginia last year, the deadline for the county-level contest is about a month later than it has been in the past and will be Friday, December 15th. This means that your school-level contest deadlines should be approximately two to three weeks before then so that you have time to judge your school entries.
After you have determined your school-level winners you should do the following no later than December 15th:
· Enter the pertinent information for your school-level winners into this Google Doc.
· Upload pictures/videos of the artwork as well as a completed entry form into this Dropbox Folder using the following naming convention:
School. Art. Division. LastName. FileType
Examples:
KeystoneES.Dance.Intermediate.Gupta.Art. & KeystoneES.Dance.Intermediate.Gupta.Entry
* Remember, you many only advance one entry per category/division from your school-level contests to the county-level contest.
4) Virginia PTA Reflections Webpage: The National PTA Reflections Webpage includes downloadable logos, posters, flyers, and social media images. While this webpage is very informative, you will be able to find more important documents on the Virginia PTA Reflections Webpage, including an entry form/rules.
5) Entry Form: The official 2023-24 Reflections entry form can be found here.
To complete the top portion of this form, you will list your name/contact information as the Reflections representative from your school. You will also list your PTA unit number, the date your schools' PTA bylaws were last approved (should be within the last 5 years), and the date your school last paid PTA membership dues (should be within the last year). I would reach out to your schools' PTA president/treasurer for this information. If they don't have this information, I would call the Virginia PTA office (804-264-1234). You will also enter the following information on the entry form.
Council PTA - Arlington
District PTA - Northern Virginia
Region PTA - Northern
State PTA - Virginia
6) Finding Judges and Judging Instructions: I would start reaching out to potential judges for your school-level contests. Here are the Judging Instructions to share with your judges and to assist you with solicitation of judges, if necessary. I obtained this from the local leaders guide on the Virginia PTA Reflections website.