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Welcome to the 2025-26 Reflections Art Contest for Arlington County!
Welcome to the 2025-26 Reflections Art Contest for Arlington County!
April Maddox is our CCPTA Reflections Chair and helps our local units run their Reflections contests.
April can be reached at reflections { @ } arlingtonccpta.org with questions
What is the Reflections Art Contest?
What is the Reflections Art Contest?
This program is an annual arts contest for all students and their parents and caregivers to explore, encourage, and create art.
This program is an annual arts contest for all students and their parents and caregivers to explore, encourage, and create art.
National PTA has a long-standing commitment to arts education. For over 50 years, Reflections has helped students explore their own thoughts, feelings and ideas, develop artistic literacy, increase confidence and find a love for learning. The Reflections program provides opportunities for recognition and access to the arts which boosts student confidence and success in the arts and in life.
Each year, hundreds of thousands of students in pre-K through grade 12 create original works of art in response to a student-created theme. In Reflections, students submit artworks in one of six arts category areas: visual arts, photography, music composition, dance choreography, film production, and literature, and across five grade-level divisions: Primary (Pre-K - Grade 2), Intermediate (Grades 3-5), Middle School (Grades 6-8), High School (Grades 9-12), Accessible Arts (All grades welcome).
This Year's Theme: "I Belong!"
This Year's Theme: "I Belong!"
Check out this link to read about creative ways to explore "I Belong!"
How to Participate
How to Participate
Review the Local PTA Leader's Guide to Reflections
Review the Local PTA Leader's Guide to Reflections
Start reaching out to potential volunteers and judges for your school-level contests. Here is the link to the Local PTA Leader's Guide with helpful information on the program, including judging criteria and instructions.
Help your local school community prepare
Help your local school community prepare
The first step is to identify a Reflections Chairperson at your school, and start planning how you will collect entries and celebrate students. Even if you haven't ironed out the details for your school contests yet, I encourage you to send an announcement to your school-level PTAs at the beginning of the school year to inform students/parents of the theme for this year's contest so that students can begin to prepare. Beautiful art does not happen overnight (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.
How to find and complete an Entry Form
How to find and complete an Entry Form
The official 2025-26 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). Reach out to your school's PTA President/Treasurer for this information. If they don't have this information, I would call the Virginia PTA office (804-264-1234).
Please also enter the following information on the entry form:
Council PTA: Arlington
District PTA: Northern Virginia
Region PTA: Northern
State PTA: Virginia
Understand Timing and Submission Deadlines
Understand Timing and Submission Deadlines
The deadline for the Arlington County-wide contest is Monday, December 15th. All school-level contest submission deadlines should aim for December 1st to allow sufficient time to judge your school entries.
After you have determined your school-level winners, please do the following (no later than December 15th):
Enter winning submissions in Google Doc. Enter the pertinent information for your school-level winners into this Google Doc.
Upload artwork to DropBox. Upload pictures/videos of the artwork into this Dropbox Folder using the following naming convention: Art. Division.SchoolPTA. StudentLastName (example: Dance. Primary. AbingdonElementary. Smith)
Upload completed Entry Form to DropBox. Upload an electronic copy of the completed Entry Form into this Dropbox Folder using the following naming convention: Entry Form.Art.Division.SchoolPTA.StudentLastName (example: Entry Form.Dance.Primary.AbingdonElementary.Smith)
***Remember, you many only advance one entry per category/division from your school-level contests to the county-level contest***
Resources to help you learn more about the Reflections Program
Resources to help you learn more about the Reflections Program
Check out the Virginia PTA virtual webinar
Check out the Virginia PTA virtual webinar
Every year, Virginia PTA hosts a virtual Reflections webinar. While the date/time of the 2025 webinar has not been released yet, you can watch the 2024 webinar here.
Visit the National PTA Reflections website
Visit the National PTA Reflections website
The National PTA Reflections Webpage includes downloadable logos, posters, flyers, and social media images.
Visit the Virginia PTA Reflections website
Visit the Virginia PTA Reflections website
While the National PTA Reflections website is informative, you will be able to find more important documents on the Virginia PTA Reflections Webpage, including more detail on entry forms and rules.
No School Chairperson or School Contest?
If your school does not have a chair or its own contest but you have students that want to participate in Reflections, please email reflections{@}arlingtonccpta.org by November 1st for instructions on submission.
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