2009–2010 PTA Reflections Program
Theme: “Beauty Is...”

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 The national PTA office receives many inquiries about eligibility, specific arts areas, student information protection, and the judging process. The following information addresses these concerns.

Participation
Who is eligible to participate? Participation in the Reflections Program is open to any student through a local PTA/PTSA in good standing. It is the responsibility of the local unit to determine each student’s eligibility in the Reflections Program.

May students participate through a local PTA not affiliated with their school? State PTAs may adopt policies regarding this situation. The national PTA organization requires only that national entries come from local PTAs/PTSA’s in good standing.

May students no longer attending a PTA school still enter the Reflections Program through their former school? State PTAs establish their own policies regarding this situation. Since some states restrict this practice, please contact your state PTA about its participation policy.

May home-schooled students participate in the Reflections Program? State PTAs may adopt their own policies regarding this situation. The national PTA organization requires only that national entries come from local PTAs/PTSAs in good standing.
Under what division should developmentally challenged students participate? PTA believes that each child with a disability should be provided a free and appropriate public education. Therefore, the Reflections Program at the national level does not have a special division for students with disabilities. The national PTA organization believes it is the right of parents to place their child in the Reflections Program grade division that best reflects the child’s developmental age. However, guidelines for state and local Reflections Programs may vary. Check with your state PTA for its guidelines.

May developmentally or physically challenged students receive help from a parent or teacher? Rules or policies regarding developmentally or physically challenged students are left up to the discretion of each state PTA and may be handled on a case-by-case basis.

Arts Areas Use of copyrighted material
May students use copyrighted material as a source for their artwork? Use of copyrighted material is not acceptable in any submission, with the following exceptions:

  • Photographs, visual artworks, and films may include public places, well-known products, trademarks, or certain other copyrighted material as long as that copyrighted material is incidental to the subject matter of the piece and/or is a smaller element of a whole. The resulting work cannot try to establish an association between the student and the trademark/business/material, or influence the purchase/non-purchase of the trademarked good.
  • Visual arts collages may include portions of existing copyrighted works, such as photographs, magazine clippings, Internet images, and type cut out of a newspaper, as long as those portions of copyrighted works are used to create a completely new and different work of art. A collage should be judged for its whole, not by its parts, and whether the resulting work stands as a creative, original work of art on its own.
  • Dance choreography and film production entries may use copyrighted music. The title, composer, and performer of any music used must be credited and documented on the Student Entry Form.

Literature
May a student use unacceptable language in an entry? The Reflections Program makes no restriction on content or subject in the literature area. Students who are submitting entries created in a school setting should be mindful of school and/or local or state PTA standards for writing. Judges should be reminded that entries are to be reviewed for creativity, artistic merit, and interpretation of the theme.

Musical composition
May students use notation software for creating musical composition scores? A student may use notation software. Imported MIDI files or files from other sources are not acceptable.

Photography
May students submit computer-manipulated photos? Images may be manipulated conventionally or digitally.

Visual arts
May students submit visual arts pieces generated on a computer? The national PTA organization accepts visual artworks created digitally.

Dance choreography
Does the choreographer (the student submitting the entry) have to be one of the performers? The choreography must be the work of one student and must demonstrate both creativity and interpretation of the theme. There may be up to three dancers. The choreographer need not be one of the dancers.

Film production
Does the student submitting the entry have to appear in the film? The student must be the director, screenwriter, and cameraperson. He or she does not have to appear in the film.

Display of Artworks
What student information can be displayed with artworks? When artwork is on display, label the back of the piece with only the student’s name, school, and town. Do not have the Student Entry Form attached to the back of the artwork in a display setting. No one outside of PTA should have access to student information. Develop a system to easily match and reattach Student Entry Forms to artwork for returning to the student or sending on to the next judging level.

Judging at the National Level
All national entries are judged on artistic merit, creativity, and interpretation of the theme.

• Literature, musical composition, dance choreography, and film production: Each of the four judges in the arts area receives entries from one grade division to review. Each judge selects 10 entries from his or her assigned grade division for presentation to the full panel. After the presentation, the judges assign awards of excellence and awards of merit in each grade division.
• Photography and visual arts: Entries are judged from electronic files of the original artwork. The judges view all of the artwork for one grade division and select the pieces that they would like to see in a second round of viewing. In the second round, they pick the top eight and assign awards of excellence and awards of merit. They then repeat the process for the other grade divisions.
• Tiebreakers: If two entries are judged as equal in all areas, the entry that best interprets the theme receives more recognition.
• Outstanding Interpretation selection: All recipients of awards of excellence in each arts area are reviewed together. The piece in each arts area that best interprets the theme is selected for the Outstanding Interpretation Award.
A local, council, or regional PTA might want to use a similar judging process.