The Reflections program is the National PTA’s cornerstone art program. It was founded in 1969 by Colorado PTA president Mary Lou Anderson. Since its founding, millions of students have participated in the program. The goal of the program is participation in and appreciation for the arts. It has been shown that art education can help students in many ways, including development of motor skills, language skills, social skills, decision making, risk-taking, and inventiveness. According to a report by Americans for the Arts, “young people who regularly participate in the arts (three hours a day on three days each week through one full year) are four times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement, to participate in a math and science fair or to win an award for writing an essay or poem than children who do not participate.” The excitement and enthusiasm that the program generates for children, parents, schools, and communities is unmatched and an important part of PTA’s vision to make every student's potential a reality.
The Reflections program provides students with an opportunity to express themselves creatively and receive positive recognition for original works of art, inspired by a theme. Although organized in a contest format, the goal of Reflections is to encourage participation. Students are celebrated for their participation at every level.
Categories/Divisions
Students may submit an entry in any of the six arts areas listed below. Only original works of art are accepted. Depending on state and local PTA guidelines, students may enter more than one work of art. The six art areas are as follows.
- Literature
- Music Composition
- Photography
- Visual Arts
- Dance Choreography
- Film Production
Participation in the Reflections Program is organized by school grade. Student works are critiqued with others in the same grade division. This allows recognition and judging of artworks by appropriate developmental age and skill levels. The five grade divisions are as follows:
- Primary – Preschool – Grade 2 or up to age 7
- Intermediate – Grades 3-5 or ages 8-10
- Middle School – Grades 6-8 or ages 11-13
- High School – Grades 9-12 or ages 14+
- Accessible Arts – Ungraded (Note: Students with disabilities are not required to participate in the Accessible Arts Division to receive non-artistic accommodations. They can participate with their actual or suppose based grade level age divisions. Non-artistic accommodations are those that do not influence the student artist's creative inspiration and/or process. Assistants to student artists may not involve themselves in the artistic process or act without direction from the artist. The age division a student with disabilities chooses to participate in must be consistent across all categories - i.e. can't choose Accessible Arts for one category and Middle School for another category.)
Tiered Judging
The Reflections Program is structured for PTAs to recognize students at the local unit, council, district, state, and national PTA levels. Entries are first judged at the local unit level, where selected works are chosen to represent the local PTA at the next level of the contest. District/Council PTAs decide how many entries they accept from their local PTAs.
The Michigan Reflections program accepts 4 entries from district/council PTAs in the Primary, Intermediate, Middle School and High School age division in each category. District/Council PTAs can advance 8 entries in the Accessible Arts division for each category. The Michigan Reflections program accepts 2 entries from Unit PTAs without a district/council PTA in the Primary, Intermediate, Middle School and High School age division in each category. Unit PTAs without a district/council PTA can advance 4 entries in the Accessible Arts age division for each category. Individual entries from students whose schools do not have a PTA can join the Michigan PTA and then submit their entry. Go to Submitting an Entry if your school does not have a PTA for more information.
Michigan PTA advances the single top entry that places in the Michigan Reflections contest in each category of the Primary, Intermediate, Middle School and High School age divisions. Michigan PTA advances the top entry in each category of the Accessible Arts Age Division for Grades PreK to 5th and the top entry in each category of the Accessible Arts Age Division for Grades 6th to 12th) to the National level Reflections contest.
Eligibility
Participation in the Michigan Reflections Program is open to all students in attendance at PTA/PTSA schools where the program is sponsored. Each local unit, district, or council establishes its own due dates which allow adequate time for judging and celebrating at that level. Local units and districts or councils then submit to the state level at the established due date.
Students who attend schools without PTA/PTSA affiliations can still participate in the Reflections program by joining the Michigan PTA. Go to Submitting an Entry if your school does not have a PTA for more information.
Communication
Please join the Michigan PTA Reflections Network Facebook page to receive more information about Michigan PTA’s Reflections program. Any leaders interested in chairing or co-chairing the MIPTA Reflections committee should call or email the committee. We need to keep this committee strong and growing and we need you!
If you have any questions please contact Michigan PTA at: reflections@michiganpta.org
or call Michigan PTA (734) 975-9500.
State Due Date
Entries advancing to State Reflections are due by 11:59 pm ET on the second Saturday of January. Go to Advancing Entries to the State Reflections Contest for instructions on advancing entries to the state contest.
Resources for Running a Reflections Program at your School
The Michigan Reflections Network Facebook page is a great place to ask questions or email Reflections@MichiganPTA.org
- Click here to view a Program explaining the Reflections process from beginning to end
- Click here for a guide on how to run a Reflections program virtually
- Click here to view Reflections rules that you can send to your students/parents
- Click here for fillable PDF Student Entry Form. Students can print this form and submit with their physical entries or they can digitally sign the completed form to submit with virtual entries - whichever you decide to accept at your school
- Click here to Copy an online Google Form Student Entry Form. This link will ask you to sign in to a Google Account because it needs to be able to copy the Google Form someplace. Once it's copied, it will ask you if you want to Restore Folders...answer Restore so that it can create the folders where the entries and consent forms will be uploaded into. Look for these new folders in your Google Drive. Edit the copied Google Form to personalize it for your school PTA. The base fields consist of the fields you will find on the PDF Student Entry Form minus the PTA information (which a student will not know anyway)
NOTE: While you work on your copy of this Google Form, do not be alarmed that it keeps telling you that you may be short on storage space. If you know your Google Account has enough storage space, you can ignore the warnings. The form is set to accept 10GB of uploaded files from each student. That is more than enough for the max 1GB of music, film, or dance files plus any consent forms a student may upload. When you send your edited Google Form Student Entry Form to your students to use, it will require the user to sign in to a Google Account. This is mandatory from a security perspective since the Google Form is allowing files to be uploaded.
Thank you for all you do to promote art in your PTA/PTSA!
Michigan PTA Reflections Committee
