Important Dates for 2024-2025 Jeffco Reflections
Sunday, November 3 – Digital Submission Deadline for Local Unit Winners (by 5:00 PM)
Saturday, December 7 – Turn-in and Hanging of Art at Red Rocks Community College – Lakewood (10:00-2:00)
Monday, December 9 – Friday, December 13– Public Art Show Open at Red Rocks Community College – Lakewood (open during regular campus hours)
Friday, December 13 – Awards Reception at Red Rocks Community College – Lakewood (5:30-7:30)
Saturday, December 14 Take-down and Pick-up at Red Rocks Community College – Lakewood (11:00-1:00)
Contact: JeffcoReflections@gmail.com
Step 1: Fill out: School Participation Form so we can keep you informed about the process for submitting your winners. We are currently trying to simplify and make it easier for schools to participate.
Step 2: Download the information for the PTA Reflections 2024/2025 “Accepting Imperfection” art contest at the following link for Local Unit chairs and organizers:
If you are a student or parent looking for program information, -OR- you are an individual student seeking to submit without support from a participating local unit, download instructions for student participants:
Step 3: Work within your school to promote participation in the Reflections contest. Establish a deadline for your local unit’s participants to submit student entries for judging. Be creative and have fun! Reminder: Deadline to submit your school winners is November 1st, 2024.
Step 4: Set up judging of entries by volunteers, and create an event to recognize and celebrate your school’s winners. Please note rules and guidelines for limits on numbers of winners allowed per category.
How to submit your winners to Jeffco PTA information will be coming soon!!
PTA info needed on the entry form
There is some information from your PTA that needs to be filled out on every entry form. This includes contact information for the PTA leader, which should be the Reflections chair, school name, and your PTA number (see below). The other things to fill out include:
Council PTA = Jeffco, District PTA = Jeffco, Region PTA = Region 2
The last three items are all things that are needed to be a PTA unit “In good standing,” which is a requirement to participate in Reflections.
Member dues paid date: Member dues must be paid to the Colorado PTA office by October 1 — so this should be done before you turn your entries in (just indicate the date your Treasurer sends in the check)
Insurance paid date: Insurance is required every year, and again your Treasurer should be able to tell you the date this check was mailed in.
Bylaws approval date: By-laws must be approved by the membership (and amended as needed) every three years. We just need the year that the most recent by laws were approved.
You may not have all of these dates yet, and that is OK. On turn in day, we will have a recent database of units and whether or not any of these things is missing (and IRS info, too). If there are any issues, we will alert you at that time and we will have to have them fixed before your entries (if any win) could be submitted to State.
“I can’t find my PTA unit number”
Your PTA unit number should be on your membership card. If you can’t find it, you can use the PTA Local Unit Number Lookup page at National PTA.
Digital Image for Visual Art
The new rules from National PTA mention that a digital image must be submitted along with original 2D Visual Arts pieces. Please note that for the 2022-23 program year, we will be requesting local units submit their winning entries digitally first, and then turn in physical copies of art pieces for the Jeffco Reflections art show. Digital submission guidelines are available on the Jeffco PTA Reflections site, and should include a clear picture or scan that captures the artwork in its entirety.
Thickness of Visual Arts pieces
In the past, Visual Arts pieces could not be more than 3/8” thick. This caused a lot of consternation for students who painted on stretched canvas, which is typically ½” thick. It also did not make a lot of sense when we moved to a digital upload for judging at the National level. Now that 3D art is accepted as well, National no longer has any thickness limits, so those ½” canvases are just fine. The only size limit is the 24” x 30” for 2D (flat) artwork. At Jeffco, we would prefer that your 2D pieces not be more than 1” thick, though, as anything thicker than that would be tough to hang. Frames are still not allowed.
Submission of 3D art to Jeffco
Red Rocks Community College is kind enough to lend us their hallways for a full week for us to display all the wonderful Reflections artwork. Unfortunately, though, we do not have the space to safely display any 3D pieces. So, in accordance with National rules, we will only accept photographs of the 3D pieces. Please be sure your students take 3 or more quality photos of their piece and mount them aesthetically on a mat board (no larger than 24″ x 30″) , as this is what we will use to both judge and display their work. If the piece is only mildly 3D (items glued on top of a painting, i.e.), light, and within the 24″ x 30″ limit, we may be able to accept and hang that kind of work. Please use your judgement in making sure the piece is not so delicate that it can’t handle being stacked, moved, and hung up in a hallway full of students for one week. If you have any concern about its safety, submit photos of the work as detailed above. We accept over 750 pieces of art, and try as we might, cannot totally guarantee that they will be handled delicately at all times.
Submitting Dance, Film and Music Pieces
All submissions in this category should be submitted digitally for the 2022-23 program year, and should be sent through the standard form. If it is easier, you can email these files to jeffcoreflections@gmail.com. Please make sure the file name has the student’s name in it, and turn in the entry form on turn-in day with “file emailed” marked on it. If the file is too large, we recommend using WeTransfer or another free large file emailing app.
Photo Montages
This is something that comes up every year. Please pay attention to the photography rules. Entries in photography can only be a single print, not several prints mounted together. It must be a flat piece, with the print no larger than 8×10 and overall no larger than 11×14 including the mat. We will not accept multiple prints. Any collage of photographs must be entered in the Visual Arts category. (And honestly, photo collages rarely win prizes in that category.)
Digital Photography
According to National PTA rules, a photo can be submitted digitally. All digital local unit submissions will be considered eligible for judging at Jeffco’s council level as well. However, Jeffco PTA cannot be responsible for prints of pieces for display in the country art show, and if the student wishes to participate in the art show, we need to have an actual print turned in, mounted and ready to hang according the the Jeffco PTA standards.
Use of background music in dance and film
Any music can be used for the dance and film entries, but the student must list the artist and composer on his/her entry form. It is the one exception to the “no use of copyrighted material” rule.
Multiple entries from one student
Another question that has come up several times is whether one student can submit more than one entry in a category. National Reflections has left that question up to the local and district chairs, so they can make their own rule on that. Because we have gotten many complaints about students winning multiple awards in the same category at Jeffco, we are limiting students to ONE entry per CATEGORY. This will also encourage critical thinking – “What is my BEST interpretation of the theme?” Students may enter multiple categories, i.e. one visual arts piece and one literature piece, etc.
Accepting entries from students outside your school
This falls into three categories:
Home School kids:
Most home school children are affiliated with a local school for participation in sports and other activities. In this case, they can certainly submit a Reflections entry in their affiliated school.
Students from a school that does not offer Reflections:
Please contact us if you’ve been asked to accept entries from another school in the district. This is a program run on PTA funds, and schools should have a PTA if their students wish to participate. While we allow schools to accept extra entries in some cases, keep in mind that all entries still must be judged together, and you can still only move on 3 entries per age group/per category from your program. If one of the other school’s kids win, it might bump a place from one of your own students. Acceptance of additional entries needs to be approved by your whole PTA board so that they know what is at stake, and are prepared for any negative comments from parents involved. All in all, we would prefer one program per school. An alternative would be to combine resources to help the second school run their program. Share judges, share the work of ordering ribbons or certificates, etc.
If you are a student at a Jeffco school without a PTA, and really want to participate in this program, please contact us at reflections@jeffcopta.org. We have a way to accommodate you.
Submissions from a student outside Jeffco:
Acceptance into a Jeffco school is not permitted. There are regional councils for other districts – they should check with the Colorado PTA for guidance.