Thank you for encouraging students at your school to get involved in the arts through the Reflections Arts Program!

Both Texas PTA and National PTA have helpful online resources for Local Reflections Chairs, including a leader checklist and tips on running a virtual Reflections program. 

Students may submit multiple entries in multiple arts categories (unless the local chair decides otherwise), but each entry requires its own completed entry form.

Digital Entries vs. Physical Entries

At the Council Level, we will ONLY be accepting digital entries this year. Please ensure that the resolution of all advancing digital entries is sufficient. (In December we may need to collect the physical version of student entries that advance to the State level of judging. More details about that later.)

Due Dates

Each Local chair must set the entry due date for their own school — we are highly suggesting that schools set their student entry due date for October 22-30, to allow enough time to complete a quality check, verify PTA membership for each entry, and complete local judging. Council advancing entry information is due November 18, 2026.

Local Judging

Local Reflections chairs should allow two to four weeks to judge the entries from their school, and to prepare the advancing entries for the next level of judging. 

Local judges should have experience in the art category they are being asked to judge. Some ideas of where to find judges for your school's entries include teachers from other schools; retired teachers; local artists or art professionals; and college students. To steer clear of any conflicts of interest, avoid asking parents of Reflections artists and teachers at your school to judge your entries. However, you can gather a team of teachers/artistic parents from your school and swap judging teams with another school! 

Give your judges some general guidelines, and offer them a judging scorecard to use to score entries. Please note that 50% of the judges' score is based on Interpretation of the Theme, so be sure to emphasize that the focus of Reflections is that all students create a work of art inspired by a common theme. 

Award Levels and Local Award Celebrations

Every student should be recognized for his or her Reflections entry! 

After completing judging at your school, you will determine the award level for each entry, based on your judges' scores. Approximately the top 20% of entries in each category should receive the Award of Excellence and advance to Council Judging. The percentage of entries for the other award levels are up to you, as the local chair. The award levels in order are:

• Award of Excellence (top 20% in each category/grade level; these entries will advance to Council)

• Award of Merit

• Honorable Mention

• Participation

If you only have one entry in a category, that entry would automatically advance to the Council level — but please ensure that it meets the Reflections guidelines for that category. If it is a video or audio entry, double-check the file to make sure it works and meets content and length requirements.

There are so many ways to celebrate your student artists — the only limits are your imagination and your PTA's budget. Some ideas for awards include ribbons, certificates, trophies, medals, goodie bags, Reflections T-shirts. The PTA Store sells Reflection specific awards, trophies, and medals, or you can create your own. 

Council-Level Judging

By November 18, 2026, the local Reflections chair at each school must complete an Advancing Entry Spreadsheet and complete the Local PTA Participation Summary, which will send the advancing entry information to Texas PTA as well as LISD PTA Council. We will only be accepting digital entries at the Council level, and will email more information about Council judging in November. When preparing your school's entries for Council judging, be sure to complete the top portion of each entry form, with the contact information for yourself or someone from your PTA board, as well as the PTA membership verification. (Coordinate with your PTA's membership chair to verify membership for each entrant.)

We will announce the results of Council-Level judging by January 15. 

Council Awards Event

Council will host an awards event (Date and Location TBA) for Leander ISD Reflections artists receiving awards at the Council level. Students receiving the Award of Excellence, Award of Merit and Honorable Mention are recognized at the Council awards event.  (This event is separate from and in addition to any local award celebration planned for your school's Reflections artists. Please celebrate your school's artists with your PTA.) 

State-Level Judging

In January, Council leaders will collect and prepare entries advancing to Texas PTA for state-level judging. For each grade division for every arts category, only one Council Reflections entry may advance from Council to State Judging. So, only one Primary Visual Arts entry, one Intermediate Visual Arts entry, etc., will advance to Texas PTA. State results will be announced in March, and Texas PTA will contact families with details about the State Awards event, if the student will receive an award at the State level. 

Accessible Arts Division

Students with disabilities may choose to submit their creative work in the Accessible Arts Division. Each arts category will include all grades of Accessible Arts entries for that category, and only one entry will advance to Texas PTA for each category. That means a Kindergarten Accessible Arts Photography entry and a 12th-grade Accessible Arts Photography entry will be judged together. 

Promotional Materials

Some opportunities for promoting Reflections at your school include displaying posters — on a PTA bulletin board, or in hallways, or in teachers' classrooms. Many teachers love it if you offer to print color posters for them to display! In Leander ISD, a digital flyer may be sent to families through Peachjar, but must go through the district's flyer submission process. (Color prints of flyers and posters may be printed at a very reasonable price through the Leander ISD Document Production Center — and they will even deliver the prints to your school, if you'd like! If your PTA has an account there, log in at https://webcrd.leanderisd.org; or email your PDF to DocumentProductionCenter@leanderisd.org and include the quantity, color/B&W and type of paper. If your PDF is too large to email, share the link on a Google drive or Dropbox. Or drop off a flash drive with your PDF in person — they are located in the Support Services Building, near Running Brushy Middle School.)

There are several resources online for promotional materials, or you may create your own! You may download customizable promotional materials (posters and flyers) from the Texas PTA Reflections page and the National PTA Reflections page. Both sites also have galleries of past entries.