WL PTSA Council Reflections Update

Welcome Back to another great year for the PTSA Reflections program! A huge thank you again for stepping up to help lead this program in your building. There are a few updates to let you know about this year:

District Level:

• Angel Wade has stepped down from the council level of Reflections. We thank Angel for her 3 years of service to our group.
• A huge welcome to Steve Neumann and Monika Owczarski who will be joining the council level of Reflections to take on the role Angel had, overseeing the district level of judging. Steve will be leading the district judging process for the music composition, film production, and dance choreography categories, while Monika will lead judging for visual arts, literature, and photography categories.
• In place of our shared Google Drive, it is my hope that this newsletter will serve that role so everything is in one spot and better organized with information. This newsletter will be updated as new information is available.

National PTA Level:

• There is no Theme Search Contest this year being offered. The National PTA level is reconsidering how this step is determined.
• Film Production rules clarification - all entries must include original student footage/media/material. Digital slide presentations (PowerPoint) are not allowed. Digital slide presentation includes any movies created using software like Canva where students can select stock images and paste it all together with text to make a video. Besides looking to see if the film contains any digital art created by the student (versus using stock images), the National level also looks at tempo of film transitions and fonts. If there appears to be consistent timing between scenes, then it is more like a slide presentation.
• National PTA also strongly encourages students to use the "Details" field on the entry form to explain how their chosen editing software was used. The more they can explain, the better.

1. Start thinking about how to promote Reflections - publicizing information on your school or PTA’s social media accounts; include information on your school website & principal’s newsletters; have teachers post informational video/poster on their Google Classroom page (posters will be inter-officed to your school at the end of September); share information in the morning announcements; host a Open Arts Night (see below for more information).

2. Meet with your PTA President & Principal - discuss ways to promote Reflections in your building, and perhaps idea for celebrating your student. While you are there, remind your principal to put the district celebration in their calendar - Monday, March 15 at 6:30pm!

3. Find out your program budget - ask your PTA President or Treasurer how much is in your budget. This can help with providing supplies at an Open Arts Night (if you choose to run one) and also for participation prizes. Utilize the copy machines and laminators in your building too!

4. Register your PTA unit to participate in Reflections - this is a required step in order to participate and be recognized by the National PTA. See the link below. Also in November, you will be receiving emails from Torry if you are not yet registered, along with if your school is in-compliance with the Michigan/National PTA.

Many schools have hosted an Open Arts Night to provide a space at school for students to create, and also submit their works. Please see these tips from Rachel Suttle, Loon Lake Elementary PTA President & previous Reflections Chair on how to plan a successful event:

1. If possible, combine it with another event where students are already at the school. Loon Lake typically has a book fair in October where we have an evening shop night where parents come shop with students. The idea is that kids come and shop for their books and then they come to the art room. We put up signs in the book fair & volunteers are telling them about Create Night. It’s nice because it’s free and we provide all the supplies. Makes it a more of a full activity.
2. We have an iPad and we do the submissions right there. I have the parents fill out the form online. I have they take pictures on the iPad and then if there’s any issues, I have all the pictures because it’s my iPad and I can upload them later. I think this is the big key. The form is long for parents to fill out and kids don’t have links and know where to do it. So having it there and saying OK, let’s submit it before you leave really helps. I also have paper forms available if the iPad is going slow, and I’ll take pictures & then I entered them after the fact.
3. Send fliers promoting the night to all students. I hope to do more next year with getting into classrooms to promote. We do promote the event & deadlines to our Facebook community. Also new this year, every student who enters get popsicles with Mrs. Rose. We got about 5 more entries this year with that. Also, we had a few volunteers (teachers) who helped get supplies out and talk to students about the theme.

Please note: That being said, it doesn’t always get us the highest quality entires. But it does build awareness and we get solid 3-5 entries after the event.

• The entry is encouraged to be submitted via Google Drive, a flash drive or CD.

• Any other way electronically is fine too

• The choreographer (student submitting entry) maybe the performer or one of the performers, but the choreographer does not have to perform in the entry. However, the entrant must have planned out the choreography.

• Martial Arts or Fitness routines will fall under the Dance Choreography category.

• Can’t be more than 5 minutes long (recommended 2.5 minutes) or 1000 MB in file size.

• Background music, if used, must be cited on the entry form under “details”

• Formats allowed: MP4 (preferred), MOV, AVI

• The entry MUST be submitted electronically, we suggest uploading to Google Drive or through a flash drive.

• The entrant is not required to be in the film, but they can if the video is filmed using a tripod or camera is standing on its own. The entrant must be involved with screenwriting, directing, filming, and editing. Film must be student made - no editing clips of film made by other people.

• Film can be animation, narrative, documentary, experimental, or multimedia.

• 26-27 UPDATE - National PTA is emphasizing that all entries must include original student footage/media/material. Digital slide presentations (PowerPoint) are not allowed.

• COPYRIGHT – can have public places, icons, logos in background as long as it is not the main focal point of the entry.

• Can’t be more than 5 minutes long or more than 1000 MB in file size

• Background music, if used, must be cited on the entry form under “details”

• Formats allowed: MP4 (preferred), MOV, AVI

• Entries may be typed or handwritten. All entries MUST be submitted in PDF format (No Word docs accepted!)

• There is a 2000 word limit

• Authors submit a single literary work, handwritten or typed, using grade-appropriate grammar, punctuation and spelling. Collections of literary work (such as poems and short stories) are not accepted.

• Can be transcribed if student is unable to, or Pre-K, kindergarten or 1st grade.

• Illustrated entries are accepted, but only the literature is judged.

• ELL students can submit literature entries in their own language. An interpretive translation in English must accompany the entry.

• Format Allowed: PDF

• Music MUST be an original composition! Entries of students performing already composed music are not allowed.

• Middle and high school students are required to submit a notation sheet with their entry. This can be handwritten or done electronically.

• Must be converted to a PDF file when submitted for judging.

• If a written score is not able to be made, a reflective statement describing the technical process of making the music may be submitted

• The entry can be performed by an individual, group, or using a program like GarageBand. But the music must be created by the student.

• No more than 5 minutes. File size must be under 1000 MB.

• Entries should be submitted via google drive or on a flash drive or CD

• Formats Allowed: MP3, or WAV for audio file; PDF for the score file

• The entry MUST be submitted electronically. We are not allowed to submit entries to the state that is a “photo of a photo”. Students should also submit a hard copy as well for the celebration.

• No smaller than 3x5 and no larger than 8x10, at least 300 dpi resolution

• The student must be the photographer. So unless they’re taking a selfie, they shouldn’t be in the photo.

• A photography entry can be a single photo or a photomontage (one print of multiple images).

• An entry that is a collage, edited to have graphics over the image, text written/printed over the image are not allowed. These can be visual arts.

• COPYRIGHT – can have public places, icons, logos in background as long as it is not the main focal point of the entry.

• Formats allowed: JPG, JPEG, and PNG

• When the visual arts entry is submitted to the district level for judging, we need at least 1, preferably overhead, photo of the 2-D entry. If it is a 3-D entry, we need 3 photos taken from different angles to show all the sides of the entry.

• Students should submit the photos of the entries so they can capture what the judges will see and from what angle.

• 2-D submissions must be mounted on a sturdy surface – poster board, foam board. Entries can’t be framed. Also, entries can be no larger than 24x30 inches.

• 3-D entries have no size limit, but the entrant must remember that they are responsible for shipping their entry if it makes it to nationals.

• COPYRIGHT – the use of cartoons that are copyrighted aren’t allowed

• Formats allowed: JPG, JPEG, and PNG

• Consider reaching out to your building’s special education classroom teachers so they can share the information with their students and families.

• Students must follow the category rules, but have accommodations:

• Acceptable accommodations: use of adaptive technology; may receive assistance from an adult with typing, holding a camera, etc.

• Non-Acceptable accommodations: personally selecting a title for the work, writing, editing or interpreting a student’s artist statement or work; choreographing a dance, composing music, writing lyrics, personally creating a visual arts entry, choosing camera angles

• Special Artist students can enter in the “Special Artist” category or in their grade division. If submitted in the “Special Artist” category there is no age distribution and high school students and elementary students would compete against each other.

• Full Student Names must NOT appear in the artwork. Please make sure names are not included in any visual art and that students do not introduce themselves or roll credits in any video.
• If your PTA Unit (your school) is not up to date on all the Standards of Affiliation (Dues paid to MI PTA, Insurance, Bylaws, 990, Audit, etc) all your student entries will be disqualified. Your president should be ensuring this is complete but you should make sure to bug them about it. Torry will contact Reflections Chairs if your school is not in compliance in early November.
• Students can only submit 1 entry per category.
• If a student submits, for example, 2 visual arts entries, see if they can modify one of the entries to submit in a different category. An example could be a student narrates in a film production entry what their visual arts entry is all about.
• In addition, only 1 student can submit an entry. So multiple students who created a project together can’t submit the same entry as their own.

• We are continuing our Google Form electronic entry form system this year.

• Any entry going on to Districts will have to be entered in to the Google Form for submission.

• Each school will get their own entry form and Google Drive folder where submitted entries will be stored.

• You can coordinate with your school for a physical drop-off at the school for visual arts entries and those with large files (i.e. film/dance) - if you choose to.

• Paper forms will still be available if anyone has issues (or prefers) with the electronic form - if you choose to.

• All students will submit their entries to your school’s Google Drive Reflections Entry Form.

• You will be given edit access to this form

• You will send out the link to this form to anyone wishing to take part in Reflections

• Once your submission entry window is closed you should close the form to new submissions.

• The Google Form entries will automatically be included in your Reflections Entry Google Sheet. You will also receive access to this file as well.
  

• You can make a copy of your Google Sheet to send to the judges for judging as the artwork files automatically link.

• If you send the Google Sheet to your judges you will want to rename the artwork files because the files generate in Google Drive with the students name. At the council level we usually do something like “HWE_Photo_Pri_1” but you can use what makes sense to you.

Use the videos to help you get started and with the different steps in the Reflections process. If you have questions about any of the topics or would like to meet individually, please reach out to Torry (TorryYu@wlcsd.org).

• For example…if you have 2 (or fewer) entries in photography at the intermediate level, you do not need to get that category judged.
• For example…if you have 4 entries in visual arts at the primary level, you will need to get that judged.
• For example…if you have 3 entries in literature at the middle school level, you do not need to get that judged.
• Some schools in the past have asked if they closed the deadline, can they still submit entries if it is before the district turn in. YES (I will leave it at as a school-level decision) but I would suggest only accepting additional entries if it doesn’t require you to do additional judging.

• Think about who your school will need as a judge. Visual arts is almost always a guaranteed area that needs a judge! Judges should not be a parent of a participant or staff member in the school building as they may recognize student’s artwork. If you need assistance, let us know and we can try and help. You could also partner with someone at a different school and swap between the two. The beauty of virtual judging is that the judges can be from anywhere around the world.
• You may want to provide your judges a copy of the judging rubric and a spreadsheet (linked below) for them to record their responses. I have created a fillable one on Google Drive. Feel free to make a copy or make any changes to the one I have done in the past. No pressure if you don’t want to use these and want to make your own.
• You will need to send the judges a copy of the various entries. When sending entries, you will want to make sure they will have access to viewing and renaming the file name of the piece to something generic (i.e. PRI LIT 1) – again to keep with blind judging. This change in file name will have no effect on the official title that was submitted.
• Please make sure you do not post any of your students’ entry in the building or on social media until January to make sure we don’t compromise the blind judging process. Many of our district judges are community members who may be staff or parents in buildings.
• Once the judges are completed with their process, you can average their scores to find your advancing entries.
• If there is a tie, you can look at who had the highest “Interpretation” score as this is weighted the heaviest. If there is a tie in this category, consider having a third judge get involved.
• Your advancing entries will be submitted to the district electronically via Google Drive.
• Additional information will come on this later in November.

• Even if a particular category doesn’t need to be judged, please still review items that may disqualify it down the road. Common items include:
• Artist statement is not 10 to 100 words. If it is over 100 words, ask the student if they could cut it down to 100 (or less). If not, then it needs to be cut at the 100th word.
• Entries with full names. First name is fine but it can’t have a first AND last name. This includes students doing film with credits or those singing and introducing themselves.
• Check file types on the electronic entry forms. 3-D visual arts should be 3 photos from different angles. Literature should be PDF files, photography should be the original photo file. We will need visual arts turned in if they make it to the district level of judging to be displayed at our district celebration.
• Photography and film entries should be taken by the student. Selfies are okay…but if the student is starring in the film or the main focus of the photo, it should be done on a tripod or leaning somewhere. Basically no one should be holding the camera for them.
• I’ve suggested doing a physical turn-in at the school level for larger files. If this is something you are interested in, please talk to your principal and front office staff on a collection area. Any entries that are submitted physically, will still need their entry inputted through the online form. If someone did the online form but submitted their piece physically, please make sure it is uploaded to your school’s Google Drive folder. If you need access to that, please let me know.

Wait until you receive an email from Steve or Monika before announcing school winners with your school communities as they need to ensure that all of the Reflections rules were followed and they are able to access all of the information they need to move on.

• Entries only need to be uploaded to SmartApply if they are moving on to the State level judging (we will let you know who these are).

• You will need your school's PTA ID handy when you work on your submissions. Having the Google Sheet open as you submit entries will help expedite the process. Please also keep in mind that if there are any file format issues that were not caught at the school or district level, it will flag it on this website. Reach out to me if you need any assistance with this. As a reminder, SM Apply is the new name for FluidReview, so your logins from past years will still work (https://ptareflections.smapply.io/)

The Michigan PTA shares this information:

• Any volunteer with the entry paperwork (signed student entry form or the Google Form entries) can enter the entry into the portal
• When the portal asks for the PTA contact information (name and email) that should be the PTA person who will field any questions the Michigan Reflections Committee has while processing the entry
• When you upload the entry file into the portal, be sure to upload the file that had corrections applied to it (if any). For example, if the local PTA Reflections chairperson received a film file that contained the student's name but a revised film file was used for blind judging purposes, then we want the revised film file. No need for us to redo the work you've already done!
• When uploading the photo file, please upload the original photo file that the student would have sent to print, not a photo of a printed picture. The original photo file gives the student the best chance since it's difficult for a judge to know if lighting choices were purposeful by the student or the result of a Reflections chairperson trying to create an electronic photo file for the portal.

• Once district winners are announced, many schools will have a little celebration for their school/district winners and/or all Reflections participants.

• Some ideas for a celebration include a pizza party, providing awards & prizes, and lunch with the principal. Make sure you see your PTA treasurer for tax-exempt and reimbursement protocols.

• Please ensure your plans are allowed by your building administration.

• Will be held on Monday, March 15 at 6:30pm at WL Northern High School.

• Building chairs should have access to Northern by 3:00pm to begin setting up. Once you are set-up, feel free to head home and come back at 6:30pm for the celebration.

Each category will need different things collected (if anything):

• Visual Arts – 2D artwork will be adhered on the display board you claim for your school. Please make sure you get the visual arts entry from your student so you have it for the celebration. If it is on paper, I would highly recommend you consider matting it on cardstock, construction paper, etc. that has a firmer backing on it so it will last until and during the celebration.
• 3D artwork will also need to be collected from your student. 3D piece(s) will be displayed on your table with your display board.
• If you are unable to get the original artwork, you will need to print out a picture of the artwork.
• Literature – you can either print the literature entry yourself or ask the student to print it out for you. I would also suggest having it matted so it has a firm backing.
• Photography – you can request the family to print the photo out for you or you can print it out. This should also have a firm backing to it.
• Film/Music/Dance – we will have projectors throughout the celebration room scrolling these entries. You do not need to do anything special with these pieces, other than a small recognition on your board of the student.

An invitation for the celebration will be shared in January. This will be an event you can invite your school winning families to, along with school staff, administration, PTA/PTSA board, and greater school community to. District administration and Board of Education members will be in attendance as well. Please make sure your building principal is aware that they will be on stage with you and they will be calling the students up to get their awards.

• We anticipate you all being allowed to enter WL Northern at 3:30 to begin setting up your boards. Display boards will be set-up in the cafeteria/commons area at Northern.
• District certificates will be presented at the celebration – so we will have them for you the evening of the celebration.
• Several students will be performing their music and dance entries on stage, along with some literature readings and film showings.
• Please plan to stay until the end of the event to take down your display. If you cannot be there until the end, please see if you have someone else from your school who can stay.
• State winners will be announced in early March. Those students will stay after the celebration for a group photo.

• October 1 – Official district launch of Reflections
• November 9 – Recommended due date for Reflections entries at the school level
• December 1 – School-level judging results due to the district level
• January 6 (tentative) – Advancing entries to the state level submitted electronically to SmartApply (more info as we get closer)
• Mid-January – District winners announced to PTSA groups
• Early March – State winners announced
• March 15 – District celebration at Walled Lake NORTHERN, 6:30 p.m.
• April 2027 (Date TBD) - Michigan PTA Reflections Celebration
• May 1 – National winners announced
• June – National PTA Reflections Celebration (typically virtual)

• Promotional & School Support - Torry Yu
• District Level Judging - Steve Neumann
• District Level Judging - Monika Owczarski
• District Celebration - Sarah Piggott

• Early Childhood Center - Lisa Metcalf
• Commerce Elementary - Oleksandra Jeziorowski
• Dublin Elementary - Danielle Goodsitt

• Glengary Elementary - Jennifer Anderson

• Hickory Woods Elementary - Ebony Bagley & Archana Godase

• Keith Elementary - Steve Neumann

• Loon Lake Elementary - Jessica Denomme

• Mary Helen Guest Elementary - Marilyn Soto

• Meadowbrook Elementary - Jennifer Madison & Theresa Braithwaite

• Oakley Park Elementary - Dina Grodzinskiy

• Pleasant Lake Elementary - Monika Owczarski

• Walled Lake Elementary - Kaysie Stassi

• Wixom Elementary - Darcell Baxstresser

• Clifford H. Smart Middle School - Jessica Trotter

• Sarah G. Banks Middle School - Kaysie Stassi & Torry Yu

• Walnut Creek Middle School - Sandy Farida

• Walled Lake Central High School - OPEN POSITION
• Walled Lake Northern High School - Stacey Bloch
• Walled Lake Western High School - Stephen Kade