Maggie, here's a idea to share.

Check out the gallery at www.pta.org/parentinvolvement/reflections02/index.asp and then print some of the winning entries of last year - so the kids can see that the work isn't that of necessarily an outstanding artist, but instead of the work of a child - a child that was able to put their feeling onto a poster, or see something cool through a camera etc.

After your print some from the gallery, put them on posters and hang them up in the cafeteria for kids to view the gallery. They don't lool the work up on the internet, but if you do that for them, and they see it ove and over, (maybe you could have a table set up for them to come up and ask you some questions - like who did that, how old was that kids - is he an artist or just a kid ---- you get the point), maybe you'll get lots more entries.

If you have the display out in the front foyer too, parents can ask questions when they come pick up their kids.

Sometimes we just have to think outside the box. We just can't send home a form and expect parents to just take to the idea - it goes on a pile of paperwork to look through some day. You can help them realize that their child can submit something, and maybe it will just be the winning enry!

Keep practicing that word NO but not in front of the students since they need to learn - YES - I Can Do That!

there are a number of community organizations that should be available to help. your local Art League might have a program, or cetainly volunteers to help. Regional Cultural Arts Councils or even your city' Fine Arts Commission. you might have a community orchestra, etc., etc..... Many of these organization have outreach programs for the schools and volunteers who'd be willing to work with your school's faculty to do presentations for the kids.

we had a volunteer one year who spent 3 days in the elementary art classes.... doing demos, etc.... with the individual classes. this was a great hit as the kids really felt like they were receiving some personal attention as opposed to having big by-grade or full-school assemblies.

food for thought......

hi again, fortunantly the art teacher is awesome. She is very into getting kids involved in art. She can definently get the kids excited about the program. [img]smile.gif[/img] It will be interesting to see if we get more entries this year based on the theme (signs of courage). I was talking to my dd (she's 7) and she has decided that she is going to do something with space and astronauts because, "you have to be really courageous to go into space knowing that you might get blown up or lost or never get back to earth again" (can you tell we have just come back from the kennedy space center? [img]smile.gif[/img] ) maggie
Ps: no, no, no, no,no, no thanks, no thank you, no, no,no,no (how was that for practice? maybe that should be my sig line? [img]smile.gif[/img] )

OK Maggie - I'm confident you'll get it down by Spring.

Those kids are lucky they have you heading the program - now it'll be interesting to see how much involvment you can get!

Hopefully the art, music and other teachers can find your love of the program as exciting as you do.

hi, oh that was too funny! thanks for the laugh. I also thought I had practiced the art of saying "NO", obviously not well enough. [img]smile.gif[/img] we don't have a council, something about no-one wanted to cooperate (didn't want any more meetings) so we just have district people. Thank goodness I like the program! [img]smile.gif[/img] Well, I am off to practice saying no, no, NO, NO, NO now so that I am not president again next year.... [img]smile.gif[/img] maggie

Maggie,
I thought you had practiced this word last year - you form your lips like an "O" and you add a sound - "N" - and it comes out NO - then you add a thank you onto the end and say "No Thank You". But then of course you wake up - and find yourself in the middle of a meeting and you hand is in the air - and you realize that was your dream - in life you keep saying "O" "K".

Okay - now that you volunteered, I suggest you contact all the council presidents and get the names, email address and phone number of each of the "Reflections" or "Arts in Education" chairmen so that you can sent them an email and start a communication line with each of them.

You'll need to establish from the end - what the deadline is for entries to the State, then what the deadline is from entriest to the District PTA, then what the deadline is for entries to the Council PTA - you! Now you need establish what their deadline is - so that they can get their entries in by their deadline - have them judged and then submit the winning entries to the Council - you.

If you are really nice you will help them set up a time schedle - when to have the forms go home to the parents (maybe they might want to be a guest speaker at the first meeing in August / September and explain what the program is). Then once the forms are sent home, and a deadline is published on the form for when the entry must be back to school, the local unit chairmen must collect the entries from school, have them delivered to the judge (which they must determine who is the judge - maybe they want to get the ART teacher at the High School, the Music teacher at a neighboring Middle School, etc.) to do the judging and then by a designated date - get the winning entries to you - where in turn you start the judging process like they did. In turn you have the winning entries (top thee from each category - I think) turned into the District PTA deadline.

Best of luck. Sorry if I left anything off.