Arts education may not be a primary part of the curriculum in public schools these days, but visitors to Endeavour Elementary School would be hard-pressed to believe it.
Along with other Issaquah School District campuses, Endeavour held its annual arts competition last week. The competition known as Reflections, which is sponsored by the National PTA, has been going since 1969 and features more than 1 million participants across the country.
Endeavour Elementary School will be sending 12 finalists to the Issaquah School District’s Reflections art competition in January. Endeavour’s finalists were announced during a Nov. 14 ceremony. Photo by Neil Pierson
Principal Kathy Connally and her staff love to tout the fact their school has had one of the highest rates of participation in Reflections among Issaquah’s 24 schools for several years.
“We’re really proud of that because we really enjoy seeing kids express themselves in a variety of ways,” Connally said.
Last year, Endeavour had four students advance to Reflection’s state-level competition. This year, Endeavour had 167 entries across six categories – dance, film, music, literature, photography and visual arts. For Connally, it was exciting to see 26 students submit literature entries, a record number at the school.
“Our focus for our building is literacy, in terms of student growth,” she said. “Seeing that many kids participate in that is really validating, because that’s what we want them to do.”
On Nov. 14, the school held an awards reception where it passed out 12 trophies to finalists, who qualify for the district competition in January. An additional 12 students were given ribbons for honorable-mention status.
Before the reception, parents and children milled through the hallways to admire the student galleries. For the 2013-14 competition, students had to create something based on the theme, “Believe, Dream, Inspire.”
Dozens of paintings, drawings and computer-generated works dotted the walls.
There were several montages – Olympic gymnasts, the solar system, animals and outdoor scenes. One colorful piece seemed inspired by social justice. It showed two men exchanging a cup of coffee with the words, “Seattle Homeless Shelter – Helping Those in Need,” floating above them.
Endeavour fifth-grader Krista Mainard was her school’s lone entry in the film category, but she did a bang-up job on “Kat,” a documentary of her love for music. Mainard sings and plays guitar, piano, recorder and drums. She earned a finalist’s trophy for her work.
“It’s just basically saying that everybody can do what they want to,” Mainard said. “And I like to do music and stuff, so most of it just showed me playing the instruments that I can play.”
The task of organizing Endeavour’s competition fell to parent Melinda Flores, who went all out in her attempt to find expert, unbiased judges.
She enlisted the support of a local film producer, two professional photographers, a teacher at Issaquah’s Dance Premier studio, and four instructors from Issaquah’s Museo Art Academy, among others.
“For literature, I found a librarian,” Flores explained, “because it’s important with literature that they’re also judged on what would be expectant of that level. They can’t be getting ticks on grammar and everything if they’re a first-grader, so I wanted somebody that would be understanding of what level they were at as far as reading and comprehension and writing.”
While students enter the contest for fun, the adult organizers take it seriously in terms of judging. Flores said she keeps the identities of judges anonymous because “we don’t want any friction going on” among parents.
Having professionals judging the work lends integrity to the process.
“I honestly think all the (local) elementary schools do try to recruit people that are experts, or at least have experience in the field that we’re asking them to judge,” Connally said. “We’re asking them to look at the student work because they really have a trained eye for the value of what the kids have done.”