This year 66 Marlborough students took home 133 Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. Of these students, 13 won gold keys and will now move on to be considered at the national level.

2017 has been one of the most successful years for Marlborough students in the Scholastic Awards. Marlborough won 38 more regional awards than last year.
Visual Arts Instructor Kathy Rea, one of the art teachers who promotes the Scholastic Awards, said she is proud of the Marlborough community for their achievements.
“Marlborough is usually seen as a rigorous, college-preparatory school which, of course, it is, but we in the visual arts like to think it is really an art school, that just happens to be good at all that other stuff…Our students enjoy their art classes and work hard, so all the visual arts teachers are very happy and pleased to have their artwork acknowledged by such a prestigious art competition as Scholastic,” Rea said.
Each January, Marlborough teachers encourage their students to submit to the The Scholastic Art and Writing Program, which honors young artists all over the United States. Over 300,000 pieces are judged by artists such as famous cartoonist, Gabrielle Bell. Once submitted, pieces are considered for gold keys, silver keys and honorable mentions by region. If a piece is given a gold key, it gets considered for a medal in the national competition. Recipients of gold medals have the opportunity to attend the country-wide ceremony at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
Kate ’18, winner of two gold keys has her pieces now moving on to the next round. One of the pieces is a black and white high contrast film photo called “Ana” that features her friend from Puerto Rico. Her second piece is a poem called “America,” which is about the political climate in the United States.
“I’m crossing my fingers about the national awards, but I am happy with what I have already received. I think that I define my own success, and right now, I feel successful,” Kate said.
Overall, Kate said that she has noticed a trend in the Scholastic competition. The Marlborough community submitted many more pieces in the arts category than the writing category. Several students find out about the writing awards from working on Marlborough’s literary magazine, The Edge.
“The art teachers are more aware. I talked to my English teacher, and he didn’t know [Scholastic Awards] existed for writing. I think that’s something that should probably change because we have so many creative writing classes,” Kate said. “People just don’t know to submit.
Rea commented on the fact that the visual arts instructors help their students submit to  Scholastic.
“All of the art teachers are very aware of the deadlines. We look at artwork our students have done each quarter and we always have that in the back of our mind that that might be a good piece for Scholastic. So when the deadline comes up, we throw it out there to our classes but we will also talk to individual students and say that you did a really great drawing,” Rea said.