Art education within schools has traditionally focused on supporting school students individually, with evaluations often serving to highlight personal abilities, such as through portfolios or assessment criteria. At the same time, there is widespread discussion of the problems of standardized evaluation processes. This article outlines a new perspective on evaluation in the classroom: Not only can judgments foster school students’ individuality, but they can also help to strengthen the sense of community within a classroom – providing they are understood as communicative judgments in the strictest sense. An empirical study with school students shows that while evaluations are rarely discussed, the potential of dialogic understanding is clearly recognized. By drawing a conceptual distinction between evaluation and judgment, the article demonstrates how collectively negotiated evaluations can contribute to political education and community formation within art education in schools.