Programming Q&A: Candlewood PTA
We recently spoke with Candlewood PTA President and member of New York State PTA, Tina Shek, about their successful movie series. They shared their promotional strategies and future plans, as well as advice for other schools planning movie events.
Can you tell us about your recent movie series?
We had several family movie nights this spring, with a variety of titles: Lincoln, Remember the Titans, Clifford and La Luna (a Disney short film). New releases are always a hit, and our administration loved that some of the movies have a DEI (diversity equity inclusion) theme.
How did you promote the events and create excitement?
We have just under 1000 students and 220 staff members. In advance of the event, we used their advisory (homeroom) classes to distribute microwave popcorn with a custom label about the movie series. We posted on social media to tell students to look for a surprise coming their way in advisory. The principal sent a schoolwide email to families and staff as well.
During the events, we announced that there was a special contest and asked families to send us a picture of them watching the movie together. They were then entered into a raffle to win a dinner package from our local pizzeria.
What are your plans for future events at your school?
We are hoping to do a movie on the lawn event towards the end of the school year. We are also going to hold an art contest. We’ll invite students to draw a movie poster of one of the movies we have already seen and award a prize for the best poster.
We’re also teaming up with the local pizzeria again to do dinner and a movie. We’ll offer families the opportunity to pre-order a dinner package during a movie night, and the proceeds will benefit the school. Plus, families love that they don’t have to cook.
What advice would you give to a school that just received its movie license?
- Make it fun. Come up with unique ideas that would work in your school.
- Research titles that would start conversations.
- Our district this year came up with a family connect night. Every month there is one day with no homework. We hope that families would use this day to connect with each other. We try to plan our family nights around that.
- See how to engage staff to help promote whatever you decide to do.
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