National PTA’s movie night program. Some Questions
March 25th, 2009 by tsullivanI’ve already had two rants this week, so I’m going to do my best to play this one down the middle. I got an email last night about a new PTA movie night program. You can check it out here.
The basic gist is to get groups to put on a movie night at their school (either Bolt or Twilight) during a 4-week window in May. That sounds good. Sounds a lot like a certain, long-running school Family Movie Night program I’ve heard about, but that’s OK.
But the stuff I question is in the fine print of the FAQs of the PTA program .First of all, why is the PTA requiring that groups charge parents or kids an entry fee for a family event at school? I can see making it optional (some groups still struggling getting past the concept that it’s OK to invest in increased parent involvement and community), but requiring an entry fee just seems opposite to best involvement practices. And the PTA frequently touts (usually rightfully so) its leadership in parent involvement.
Now, it gets even more questionable when you realize that the PTA is making groups collect the entrance fee, and the groups don’t even get to keep the entrance fee. It has to go in to HP and/or the national PTA (they’re the partners in this effort). Groups even have to pay in advance just to get the kit. It just seems odd and opposite of how most groups work an event like this. Even when groups do charge (which we don’t recommend), it’s almost always at the door.
I’ll be interested in a response (and welcome PTA folks to explain to me where my analysis is wrong here – I frankly hope it is and will provide the mea culpa, if so). I imagine one response will be that: “yeah, but for that $5 every attendee gets a $5 gift card to something called “PTAdigital” (an opening-soon online store, which is also a partnership of PTA and HP). But that doesn’t pass the smell test. If you have 200 attendees (as PTA says they had at fall events), then that’s $1000 to National PTA/HP (zero to local unit) and 200 people with $5 gift cards (that they were forced to buy) to a PTA/HP store.
You do get the performance license (a $150 or $75 value, depending on different factors) and the free movie (which you could rent for $3 — and then have your choice of any movie). I’ll be interested to hear what folks think of this. It just doesn’t feel all that well thought out to me. I know the parents at my school would find a $5 price tag for a family movie night to be steep. And if we did collect it, I know they’d expect it at least to be going toward our school and our kids.
I have a feeling PTA is going to need to re-think this one. Your thoughts?
March 25th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
It actually sounds like a good deal to me. I just checked out the minimum attendance requirements and saw that you could actually host a movie night for $125 all in. In this instance, your attendees get $5 gift cards and you get a performance license valued at $150 and the $20 DVD that apparently you get to keep ($170 total). I also noticed that parents are free. What am I missing here?
March 26th, 2009 at 10:00 am
Hi Sofia -
For the record, a one-time movie license can be had for $75, actually.
Also, using just the minimum attendance numbers isn’t all that fair a look. A movie night with just 25 attendees wouldn’t be all that great a movie night. Using a more relaistic number (75 attendees, maybe?) or the number national PTA states was their average attendance in fall (200 or so) seems to be a better assessor.
Tim
March 26th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Hmmm. I guess I’m not following your logic. If I can host a movie night with only the minimum, there’s nothing prohibiting me from adding more guests on my own terms. Plus I actually get something (gift cards) for my money beyond the movie license. Sounds a little like sour grapes
March 26th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
I suppose that’s true (not the sour grapes part, but…), and I’m sure that’s exactly how folks will do it, if they decide to run the program. But I’m also pretty sure that’s not how it’s supposed to be done. The program asks that you pay $5 per attendee, not that you fib about attendance to pay as little as possible.
If it’s such a great deal, why would groups fib about attendance?
I know this one comes off as me just braying at PTA again, but not the case here. I like when groups have good options for family events and think the fall model PTA used was kind of neat. These changes just don’t seem that well thought out. All I’m saying… The only proof, I suppose, will be in how many groups pony up the real cash for real attendance figures. We may never learn the real story on that, but I can guess.
Tim
March 27th, 2009 at 12:52 am
Hi Tim -well I decided to contact the video people to get to the bottom of all this. Your last points were very well taken and I really wanted to understand this whole thing. Like most public schools, times are tough for us and we’re always looking for options. I got two things out of my exchange with them: 1) they don’t think about schools “fibbing” – they don’t see it this way. They just want schools to meet a 25 minimum to cover their costs – their feeling is that if people see added value with these new $5 gift cards for their family photo products, they’ll simply do more than the minimum and 2) they have an exclusive agreement for Twilight – you can’t get a license agreement for this film anywhere else. Glad I did the research. Maybe PTO can somehow get involved?
March 27th, 2009 at 10:48 am
Fair enough. Thanks.
Seems like it would be more clear if they just charged the $125 to the group for the license and then allowed groups to decide if they wanted to a) buy the gift cards; or b) charge admission.
Haven’t talked to anyone about the Twilight exclusive. Could be true. But there are thousands of other movies for which a license is $75.
Good discussion. I do think things are at least more clear now.
March 31st, 2009 at 10:08 pm
Ok, so is it acceptable to have the PTA/PTO sponsor the $125 and give away gift cards at events throughout the year? If so, this would be a fantastic chance to get a huge draw on a pretty new release. If not, it seems like what is for sale here is a mailing list of your members and if that’s the case it’s an aggressive marketing ploy.
April 1st, 2009 at 12:06 am
When we did our first PTOToday-inspired movie night about 5 years ago, we had about 150 people. We charged only for the food, but asked folks to register in advance so we could plan seating and concessions. It was a huge success and cost us basically nothing except the license fee. We had a nice big screen, a decent sound-system, but it was still in a gym, not a movie theater. I would never charge anyone $5 to come to our movie night, kids OR parents. That’s too much and defeats the point of offering a free family fun event. And if our parent group did charge $5 a head, I woudl be furious if the money was given to another organizaiton unless the event was billed as a fundraiser for a charity.
Regarding the availability of Twilight: that is not a movie for elementary school kids. Some PG-13 movies might be ok, but not that one. I wonder how many middle-schoolers would prefer to see it in their gym where no one would sit still long enough to actualy watch the movie vs the theater or someone’s home.
April 1st, 2009 at 9:29 am
The PTA offered their first movie night in the Fall. Really, this is an opportunity to promote their new on-live movie store with family friendly movies. We did it, and it was great! We had well over 200 attendees. There was no charge, from the PTA or us. It was a great family activity.
All the PTA asked was that we promote the store and attempt to sell gift cards. We did this – no takers. ZERO. If any other schools had this or a similar experience, my guess is they had to charge this time to try to make some money, or something, related to the store.
However, this time, when we saw the $5 fee, we decided to do something different. We want this to be a free event; so little is these days.
April 1st, 2009 at 11:17 am
We too hosted a PTA movie night in the Fall. We called it “Free Family Fun” and even gave away free popcorn. It was GREAT! Everyone had a good time and were excited for the next movie night. We had a good turnout but sold only one gift card.
I must say, PTA did a great job for the Fall movie night. They did all the leg work and made it extremely easy to set up. We were disappointed about the the changes for this second movie night. We also want to keep this a free event.
April 3rd, 2009 at 11:10 am
I am a PTA member. The National PTA Movie Night Live that was held in the fall was different. Local PTAs did not have to “underwrite” the event for National. They were asked to sell gift cards ($20) at the event and received the DVD “Kung Fu Panda” free with the kit. We did not charge for the event. We invited everyone to bring their own dinner, picnic blankets and soccer chairs. We raffled the DVD off at the end of the show and did not push the gift cards. The little guy that won the DVD was ecstatic and could not believe that he didn’t have to take it back to the store. The gift cards were mailed back to HP. We are not having the “Bolt” event b/c my analysis is the same as yours. What a scam for National PTA. PTO is making more and more sense for my school.
April 4th, 2009 at 12:08 am
For a non-PTA school, the minimum is 50 attendees. Whew…$250 going to the PTA when we could just pony up $75 for the one time license and still come out ahead even if we served free popcorn and orange drink. Ya, right. Just another reason we are a “used to be PTA”.
April 4th, 2009 at 11:18 pm
When I got the email I was excited because we had done the fall and like Laura we didn’t push the gift cards. We had an awesome turn out and parents were excited that it was a free event. However, once I went to the website and read the guidelines for this one it was a disappointment.
They want us to charge $5 and give them a “free” $5 gift card. There’s nothing free in that.
Our PTA has the philosophy that we don’t charge admittance for any of our events. We are here to provide activities so our students and families interact with each other.
April 7th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
Our school held the Fall movie night thru PTA. My school’s PTA sponsored the event, and Student Council sold goodies. It was great. Again, we tried to sell the gift cards ($20) and had zero response. We wanted to try this again for the Spring, and due to the “guidelines” will probably say no to PTA for this event. I am actually going to research the PTO movie night package, it sounds nicer.
April 8th, 2009 at 10:44 am
I have to say that I am SO GLAD that you have this article. I haven’t been able to find much information on the PTA website. My Principal wants to do it, but our student population is such that we would never be able to get the students to pre-register let alone pay a fee to attend. These movies are old. Everyone who wants to see them, has. I am normally a huge proponent of PTA, but I have to say that I am very disappointed in this program.
I’m going to get with the Principal and let her know about the PTO program. I think that is the route we will most likely go. We need to do what is best for the students, parents, and school.
November 27th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
We did our own school movie night and tied it in with a parent workshop night. Staff volunteered to supervise kids while the kids watched a popular movie, and parents attended 3- 30 minute workshops selected from a variety of topics offered. The movie license was $75 for a one-time showing license and very easy to obtain through a movie licensing company. The night was a great success!
I think another family movie night might be in the works for this spring – but I we’ll probably plan our own so that we don’t have to charge our families to attend the event.