Creating a New Dialogue Around Math with a STEM + Families Math Night SPOTLIGHT: Steven Millard Elementary PTA (Fremont, Calif.)

This post is part of a series authored by local PTA leaders who received STEM + Families Mathnasium Math Night grants. They share practical advice and lessons learned from planning and hosting their events.

We hosted our STEM + Families Math Night Jan. 24 with over 400 attendants. Our school had never done anything like these events prior—which made our high attendance that much more exciting.

We anticipated a hesitant reaction from kids and parents, so we started to market the event early in November. The most effective form of marketing was word of mouth. A core group of volunteers began engaging in one-on-one conversations with parents. We kept talking about it and asking people about it whenever we were onsite at school and were able to spark curiosity among the parents—people wanted to know what the night was all about! Most initial reactions were that they weren’t into math—but as we sparked new dialogue around the topic of math, popularity grew.

By the time we were a couple weeks out from the event, we had spoken to most parents at the school, so we changed our approach a little bit. We emphasized the games and talked about the prizes. For the last round of event reminders, we led with the food! As those are typically the elements that push people to come, we were able to attractive those that don’t typically attend events.

Included in the attendance was the school principal and about four to five teachers. We engaged the teachers by asking them to share event during class announcements. One teacher told her first grade students that she would be attending, and she was looking forward to seeing them all there. Her class got 100% attendance.

For set up we used a large multi-purpose room, placed the tables around the perimeter of the room, and had a welcome desk at the entrance. We made sure to have multiple volunteers at the welcome desk to explain the structure of the event. They explained how the event works, where to pick up your goodie bag, collecting a raffle ticket and where to find the snacks located in an adjoining room. This was helpful as everyone knew what to expect the moment they arrived.

Big hits of the night were the goodie bags and the raffle prizes. Goodie bags helped a lot—it is a great motivator for kids and it’s such an easy thing for us to organize. Mathnasium also helped by bring everyone a little gift. If they didn’t win a raffle prize, everyone still got a little reward for participating. The raffle prizes were donated to us by ThinkFun, and we had them on display during the night.

When giving out the raffle prizes we addressed the whole room and reminded them that events like these come together only because of volunteer time and donations to the PTA. If families attended and felt they got value out of the experience—we want to encourage them to help volunteer and donate, so we can continue this amazing work!

Fueled by the success of that night, we recently hosted a Science Night March 26. We will absolutely be hosting another Math Night next year. We developed a great partnership with our local Mathnasium. I cannot say enough good things about them—they were amazing to work with.

Supriya Desai is a parent of 2 boys in grades 1&4, a full-time working professional at a Global Silicon Valley Tech Giant and a committed PTA Board member focused on widening the circle of engaged parents at school and bringing new programs to directly benefit students. 


Franchise Feature: Karen Losing (Mathnasium of 4S Ranch San Diego, CA)

Our most recent Math Night had over 300 students and 550 participants total. A strong math message in general is important, but specific event communication from the school to the parents was essential. Externally, we provided photos and social media assets for Facebook, created an email flyer to stay green and reach 100% of the parents, we placed Math Night yard signs in the carpool lanes one week out. Internally, the teachers talked up the event with their students, challenged them to games that night, and created job responsibilities for student leaders to assist in the execution of the program.

Math Nights are an excellent tool to invite families to showcase the importance of math and families! It is a great opportunity to have the student who feels defeated by math see if can be fun, or the student looking to have a challenge can play at a higher level. This is an opportunity for the PTA to give something back to the parents without dipping into their limited resources!

Karen’s Pro-Tips

  • Plan ahead! We had two quick and easy meetings because we were prepared. The math teachers and the PTA board were involved. We created a “Look Book” for our schools to visualize what Math Night will look like, spacing, and math topics. They saw what the welcome table looked like, passports and goodie bags, volunteers in action and general flow of the evening. The meetings we filled with energy, so the buildup was fantastic!
  • Mathnasium is here to help! My team will do most of the work! We make sure everything is planned out. I look to the PTA to get administrative approval, date on the calendar, help promote to the student body and recruit 15 volunteers. Then my team takes it from there!
  • Order doesn’t matter! When playing the games, people are linear thinkers and want to start at Station 1 then go to the next station. The order doesn’t matter, so go to a table that looks fun or less crowded.
  • Have a distinct start and finish! Have a distinction Welcome Desk and a distinctive Finished Desk. It is confusing to have both on the table once the event gets popping! I’ve done game tables in a circle format or down the entire length of the hallway. Either works. Anticipating attendance and what a room can handle is important. The 550-person event was held in the main hallway from the office area down through the classrooms.

Karen is a multi-center owner with lots of experience as a center owner. She has done several Math Nights and is a good proponent. She does business in both Southern California and now Arizona and has a unique perspective from two different areas.

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Disclosure: Mathnasium is a Proud National Sponsor of National PTA and a Founding Sponsor of National PTA’s STEM + Families initiative. The local PTA spotlighted in this blog was a winner of a 2018–2019 National PTA STEM + Families math grant, sponsored by Mathnasium. The author was not compensated for this blog post and the author’s opinions are their own.