EAST Night Out
The sixth annual national EAST open house event is scheduled for Tuesday, October 15, or
within that week. Please visit the EAST Night Out website to register your event and find great
resources to help you plan a successful open house. The website can be found under “Training
& Events” on the main EAST Initiative website. Make sure to get your event registered by
October 1 to maximize your visibility during EAST’s media push.
Need new ideas to enhance your EAST Night Out? Check out these tips and tricks from some
of the facilitators who rocked out at their 2012 event. You’ll find suggestions on how to spread
the word, encourage people to attend, and keep them coming back for more. Not to mention,
they also have some advice to help you “let go” and allow your students to take ownership of
the event, while still managing the planning process.
Getting the Word Out
“I prompt the kids to design their own invitations through Photoshop or Illustrator. It gets the
kids' hands on some technology that they may not regularly use. We'll print up about 500
invitations on card stock and I'll give each child three invitations. One invite is for their
household family and the other two are for anyone else that does not live in their house. This
could include parents' places of work, church members, other family members or neighbors.
Word spreads very quickly in a short amount of time.”
- Josh Worthy, Sonora Elementary School
“We send invitations to our city, local, and state officials, school board members and
administration. We also put an article in the newspaper. Last year, most of our attendees were
parents, but we did have a state senator, a school board member, and a city official attend,
also.”
- Annette Smith, Mansfield High School
“We promote our events through personal phone calls from both facilitator and students. We
utilize as much social media as possible by reaching out to parents and the public through our
Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The student in charge of publicity contacts the webmasters
who post our flyers to both the district website and our campus website. We also go to
neighborhood laundromats, cafes, and community centers to hang flyers. We send invitations
to churches and ask that they announce it and post it. We already have door prizes lined up for
next year to “entice” people to attend!”
- KJ Kite, North Little Rock High School - East Campus
“We invite all of our community partners. We send out invitations in the mail and then follow-up
with an e-mail to the community partners.”
- Jennie Coy, Joe T. Robinson Middle School
“Social Media is our biggest friend. People check their Facebook pages more often than their
email accounts, so this is the easiest way to reach them. Especially in our situation, we have
several low income families that do not have a computer or internet at home, but you can bet
that they have the latest cell phones with social media apps. So social media is a huge
tool....Facebook, Youtube, twitter...do it all!”
- Josh Worthy, Sonora Elementary School
“We send invitations to our VIP guests and on the day of our event, we have students make
reminder phone calls. Some of our VIP guests have said that the follow-up phone call is what
got them to come. We have articles in our local newspaper about the event and on the radio
station. I personally invite our administrators and school board members.”
- Malvern Elementary School & Wilson Intermediate School Facilitators
Increasing Event Attendance
“One thing that helped attendance was that students were required to be there for a grade, and
if any students could not attend they were required to do an alternate assignment. Because the
student had to be there, most of the parents showed up, too.”
- Annette Smith, Mansfield High School
“I require all of my students to come, which is the main reason I have so many parents attend!
If the students are unable to attend, they had to create a tutorial for one of the harder software
programs in the classroom. Each student is required to present their project.”
- Jennie Coy, Joe T. Robinson Middle School
“We require our students to be there and they all have a job. It may be registering the guests,
serving refreshments, taking pictures, or standing at their table telling about a project they are
working on or have completed.”
- Malvern Elementary School & Wilson Intermediate School Facilitators
Consolidate events with schools in the same district. “We're looking to consolidate five events
into two relatively close locations. This way District Administration and parents that have kids at
both an elementary and high school EAST programs can attend all five events in two stops. It
also makes the stress of planning the event a lot easier when it’s divided among five schools.”
- Josh Worthy, Sonora Elementary School
“We like to have our EAST Night Out together because we realize that sometimes a parent has
children in both schools, and if you plan it on the same night at the same time it is tough to
attend both. When we have it together, it makes it easier on everyone.”
- Malvern Elementary School & Wilson Intermediate School Facilitators
“If you give them food, they will come. It can be something easy like chili or spaghetti or even
‘Buy 1, Get 2 Free Cheap-O pizza’. We usually do punch and cookies for smaller events, but
are looking to do a baked potato bar/dinner-thing this year.”
- Josh Worthy, Sonora Elementary School
Managing Student Progress:
“My first EAST Night Out, I could not let go and give the kids control. How could “they” possibly
do it up right without me? No way! During the second year I was so busy and didn’t have time
to embrace the event as I saw fit, so I turned over the ENTIRE event to the kids. I discovered
there is no need for me to speak or tap dance or pole dance or whatever. I wanted the kids to
have ownership and completely take over and they did! It was kind of a blow to me that I was
actually able to wean them, that maybe they didn’t need me. Nah, they need me; someone has
to sweep the stage! After everything was said and done, seems like maybe I had to wean
myself from them. But by delegating, I was able to keep my sanity and enjoy my kids more,
enjoy the process more, and enjoy the night more.”
- KJ Kite, North Little Rock High School - East Campus
“I make a big deal about dressing professionally, and that it is an important event to reach out to
our community and make connections for EAST. Each group fills out a sheet about their project
and what they are planning to present. I think I found the sheet in the facilitator documents.
Each group then presents their project to me as if I were a guest. I give them suggestions on
their presentation and have them practice and present it to me a final time. I think this
preparation gets them more involved and excited about coming.”
- Annette Smith, Mansfield High School
“Since we have two programs, we all got together once a week leading up to the event. From
the meetings, the students developed different groups for everyone to be involved with, such as
marketing, parking, poster design, invitation design, etc.”
- Andy Brakebill, Bauxite Schools
“Our facilitators meet first and decide what their students will be in charge of for planning. We
then tell the students what jobs need to be done and let them select what they would like to do.
One student in each of our schools is responsible for checking with the students to make sure
they have done their job. The student in charge then meets with the facilitator to discuss the
progress that is being made, etc.”
- Malvern Elementary School & Wilson Intermediate School Facilitators
“The students put together a PowerPoint slide show to be shown during the event. They also
made a schedule out for what duties everyone would be doing and scheduled times for each
group to present their projects.”
- Annette Smith, Mansfield High School