Schools recruiting dads to provide more male role models for kids

For dads who have never volunteered in class, showing up for a whole day at Wilson Elementary can be a little scary. "They're really kind of apprehensive, like, 'Oh, my wife made me come in,'" said school secretary Kathy Krumm.

But the Anoka school is eager to welcome dads. Male volunteers wear special vests, eat lunch with their kids and have their photos posted in the hall.

The school is one of five in Minnesota and 1,000 in 32 states that participate in a K-12 program designed just for men, a gender seldom spotted in many classrooms nationwide. Volunteers in Watch DOGS (which stands for Dads Of Great Students) take one day off work and spend it at their kids' schools, giving teachers an extra set of hands and eyes.

"By the time they leave, they're on a first-name basis with their child's teacher. They feel more comfortable in the school," said Amy Elise Jones, the school's volunteer services coordinator.

Despite changes in the gender breakdown of many workplaces, elementary schools are still largely the realm of women. At Wilson, all but two of 21 classroom teachers are women, and moms are often the ones who stop in regularly to make photocopies or help kids with reading.

"It seems like the more normal scenario is that the moms are more involved with the school side of things, and the dads are out on the hunt for the daily kill," said Kris Stauffer, a Watch DOGS volunteer at Burnsville's Edward D. Neill Elementary, which started the program this fall.

Two schools in Rochester and Maranatha Christian Academy, a private school in north Minneapolis and Brooklyn Park, also have Watch DOGS, the program's national office said.

Years ago, when his son attended Wilson, Todd Page never volunteered at the school. "There was nothing that I thought -- this is going to sound sexist -- that a man could do," he said.

Watch DOGS changed that. Page, who has two girls at Wilson, has taken several days off from his job as the safety director of a concrete pipe manufacturer to be at school.

The program was founded by Jim Moore, an Arkansas father who wanted to help keep classrooms safe after a 1998 school shooting in another town, said Eric Snow, the program's national director.

The program doesn't make dads go through background checks, but many schools require them for all volunteers, and Snow said he advises schools to treat Watch DOGS, who can also be granddads or other father figures, the same.

The program's focus on security has waned over the years, Snow said, though it still speaks to dads like Page, who said he worried more about abductions when his daughters started school than he did with his son. The dads still do safety checks, walking school perimeters, and Snow said some principals report fewer discipline problems. But the program took off because teachers love having male role models in class, he said.