PARCO UPCHURCH

What are Watch Dogs?

 

Watch D.O.G.S. (Dads Of Great Students) is an innovative program focusing on  males (fathers, grandfathers, uncles, brothers, and other male adults) who volunteer for one (or more) days each year at a local school involvement and work cooperatively for the education improvement of our schools as well as creating a presence in Shelby County Schools to insure a secure environment. Since its inception of positive male role models, there has been an increase in homework completion, class participation and the number of males on the honor roll, and a decrease in discipline referrals and suspensions at our schools. Fathers for Education encourages a proactive - as opposed to reactive - philosophy, organizing monthly meetings for the group to discuss concerns and planning regular activities that promote positive paternal and general family involvement in education. Fathers for Education welcomes all men that are committed to helping students to excel and willing to help enhance the learning experience for all students. Fathers are asked to spend at least one day (or any available time) at school volunteering as security monitors, reading mentors, sports referees, listening ears, watch the school entrance, assist in unloading and loading buses, assist with traffic, doing flash cards, playing at recess, eating at lunch side by side with the students, and many other activities to actively engage with not only their child(ren) but the student body as a whole or for whatever needs to be done to plant seeds of success in the lives of children. One of the greatest accomplishments is the satisfaction that a dad feels when he completes his investment of a day in the school life of his own child or that of another child.

 

Watch D.O.G.S. is a non-profit organization which began informally in 1998 by Jim Moore, immediately after the Jonesboro, Arkansas middle school shooting tragedy. Watch D.O.G.S. operates for the objective, as stated in its motto: "To turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers."