Whether they came in dress shirts and ties or T-shirts and jeans, more than 500 dads gathered at Matoaka Elementary School on Friday morning for the fifth annual Morning with Dad event.
Matoaka fathers and their Cardinal kids lined up for coffee, juice, bagels and other treats in the school’s cafeteria and gymnasium during the morning event.
The event is organized annually by the Matoaka Parent Teacher Association. This year’s Morning with Dad fare was different from previous years with professional chef — and Matoaka dad — Chris Long refining the traditional “doughnuts with dad” into a tasty menu complete with egg, turkey sausage and potato skillets, yogurt and pastries.
Leader of the Matoaka Dads group Dan Fitzpatrick, who helped organize this year’s event, said the group tried to make this year’s menu healthier, but it was not the only change. This year also marked the first year the event engaged dads in their kids’ academic and social experiences at Matoaka.
After finishing their treats and one last cup of coffee, the dads followed their students through the school’s halls to their classrooms, met with teachers and sat at their children’s desks. Teachers prepared mini-lessons for students and dads to complete.
“It’s an opportunity to see what they do, experience it with them, see who their friends are and put names with faces,” Matoaka parent Troy Tuckey said. “It’s a lot of fun. We put it on the calendar every year.”
Fitzpatrick said the event was meant to be enjoyed by both dads and students, but its importance went beyond breakfast. Morning with Dad is part of a larger effort by the Matoaka Dads group to make male role models part of the regular Matoaka experience.
The effort grew out of the school’s Watch D.O.G.S. program — Dads of Great Students — a program offered by the National Center for Fathering to increase the presence of male role models in schools.
“Getting male role models in the lives of kids is incredibly important,” Fitzpatrick said. “There are studies that show the more involved dads are, the more successful [children] will be in life, both boys and girls.”
The early efforts, however, were not always as engaging as the Morning with Dad.
“It used to be that we’d have dads wear T-shirts that said Watch D.O.G.S. on it just to have their presence made,” he said.
Once the dads group decided to move away from the standardized national program and chart a more independent course, Fitzpatrick said engagement with Matoaka fathers increased.
The Matoaka Dads group has planned several activities to achieve that goal of an increased fatherly presence at the school. The mystery reader program brings in a new Matoaka dad every week to read to classes, often in costumes relating to the book. The Cardinal Way initiative enlists the help of Matoaka fathers in cleaning and maintaining a nature trail near the school.
Fitzpatrick said these kinds of activities increased Matoaka dads’ engagement with the school, and improved upon previous outreach efforts.
“They want to be part of the academic part,” he said. “They want to touch on the social aspect. They don’t necessarily want to come in and do office work or make copies.”
