In a recent episode of The Table, I sat down with two incredible educators who are challenging schools to rethink how we engage fathers in the academic lives of their children. Kelin Mark Sr., middle school director at Park Tudor School and creator of the DADS program, joined Brother Thomas X. Williams, national speaker and co-founder of Love and Light Ministry, Inc., for a conversation that every school administrator needs to hear.
What struck me most about our discussion wasn’t just the gap in father engagement that exists in so many schools. It was the missed opportunity that gap represents, and the powerful ripple effects that happen when schools intentionally create spaces where fathers feel valued and seen.
The Wake-Up Call: When Schools Forget to Call Dad
Kelin shared a personal experience that became the catalyst for creating his DADS program. His son came home from school one day with a bloody nose from getting hit with a kickball at recess. The injury itself wasn’t serious, but what stopped Kelin was this: no one from the school had called him.
As an involved father and educator himself, he wondered why the school’s first instinct was to contact only his wife. Then came a second incident. During a routine introduction at school, someone asked his sixth-grade son, “Is your dad in the home?” The question offended both his son and Kelin because he’d been actively involved in his child’s life from day one.
These moments made Kelin start asking critical questions: Are these experiences the norm for fathers? How do schools engage with dads beyond the assumption that they’re either absent or only interested in athletics?
Brother Thomas brought another perspective from his work with young Black males through Love and Light Ministry. He described a troubling pattern: fathers tend to be more visible during early childhood education, dropping off and picking up their kids. But as children move from elementary to middle school, father engagement declines dramatically. By high school, it’s almost an absentee problem, though Brother Thomas is quick to point out that it’s often a lack of information issue rather than a lack of care.
The Decline of Ambition: What Happens When Fathers Aren’t Engaged
One of the most powerful insights Brother Thomas shared was about how children’s ambitions shift as father engagement declines. In early childhood and elementary school, kids dream big. They want to be superheroes, astronauts, physicists. But by middle and high school, those dreams often narrow: “Just give me a basketball or football or a microphone and I’m good.”
This isn’t coincidental. Brother Thomas referenced Frederick Douglass’s wisdom: “It’s easier to build a strong child than it is to repair a broken man.” He noted that unfortunately, our children sometimes become broken men and women while they’re still children, and the decline in father involvement, particularly outside athletics, correlates with a decline in academic ambition.
Research supports what Brother Thomas observes. Studies show that fathers are two to three times more likely to engage with their children around athletics than academics. Yet those same studies demonstrate that just a father’s presence, even without being able to help with homework directly, significantly impacts a child’s academic trajectory.
The Information Gap: Fathers Want to Be Involved
Here’s what many schools miss: most fathers aren’t disengaged because they don’t care. They’re disengaged because schools haven’t created accessible entry points for them.
Kelin described a common scenario. A father gets an email about a school event at 2:30 in the afternoon for something happening at 6:00 that evening. He’s at work, hasn’t checked his email, and by the time he finds out, he can’t rearrange his schedule. The school then assumes he’s not interested, when really, the communication system failed him.
Brother Thomas emphasized that many fathers feel intimidated by the academic environment. They remember their own school experiences, which may have been negative. They worry they won’t know how to help with modern math or current curriculum. They feel like they’re intruding on “mom’s territory” when it comes to school involvement.
Both guests stressed that this isn’t just about fathers who aren’t in the home. Even fathers who are present and involved often get overlooked by schools that default to calling mothers first, sending emails to mothers’ email addresses, and creating volunteer opportunities during work hours that don’t accommodate different schedules.
Small Shifts That Make Big Differences
The good news? Schools can make meaningful changes without overhauling their entire system. Kelin and Brother Thomas offered several practical starting points:
Start with your communication systems. Make sure both parents’ contact information is in your database and that your communication defaults to reaching both parents, not just mothers. When there’s an incident, call both parents. When you send home important information, address it to both parents.
Create father-specific entry points. Kelin’s DADS program hosts events specifically designed to bring fathers into the building around academics, not just athletics. These might be breakfast meetings before work, evening sessions, or weekend workshops. The key is creating spaces where fathers don’t feel like they’re the only dad in the room.
Rethink your timing and format. Not every father can attend a 2:00 PM school event. Consider offering multiple times for important meetings. Use video calls for parent-teacher conferences to accommodate work schedules. Record presentations so parents who couldn’t attend live can still engage.
Train your staff to see and value fathers. Brother Thomas pointed out that sometimes teachers and staff unconsciously default to maternal involvement. Professional development should address how to engage all parents equitably and how to create welcoming environments for fathers who may feel out of place.
The Ripple Effect: When You Activate Dads, You Activate Communities
One of the most compelling points Kelin made was about the multiplier effect of father engagement. When you engage a father in his child’s academics, you’re not just helping one student. That father knows his son’s three or four best friends. If he’s engaged, he becomes another voice encouraging those students too. He’s the extra adult saying, “I know your mother and father. I know your grandparents. Hey, I need you to work harder.”
Schools that activate fathers are activating entire networks of support for students. They’re creating more voices championing academics, more adults who can speak into students’ lives, more examples of what engaged manhood looks like.
Brother Thomas added another dimension to this ripple effect. When young Black boys see Black fathers coming into school buildings to talk about academics, sitting down with principals for positive conversations, engaging around goals and achievement, it does something powerful. In a field where Black male educators are dramatically underrepresented, father presence becomes a form of representation. It helps boys see themselves in academic spaces, not just athletic ones.
The Both/And Approach: It’s Not Either/Or
Throughout our conversation, both Kelin and Brother Thomas emphasized that engaging fathers doesn’t mean disengaging mothers. This isn’t an either/or proposition. It’s a both/and approach.
Schools need to move away from the assumption that only one parent can or should be the primary school contact. Every communication system that defaults to one parent, every form that only has space for one email address, every phone call that only goes to one number reinforces the idea that only one parent needs to be engaged.
Brother Thomas made a powerful point: engaging fathers isn’t solely for the betterment of children. When fathers get involved, it helps fathers too. As men do the work of showing up for their children’s education, they’re cultivating themselves. And when children see their fathers doing this work, it gives them confidence to do even more work to become better than their parents are striving to become.
The goal, as Brother Thomas said, is for each generation to supersede the previous one. When children see fathers modeling engagement and growth, they’re almost guaranteed to supersede that example.
Practical Steps Schools Can Take This Month
Based on this conversation, here are concrete actions schools can implement immediately:
Audit your communication defaults. Check your student information system. Are both parents receiving all communications? Is there an unconscious bias toward maternal contact? Make the necessary adjustments so both parents are included by default.
Host a fathers’ breakfast or evening event. Don’t wait for a big program. Start small. Invite fathers to a breakfast before school starts or an evening session. Focus the conversation on academics: how to support learning at home, understanding curriculum changes, discussing college preparation. Make it clear this is about their role in their children’s academic lives.
Train your front office and administrative staff. Make sure everyone who answers phones and greets parents understands the importance of engaging fathers. When a father calls or visits, he should feel welcomed, not like an unexpected visitor.
Review your volunteer opportunities. Are all your volunteer positions during traditional work hours? Create opportunities that work for different schedules. Weekend events, evening activities, or roles that can be done remotely all increase accessibility for working fathers.
Make fathers visible in your school communications. When you feature parent volunteers in newsletters or social media, include fathers. When you share photos from events, make sure fathers are represented. Visibility matters.
The Bigger Picture: What We’re Really Building
As we closed our conversation, Kelin offered a perspective that reframes the entire discussion. When schools engage fathers and those fathers become visible in school buildings, talking about academics and goals and sitting down with principals for positive conversations, we’re not just supporting current students. We’re potentially creating the next generation of educators.
Young boys, especially young Black boys, need to see men in academic spaces. They need to see that manhood and intellectual engagement go together. In a field desperately lacking in male educators, particularly educators of color, father presence becomes a recruitment tool. It plants seeds that might grow into future teachers, counselors, and administrators.
Brother Thomas’s work with his book Mountain Mover focuses on helping young people keep their word to themselves. It’s about building integrity from an early age. When fathers model this kind of integrity by showing up consistently for their children’s education, by keeping their commitments, by demonstrating that academics matter, they’re teaching a principle that transforms lives.
This transformation isn’t just individual. It’s generational and communal. Schools that intentionally engage fathers are building stronger families, healthier communities, and a more equitable educational system.
Moving Forward: The Invitation
If you’re an administrator reading this, I encourage you to look at your systems and structures through this lens. Where might fathers feel excluded, even unintentionally? What small shifts could you make this semester to create more inclusive entry points?
If you’re a father reading this, know that your presence matters more than you might realize. Even if you don’t understand the new math, even if you feel uncomfortable in school buildings, even if you work long hours, your engagement in your child’s education makes a measurable difference. Schools should be creating space for you, and if they’re not, you have every right to request it.
And if you’re a teacher or counselor, consider how you might become an advocate for father engagement in your building. Start conversations with your administration. Notice when fathers show up and affirm their presence. Create classroom activities that invite father participation.
The work that Kelin and Brother Thomas are doing through the DADS program and Love and Light Ministry demonstrates what’s possible when we challenge the status quo. Father engagement isn’t just a nice addition to school community. It’s essential to creating environments where all students can thrive.
As Brother Thomas reminded us, this work helps everyone. It helps students see more examples of engaged adults. It helps fathers grow and develop. It helps schools build stronger relationships with families. And ultimately, it helps create the kind of school communities we all want: places where everyone belongs, where every child is supported, and where every family has a meaningful role to play.
If you want to learn more about Kelin Mark Sr.’s DADS program or Brother Thomas X. Williams’s work with Love and Light Ministry, Inc., you can connect with them through Park Tudor School and Love and Light Ministry respectively. Brother Thomas’s book, Mountain Mover, is available for those interested in principle-based approaches to youth development.
