JES to add Watch D.O.G.S. program

Upon his retirement from 28 years as county judge, Mitchell Davenport said he was looking for ideas and things to keep him occupied.

Jacksboro Elementary School has an idea for him.

Davenport was among about 20 parents, grandparents and interested men who came out Jan. 31 for the introductory meeting to the Watch D.O.G.S (Dads of Great Students) program. JES Principal Aaron Hannah, in his first year at the school, said he spent a lot of the first semester doing a lot of assessing.

“We are finding about 90 percent of our discipline problems are coming from the boys,” Hannah explained. “There is a definite need for male role models.”

Students were also asking about the lack of male teachers at the school and saw there was a definite gap or void to be taken care of. He began digging into the program, which has been nationwide for more than 25 years. 

The program has males in different areas of the school roughly once or twice a month in such areas as cafeteria duty, recess, greeting students arriving or leaving from the school and in the classroom working with individual students in some areas such as flash cards.

To read the complete article, see the Feb. 6 edition of the Herald-Gazette.