Fathers told they're key to children's success in school
WHITE PLAINS - Working 65 hours a week doesn't leave Bill Collins much time to help his son with homework and he can't always make it to soccer or football games.
But with data showing children without involved fathers more likely to drop out of school or commit crimes, the Mount Kisco father of four is determined to do better.
"I would like to be more involved. It's been a real struggle," said Collins, 46, a tow truck driver in White Plains. "I know it's important. It would be nice to be able to change it."
At the Black Father/Black Men Back To School Night at Highlands Middle School in White Plains, Collins and about 40 other men were encouraged yesterday to make their children's educations a priority in their lives.
In an audience that included White Plains Schools Superintendent Timothy Connors, state Supreme Court Justice Bruce Tolbert and members of black fraternities, speakers talked for two hours about the critical role fathers play in education and how their absence, whether through divorce or absenteeism, harms children.
Divine Pryor, the evening's keynote speaker, said the involvement of black men in schools was more important than ever because of the growing influence of gangs and a world where their children see a stint in prison as inevitable. An ex-convict who later became a professor of criminal justice, Pryor said fathers are needed at teacher conferences, extracurricular activities and in neighborhood streets counseling youth.