Single Dads

I took a pretty extended break from blogging for a little bit (my most significant break since, oh, 2004 or so) but after a vacation to SXSW, spending an increasing amount of time with my four-year old (that’s about to go up too - more on that later) and trying to concentrate on work, I found the exact article to ease my way back into the writing gig when I saw this this little educational nugget about the public educational system, or lack of it.

WASHINGTON - Seventeen of the nation’s 50 largest cities had high school graduation rates lower than 50 percent, with the lowest graduation rates reported in Detroit, Indianapolis and Cleveland, according to a report released Tuesday.

MSNBC gets the cite.

Let’s see.  I live in Denver.  It’s one of the most highly educated cities in the nation, I’ve heard somewhere.

Denver:  Denver County School District - 46.3 percent graduation rate.

43.6 percent graduation rate?

So I’m going to have to try to send my daughter to private schools for the rest of her days?

Public education.  My wallet.  I weep for them both.

I love Saturdays.

Lately, my daughter has been spending a lot of weekends here, which, I have to admit, is wonderful for me. In the past, I’ve heard of a lot of other co-parenting fathers taking their time with their toddler kids to do the fun things, like go on trips, go to playgrounds, and just simply play. The very first excursion that I took Grace and her sister on together when I was still with their mom was to the Art Museum - and Grace was still a little, little baby at that time.

I like to do “fun” things with Grace but I love to plan activities that count towards her future development.

Our most recent weekend adventures involve the “learning” Leapfrog videos. If you’re not familiar and have a toddler, I can’t recommend them enough. Right now our family is a little obsessed with the Letter and Word Factory DVDs, which are fun for me and for her no matter how many times we see them. Better still, the DVDs come equipped with learning games that teach your kids skills, like recognizing words that rhyme, or letters. She gets to acquire skills that she will be able to use for the rest of her life; I get to swell with pride at her increasing ability to communicate like a big kid.

You can’t get a better win/win situation.

Being that I have no idea what she’s learning when she’s with Mom, I figure that exposing her to as many opportunities to learn while she’s with me is the best thing that I can do for both of us.

But we also went to the playground.

Ah, the wonders of the toddler attention span.

As a man with children and an ex, I’m always keeping my eye out for things to help my daughter out (and me) out financially. One important thing that you can do at the end of the year is start planning for your kids future, both financially and educationally, and one way that I’ve done that is by using a 529 plan.

A 529 plan is an investment vehicle for future educational expenses that grows federally and state income tax free that has various rules and regulations based on the state in which you live and the specific plan in which you want to enroll. In Colorado, the plan that I enrolled in was found at CollegeInvest.org, and I can tell you from experience, it definitely pays to shop around for a plan, as fees and past performance can be vastly different. Also, in my plan, my ex has no claim to the money invested and my donation to the plan is state income tax deductible up to $250.00 as long as I donate that amount to my daughter’s plan before year end. Nice. Another bonus is that if your children don’t use the 529 money, you can use it yourself for qualified expenses, and in other cases, for unqualified expenses, although a tax hit would probably occur. If my daughter doesn’t use the plan that I started for her, I’ll buy a boat and give it her name instead. Probably.

Naturally, before you were to invest in such a thing, you definitely want to do your research or talk to a financial planner or another tax or financial professional before you jump. For me, though, it’s perfect. Better, I feel like I’m doing something positive for my daughter, as I suspect that college expenses in the future will be astronomical and I have no indication that my ex is doing any planning for my daughter’s educational future, period.

But now is a great time to look at some sort of educational planning for your kids. Take a look at it.

9news, which is out of Denver and one of the bettter television news websites that I’ve seen, had a couple of features late last evening that caught my eye.

Bad news first.  Apparently, Denver Public Schools has decided to close a bunch of schools in the district.  Again. 

DENVER – Monday, the superintendent of the Denver Public School District unveiled his list of eight schools the district plans to close.

Says the superintendent of Denver Public Schools later in the article:

“We believe these proposals are a difficult, but an absolutely necessary step towards making DPS the best it can be,” said Bennet in a statement. “We are very excited about the new opportunities that we are creating and believe that our students will benefit greatly from these opportunities. At the same time, we deeply understand how painful school closures will be for the students and families at these schools, and we will work closely with them during the transition.”

Bennet says closing the schools will save $3.5 million.

Several years ago, I attended a well known high school in the Denver suburbs.  The DPS high schools, with their high educational levels, numerous students, and well coached athletic teams, were some of our fiercest competitors in both sports and academics. 

Now, a little over twenty years later, DPS has been reduced to using mid-90’s doublespeak - where the closing of low achieving schools and low enrollment is now called creating “opportunities”.  How tremendously disappointing.

But in better local news, Colorado has received a multi-million dollar grant for fathers and kids that might be seen as high risk.

DENVER – Men who need help with fatherhood now have access to dozens of free programs throughout the state.

Governor Bill Ritter (D-Colorado) and representatives with the Colorado Department of Human Services kicked off the “Be There for Your Kids” campaign on the steps of the State Capitol Monday afternoon.

The initiative is geared towards providing programs and resources for dads in a wide variety of circumstances, including single parenting, incarceration and children with disabilities.

This is the good news.  The website that contains the grant and program information is www.coloradodads.com.  Go out there and take a look.

Free programs for single fathers.  Educational resources taken from kids in minority areas.

One step up and two steps back.

On occasion, and sadly, not often enough, I derive enormous amounts of pleasure from snippets that I read on the Internet.  Most articles that you read about kids consist of the doom and gloom about teenagers - how kids are on drugs, or teens are robbing liquor stores and putting it on YouTube, or students are shooting up high schools and colleges, or kids are apathetic general.  You know the familar refrain.

This story is most definitely not about any of those topics.

This is a story about the best of our kids.

The Grade 9 student arrived for the first day of school last Wednesday and was set upon by a group of six to 10 older students who mocked him, called him a homosexual for wearing pink and threatened to beat him up.

The next day, Grade 12 students David Shepherd and Travis Price decided something had to be done about bullying.

“It’s my last year. I’ve stood around too long and I wanted to do something,” said David.

They used the Internet to encourage people to wear pink and bought 75 pink tank tops for male students to wear. They handed out the shirts in the lobby before class last Friday — even the bullied student had one.

Wait.  There’s more.

“The bullies got angry,” said Travis. “One guy was throwing chairs (in the cafeteria). We’re glad we got the response we wanted.”

David said one of the bullies angrily asked him whether he knew pink on a male was a symbol of homosexuality.

He told the bully that didn’t matter to him and shouldn’t to anyone.

This bit of good news comes via Fark from the Chronicle Herald - in Nova Scotia.  The only beef that I have with this is that it didn’t occur in the United States, so I could wave an American flag as I write.

Life imitates John Hughes.  Can real life have mid-80’s new wave music playing in the background?

Today’s Hope For Humanity Award is hereby given to high school students David Shepherd and Travis Price.  The world can learn a lot from you two kids.  I applaud.

Last week, I had the honor of attending a Virtus meeting. Now, for those of you that don’t know, these are meetings on Child Safe Environment that I had attended because I have a child in a Catholic preschool.

Whether or not that you think that this might be a touch ironic, I would have to say that this was a good, good class, with a lot of decent information. I did watch two movies (some of which featured actual child molesters), received a workbook with scores of info, and had a classroom discussion.

All of this is great, but it leads to the question: how the heck did we get to the place that parents of children in school had to attend a workshop on how to keep their children safe? Is this a recent phenomenon in hideousness towards children? Or worse… was it always this bad?

Yikes!

I suppose that I would say that this is a great class to take for anyone, whether they are a parent with a child in a public school, or a priest that would have children assisting them in church on Sundays. Take a look at the website - the link is included above. But always remember the reason for the class; your kids are, unfortunately, at some risk. Act accordingly.

Tomorrow is my baby’s first day of school.

Now, one would think that this makes me a little nervous.  One would be right.  Despite the fact that my daughter has been well socialized by daycare, trips back and forth between my house, her mother’s, and her grandparents, I still find myself, today, just a bit off.  I’m not sure why.  Perhaps it’s because I know that from this moment on, teachers and other students can have as much of an impact on my daughter, or more, than I do - but honestly, I’m not sure.

However, I do know that at this moment, it’s even more important to listen, observe, teach, and parent to the best of my ability.

So, with this in mind, I will be going to school with her tomorrow, as will her mother.  Sure, it is an orientation day, but I seem to have this need to make sure that my daughter knows that I will be around for her. 

Equally, I think that it’s important for her teachers to know this as well.

Sigh.  School.

Hopefully, this is the beginning of a lot of fun for both of us.  And if you have children out there, I wish them and you well.  Summer is over.  Hello, school!  Wish me luck, and if you have any intelligent nuggets of education information out there, feel free to share.