Local fathers who care about education

Tiffany Skinner will not tolerate poor grades from any of her four children.

She had her first while she was in middle school.

Skinner not only finished school, she was successful at it while taking care of all of her responsibilities at home.

She often reminds her oldest daughter, now 12, she won't accept any excuses if she comes home with a bad report card.

"(Education) is the one thing I've always stressed," she said. "I graduated from high school with honors. I would expect the same from her."

Education was the focal point of the One Man Rally that took place Saturday at Kennedy Park in South Brooksville.

The quarterly events were initiated by Head Start, a nonprofit, school readiness group that partnered with Shiloh Problem Solvers and Lighthouse Ministries for Saturday's rally.

Shiloh is a mentoring program and Lighthouse is an outreach organization for Christian men.

Luis Leon, the parent male involvement coordinator for Head Start Hernando and Sumter, said Saturday's rally was different from most of the others.

"We wanted to be focused more on the back-to-school theme," he said. "Parents are usually thinking about buying pencils, pens and other stuff for school, but they sometimes miss the part of being involved."

The lesson is for both mothers and fathers, but Leon's mission is to ensure more men take more responsibility with their children.

"We're lacking in that," he said. "Males don't realize the importance of their roles with their children."

He said studies have shown children who are raised in two-parent households are less likely to be involved with drugs and-or crime, perform better academically and are less sexually active.

One of the dads in attendance Saturday was Zach Schmidt, of Spring Hill. He said he joined Lighthouse Ministries after he realized his life was going in the wrong direction.

"I had been through some hard times and I came to them for help," Schmidt said, who tossed the football around with his 12-year-old son. "I realized how much I needed to be there to raise my son and become a good father ... It's been a blessing."

Pastor Clarence Clark, who heads Shiloh Problem Solvers, invited a variety of groups to Saturday's rally, from the sheriff's office's D.A.R.E. program to the Early Learning Coalition to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Darlene Williams, president of the ACLU's Tampa chapter, talked about the group's Racial Injustice Project. Law enforcement lately has been quick to discipline children by taking them to jail rather than allowing parents and school administrators to intervene, she said.

The ACLU also believes jailing juveniles has had a "disproportionate impact on the minority community."

"There has got to be a better way of addressing these problems," Williams said.

Clark invited her to the rally because "he wanted people to know they have a resource," she said.