Amos Goodwin, father of two Cincinnati Public Schools students and one district graduate, describes himself as a “people person.”
He wears his heart on his sleeve – quick to open up about the struggles and triumphs of being a self-described “generational father,” having become a parent at ages 17, 33 and 39.
His high school experience was “nontraditional,” he shares candidly. A graduate of Isus Trade & Tech Prep-Cinci, he earned computer technician credentials to fulfill the wishes of his own father, a lifelong mechanic who charged his kids with the mission of sustaining higher-paying careers.
Goodwin’s cheek dimples appear when, without hesitation, he gushes about his eldest son, Amos Goodwin Jr., a Dater Gilbert A. High School graduate who just earned his master’s degree in social work this spring. Days away from Father’s Day, Goodwin jokingly says there’s “brunch in his future.”
But the 43-year-old gets choked up when talking about his experience connecting with other fathers.
“When a man sees another man being a daddy, it brings a smile to your face, man,” Goodwin says, wiping his tears. “And I’m talking, no matter what race … (even if) we couldn’t speak each other’s language.”
This brotherhood is what binds together Goodwin and the 16 other fathers and grandfathers making up Cincinnati Parent Empowerment Network’s first all-male cohort of parent advocates.
The group represents the second class of the leadership training program, which enlists parents from Cincinnati’s lowest-performing districts in a paid, eight-week program spanning topics like transportation, teacher-parent communication, school choice and school funding. Over the course of the training, the fathers sit in on CPS Board of Education and Cincinnati City Council meetings. They venture up to the statehouse in Columbus to hear from lawmakers about emerging education policies.
And at the program’s culmination, the fathers are celebrated at a graduation ceremony, where they present their final projects proposing solutions to issues impacting their kids’ respective school district. Goodwin’s project was an extension of a community initiative he dreamt up years ago called “No Cub Left Behind,” where he conducts a letter-writing program for incarcerated parents to maintain contact with their kids.
The advocacy training – dreamed up by community organizer and CPEN founder Christian Davis – is life-changing for some.
For select fathers, the program means learning to be a better parent than ones they had growing up, to stop cycles of generational poverty and trauma.
One graduate, Eric Foster, was raised by his mother and grandmother in Dayton. His dad was around sometimes, Foster said, but “the bottle meant just as much as I did to him.”
Foster, parent to a 16-year-old at Walnut Hills High School and a 4-year-old, said he wasn’t familiar with nearly 90% of the topics discussed in the training. But the program showed him fathers from a range of backgrounds and knowledge levels all deeply care about their child’s education.
“It makes me feel like I should go harder for my kids and see the change,” Foster said. “With this program, it made me see you have a voice and there’s ways for people to see and hear you.”
‘Sometimes, a father’s presence is questioned’
Melvin Richard, a fellow CPEN graduate, also set out with a mission of providing his kids with a better school experience than he was afforded.
A father of two stepdaughters – who he calls his “besties” – at Cincinnati College Preparatory Academy, Richard’s own high school experience took place as an inmate in Lebanon Correctional Institution.
He cried when, after three times taking the GED test, he finally received his diploma, he said. Unlike his stepdaughters, his grandchildren – all of whom attend CPS – he didn’t have a parent at home encouraging him to excel in school, Richard said.
“As guys, we keep a lot to ourselves,” he said. But with this program, he said, he was able to talk through common struggles with the other fathers, like custody complications or not being taken seriously by their child’s school.
“Sometimes, a father’s presence is questioned, like (the school needs) permission from the mother,” Richard said.
The communication between school district and parent is the focus of Richard’s final project – a concept for an app called “All the Time Family Time” where parents can get instant notifications about their child’s grades and homework assignments.
Similarly to his fellow graduates, Goodwin also wants to challenge negative stereotypes attached specifically to fathers of color and fathers of low economic status.
“We are here. We show up. We are at PTA meetings. We make lunches, we cook,” Goodwin said.
‘I want my kids to be everything I wasn’t’
Antonio Harper is another CPEN trainee who’s own high school experience took place while incarcerated. After earning his diploma at the now-closed Montgomery Education and Pre-Release Center, Harper set out to give his six children the best chances at thriving within CPS.
Before the district introduced its random lottery selection for magnet schools, Harper camped out in the cold to secure his son’s first-come, first served enrollment at Dater Montessori. A resident of the West Side, Harper said he knew his kids “wouldn’t get a proper education” if they attended neighborhood schools.
“I want my kids to be everything I wasn’t,” Harper said.
The gravity of gaining a support network of fathers through the CPEN program is not lost on Harper, who’s now known as “Uncle A” to Goodwin’s kids.
Goodwin once again gets tear-eyed when he talks about the men he’s met through CPEN.
“I care about these brothers,” Goodwin says. “(Before) I only had to worry about myself, my father’s past, my uncle’s life and his future and my children’s legacy. But then, I met these brothers. Now I care about their legacy.”
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: These Cincinnati Public Schools dads are tackling education advocacy
Reporting by Grace Tucker, Cincinnati Enquirer / Cincinnati Enquirer
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Grace Tucker, Cincinnati Enquirer | USA TODAY Network
