North Carolina State Highway Patrol Trooper Kelly Stuart signs out at Newton-Conover Middle School on Monday. Stuart is part of the Watch D.O.G.S. — Dads of Great Students — at the school. The dads will be having an organizational meeting today at 6 p.m.

 

Dads are in demand at Newton-Conover Middle School.

On Tuesday, NCMS will become the first middle school in Catawba County to launch the Watch D.O.G.S. (Dads of Great Students) program with an informational meeting tonight at 6 p.m.

NCMS marks the fifth county school to start the program designed to give students positive male role models while providing an added sense of security on campus.

The program is already being used at Claremont Elementary, Thorton Elementary in Newton, Lyle Creek Elementary in Conover and Mountain View Elementary in Hickory.

Kelly Stuart and Fred Avis, NCMS parents, started talking about taking the program into the middle school after Liz Vanhorn from the parents booster club mentioned the program to them. 

They arranged a training conference call and decided to go for it.

“It gives students interaction with a positive male role model,” Stuart said.  “I feel they are important… I think it will make a tremendous impact.”

Avis, coordinator of Watch D.O.G.S. at NCMS, wants to see the program grow even more. 

He said the next place he’d like to see it go is into Newton-Conover City School elementary schools.

“It gets fathers back into the school system,” Avis said.  “A lot of times when you go to these parents organizations, there are one of two dads of the 15 people there.”

The program also has the capability to help students stay on track through interaction with positive role models, something Stuart said a lot of kids are missing these days. 

“Parents, specifically male role models, can be involved now or they can be involved later.  Typically involved later involves areas they don’t want to be involved in with youth getting into trouble.  If we are involved earlier in the game, it tends to have better results in the end,” Stuart said.