Why Kids Need Men in Their Schools – School Resource Officer Rey Reynolds

Washington is far from achieving gender parity among school teachers. And we are trending in the wrong direction. In 1996, 32% of teachers were male. By 2016, it was 27%. (Source: page 8, Understanding Teacher Retention and Mobility in Washington State, page 8)

Rey Reynolds has 37 years of experience in law enforcement, including 13 as a School Resource Officer in Vancouver-area high schools. Watch the 3-minute video below.

Video transcript (edited for clarity)

Narrator: Rey Reynolds was a school resource officer in high schools for over a decade.

Rey: The students saw me in the school doing police. And I was working with the kids and talking to them regularly. They observed, ‘Wow, he’s a police officer, he’s nice, he does all these great things, he helps us, he mentors us.’ For young men, seeing that lets them know ‘Hey, I can do that.’ It gives them a goal to attain. They need to have good examples of men in their lives.

Male teachers can show boys what a man is

Rey: At the school that I was at, 70% of the children came from single-parent homes – 70%! – primarily parented by a female. It’s absolutely important for us to get more men involved in the teaching of our young men, to show them what a real man is, because right now they don’t have good examples of what a man is. Many young boys just don’t know what to follow.

Bar graph shows the percentage of households in Washington, by race/ethnicity, that were single-parent households, as of 2014.
As of 2014, 51% of Black / African American households in Washington were single-parent households. That number for Asian / Pacific Islander households was 19%.

We know that young men who don’t have fathers in the home are more prone to getting into gangs, more prone to committing crimes, more prone to violence, and more prone to going to prison. These guys do not have any examples growing up. What they see is one man coming into their life, and then leaving. Then another man coming into their life, and then leaving. No stability.

See related: Gender Disparities in K-12 Educational Performance

We need to have more men in schools in roles where they excel, whether that’s mentoring, or coaching sports, or in taking kids on trips to show them how to fish (which is what I love to do)…taking them out for leadership activities where they can take care of the community’s needs.

Many times we took young men out for activities. Like we’d go to the nature refuge and pull weeds – we’d kill ’em and crush ’em and destroy ’em! We went to Legacy Hospital here in Vancouver and we built a peace garden. 15 of our boys put that in! And they exercised leadership doing that.

Graph shows the portion of male teachers in Washington dropped from 32% in 1996 to 27% in 2016.
By 2016, the portion of teachers in Washington who are male had dropped to 27%.

We need more men in school environments. If they have the teaching mentality, I’d like to see them teach. There are a lot of good men who know how to teach in different ways. But no matter what it is, yes, we definitely need more men there.

All opinions expressed are Rey’s own. He is not speaking for the Vancouver Police Department or the City of Vancouver. Rey is running for Clark County Sheriff. Learn more at ReyReynolds.com.

Also read this WIBM post: When Schools Teach Boys They Are Oppressors