Children benefit when their nonresident fathers participate in their schools, not when their fathers just maintain contact with them. The active participation of nonresident fathers in their children s schools is strongly related to children s behavior as measured by whether the children had ever been suspended or expelled and whether they had ever repeated a grade. However, children who see their nonresident fathers, but whose fathers do not participate in any of their school activities, do no better on any of the outcomes than children who have not had contact with their fathers in more than a year or who have never had contact with their fathers . The reason that existing studies are inconclusive as to the importance of nonresident fathers for their children s lives may be because the simple measure days of contact is often used to measure involvement. The results from this study indicate that it is not contact, per se, that is important, but active participation in children s school lives that matters when it comes to educational success.
School climate is related to parental involvement .
Mothers and fathers are more likely to be highly involved in their children s schools if the schools welcome parental involvement and make it easy for parents to be involved . Involvement is also higher if classroom and school discipline are maintained and if teachers and students respect each other. Limitations of the Data There are two limitations of the data that need to be recognized. For example, fathers may be more likely to be highly involved because their children are doing well, or their children may be doing better because their fathers are highly involved. Second, the information about children s school experiences and school climate is based on parents reports.