Red Lake Pushes For 100% Graduation Rate

People in Red Lake are fired up and ready to help every student make it their graduation day.

“I’m here in front of the Boys and Girls Club because this is kind of where it all started in Red Lake. It started when the Tribal Council passed a resolution to graduate 100 percent of our students, and all the agencies around Red Lake support that institution,” says John Eggers, the coordinator for the 100 percent graduation effort project.

The 100 percent graduation push is for all Red Lake youth in Beltrami County. The idea is to encourage kids to graduate through the power of persuasion. Nearly the entire Red Lake community is involved in the effort. For example, the Red Lake Boys and Girls Club has implemented educational and health programs to help kids stay on track.

“That’s what we are striving for is 100 percent graduation rate, so we do a lot of the Power Hour everyday here. We do more of Healthy Habits, Smart Moves, and it’s just implementing a lot of after-school activities with more educational purposes,” says Brandon Graves, the outreach program coordinator for the Red Lake Boys And Girls Club.

The 100 percent percent graduation effort isn’t just up to the students – it’s also a push to the community to make sure they are keeping the students motivated.

“If people want to go beyond just spreading the word, they can put little hints in their newsletters. They can put flyers on their counters and in their businesses about the need to support to graduation. They can do PSAs,” says Eggers.

The 100 percent graduation effort team believes the more kids who graduate, the more positive our society will be in the future. They add that talking to a kid about staying in school takes no time at all.

Victoria White, the education coordinator for the Red Lake Boys and Girls Club, says, “Parents communicating with their child after their day just to talk with them for at least 20 minutes or just take some out the day of their busy schedule, because I know everybody’s working and tired.”

If you think the 100 percent graduation goal is a little too ambitious, the team will tell you otherwise.

“I think the biggest, though, is that we need to believe that this can be done because every child is capable of graduating and we can do it, but we all have to get behind it and support our young people,” says Eggers.