 Lakeland Currents, your public affairs program for North Central Minnesota produced by Lakeland PBS with host Bethany Wesley. Production funding for Lakeland Currents is made possible by Bemidji Regional Airport serving the region with daily flights to Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport for information available at BemidjiAirport.org. Closed captioning for Lakeland Currents is sponsored by NISWA tax service, tax preparation for businesses and individuals online at niswatex.com. I'm Bethany Wesley and this is Lakeland Currents. In 2017, Minnesota celebrated its highest percentage of high school graduates on record. That same year the graduation rate at Bemidji High School hit a 15-year high. But is it enough? That record-setting statewide graduation rate was just under 83 percent and at Bemidji High School it was 88 percent. A former university professor and area principal has been challenging the greater Bemidji community to consider what happens with the remaining 12 to 17 percent of students, those who don't graduate. John Eggers, who you will hear from momentarily, has been working to mobilize the community to support Project Graduate 100 percent, an initiative aimed at achieving a 100 percent graduation rate in Beltrami County. Tonight I welcome John Eggers to the show to talk to us about how Project Graduate works and why he believes a 100 percent graduation rate is possible. Welcome. Thank you Bethany. As we get started, John why don't you tell us a little bit about your background in terms of what you did in education? Before that I'd like to thank Lakeland Current and you for having me on this program. On behalf of my advisory board at Red Lake and also here in Bemidji we appreciate this opportunity to bring this word about 100 percent to Beltrami County residents and really residents throughout the state. Well it all started about 10 years ago when I had this idea of taking a class out to area schools that would focus on helping their quote at-risk kids graduate from high school and I did this through Northwest Tech where I was teaching at the time. The class was a one credit high school class and it also gave them one credit college class for completing the class and we worked in several schools for two years and as a result of that class I felt that I really wasn't touching enough students so we changed directions a little bit and since that time we went from a teacher training the trainers a type class to having several symposiums so here in Bemidji we held for educators, community leaders and students to now this idea that we can really need to focus on all of our students 100 percent of our students to graduate but we need to go in a different direction and that is rather than work with schools we need to work with community so this is a community-based action program. Okay so you've been both a teacher, professor, you also were a principal. Yes. So what did you see in a school setting that led you to kind of start maybe it's time to think outside the box? Right well because schools have been trying to graduate 100 percent of our students for about 200 years ever since the first public school started in Massachusetts in 1830 no one has really done it you know which is interesting because every student has the capability of graduating from high school so why haven't we done it and in fact our schools right now are probably the best that they've ever been and every school is trying to do something to get every student to graduate there's 100 percent of our students who graduate but we still haven't turned the corner and why is that well I think it's because we really haven't mobilized the entire community so it's not just educators responsibility to have students graduate it's the whole community responsibly to have all students graduate and when we do that we can accomplish this which seems like a very arduous task but we can do it. Interesting so tell me a little bit about how it works what is it that you're asking communities to do? Well it started a little over a year ago actually not a year ago at Red Lake when I went to the Red Lake Tribal Council because I was principal at Red Lake High School for several years in the 80s and 90s and the graduation rate of Native American students is low as it is for African Americans Hispanic Americans and I went to them with the idea that because it is so low we need to really do something different that is really innovative outside the box challenges everybody so let's let's call for a 100 percent graduation rate of all the students at Red Lake but to do that we have to mobilize the community to do it it's not a school thing it's a community thing and I didn't think they would support it but they did and so that's how we got started and so since that time I went to Bemidji because in that in that resolution said that we're going to help all Red Lake students graduate and of course we have Red Lake students not only in Bemidji but in Kalyer and Black Duc and Clearbrook and those communities as well so I went to the to the Bemidji City Council actually the first group I approached in Bemidji was the Bemidji Lions Club and they supported it 100 percent and then I went to Bemidji City Council and they supported it and since that time other agencies in Bemidji have supported this resolution as well as the Beltrami County commissioners have supported it which is amazing so now you have probably the only county in the state of Minnesota if not the United States that has supported a 100 percent graduation rate for all of its students tell me generally what the reaction has been have you gotten the reaction like why is this not staying in the schools why are you asking community have you yeah you know it's funny when I go out and speak with groups they all of course like the idea I mean we all want our all of our kids to graduate 100 percent and there really isn't a whole lot of questions but I see a lot a lot of dumbfounded looking faces and how how is this possible to graduate 100 percent of our students so I kind of think they're thinking this can't work you know this can't work but we'll support it anyway well it can work because if we can for example if we can if we can cure polio 100 percent you know we can certainly do this if we can have all of our people wearing seat belts and most do we can certainly do this so we can get every kid to say please and thank you we can certainly graduate all of our students right so so the reaction has been that we'll support it it sounds good let's give it a try why not you know why not do it okay it's fair to say of course all students are different to a degree right different interests different strengths does it make sense to ask that every single student be committed enough to graduate from high school well yeah I would a lot of people ask that same question in fact I was just speaking with someone from the League of Women's Voters here in in Bemidja just called me up recently a great organization by the way and wanted to get on board with 100 to two and and they were asking too well is really can every student graduate so we all have every student has the capability to graduate and so if if they do have the capability I mean no one is unless the unless their brain is damaged in some way due to an accident or in drugs they all have the capability to graduate from high school and so if they have the capability then why can't we in the switch nation do it why can't we do that so we should be able to do that with all the talent we have in schools and the communities and if we all support it we can do this okay so I heard you mentioned earlier that you have some advisory boards right you've got two two advisory boards one in one in Red Lake and one in Bemidji okay and what do they what purpose well when I first recruited them I said I want somebody to shoot from the hip to give me straightforward advice suggestions without you know without feeling that you owe me anything you know so do that and so I recruited some people here in Bemidji and and also in Red Lake same idea and what they do is that it's a board that we meet probably once a month and or more and they and I tell them what the progress is what we're doing and and what our next step should be and they give me advice on things like the brochures that we have and the now we're going to put out a window decal to put on businesses that that's sported and so it's advice but they will begin doing more work I hope when we have to take these window decals around the businesses and ask them for the support too but so right now it's a a board that gives advice and suggestions but that I would also imagine they're champions for the for the right you're also going out and reaching absolutely yeah we do that yeah so you're going to these groups or the groups in some case the League of Women Motors reach out to you right and they have what a resolution that they sign on to well initially we wanted them to pass a resolution that would really show that they're committed to 100% okay and we still have some some people that we need to connect with to do that for example we hope to get the support of sanford hospital sanford clinic you know they employ about 2,000 people think about it if if each of those 2,000 employees went out in contact of two or three other people whether it be an adult or a young person you know that would certainly help to hold hold cause and we're also trying to working with the evergreen house and hope we hope they get on board headwater science center so there's three or four big organizations like that but we've contacted enough already to say that now it's time just to go around door to door contact businesses and say what you support it if you do here's a decal and here's what you need to do to support it okay and what are you asking in return what is it that you're asking them to that's that's the best thing about this um as the educator realized that if I were to have created a program that was costly no one would have brought it because schools don't have any money they're trying to get money they don't have any money to do things also if I would have created a program that was it took a two week orientation two week train-to-trainer type thing to do it they went to bought that either same thing of businesses went to bought it so the program we have is very simple you just have to pass a 100% resolution or at least believe in it support it and the reason why it has to be 100% is because we don't want to let any kid believe that they're not part of that 100% you know a lot of kids who are failing in school don't feel that really sometimes don't feel that the school really is meant for them so when we're talking about 100% we're talking about every student in the school that we can help and that we expect to graduate so it has to be 100% it can't be 85% 90% and so on has to be 100% and plus there's something about just the idea of 100% that resonates with people better than let's say 90% right so that's the first step the second step is you just have to go out and spread the word to as many people as you can like Bethany when you see people in the church or in the in the food store young people ask them about you know what are you going to do when you finish school and are you going to school or even doing that sort of conversation but and so it gets in the minds of the kids that this is a mindset to graduate just like when you graduate it and when i graduate it it was a mindset no one really had to kick us in the butt to do it we just did it because there was no other choice for us we just did it you know and then the third step is to do it and a big part is to do it relentlessly so once you adopt 100% graduation goal you just can't forget about it you still have to spread the word and you have to do it relentlessly i suppose that is the probably most challenging part about this so when i go out and talk to groups about this yeah oh john raffort you know it's really good sounds good we'll do it you know but will you do it i mean so you support 100% but are you gonna are you going to know contact young people and are you gonna do it relentlessly so that's really that's really why we need something in front of the people all the time whether it be a button a bumper sticker and i'm thankful for the vermicelli pioneer to put in my weekly column a little box in there in my column that talks about 100% oh so it's in the paper every week because it's easy to take these resolutions to a group like who's not going to support 100% graduation rate right but it's the fact that you want them to keep bringing it back up over and over again okay and once that happens and once that happens it becomes like it becomes a habit or a ritual you see and it becomes like saying please and thank you so it doesn't even like a student a young person won't even think of not graduating just like you and i that this graduation from high school is something that well something that i do you know so in this sense we're really helping the schools out we're trying to first of all we're trying to mobilize the entire community rather than just maybe a segment of the community and also we're trying to instill in the minds of kids that they need to graduate from high school okay i want to go back to something you said just a few minutes ago you said that some students who struggle in school for whatever reason sometimes don't feel that school is made for them that they're not a fit for school so is that something you heard from students while you were teaching like the at-risk kids through your through your class earlier or where did you kind of start to come well when you work with kids as much as i did over those 53 years in education you hear a lot of things about why kids drop out why kids leave school why they don't like school there's never really any one reason why students leave school early without their diploma it could be because they do find school boring that's the reason it could it could be because that maybe they feel bullied in school that's the reason it could be because they maybe have a job after school and they have to get the job that's the reason why they leave school it could be because they don't have any support from the parents that no one really pushes them so there's a variety of reasons why they leave school and and schools you know are doing i think pretty good you know they don't have enough counselors that touch it all kids this is why everybody in the community knew it really needs to be a counselor to kids and tell kids that you can do it you can go to school you can you can you you have the ability getting a high school diploma is your number one priority you need to do that and so if we have everybody doing that think about what that would mean i mean two kids i mean they would if that's the only message they're hearing then i don't see any other option other than just keep on going through school i understand that you've been going to civic groups you've gotten to like the council the county board we talked about that the food shelf things like that you also mentioned you went to like the hospital right um some of the employers i think first national bank perhaps was signed on so right now you're really targeting adults right as you think at this stage you're really hitting the adults more so than the kids themselves great question um when i envision this again um it started out this way that first i had to contact the community leaders and the community leaders if you want to put this under um let's say an umbrella first you have the for example in in red lake it's the Bemidji tribal council they're really the community leaders of of red lake nation and here in Bemidji it's the Bemidji city council which are the community leaders so and i felt that if i didn't get the support of the leadership in this place then one percent isn't going to go any place so it has to start out with the community leaders first and that's why i went to lions to rotary to the hospital to uh first national bank to churches this sort of thing trying to recruit the community leaders first and work on down towards then the next level would be the parents and then the students and then the educators all right you talk about all the groups you've gone to you haven't mentioned schools specifically so are schools involved with this well i haven't approached them on purpose because uh they're not they weren't initially intended to be approached initially because i felt if i if i went to his schools first and asked them to propose a hundred percent graduation rate i know about educators they're very independent people they're very pragmatic people they said well john that really sounds good but you know we're going to stick with just the 90 percent or 85 percent graduation right that we can we can probably achieve that we're not sure we can achieve 100 so if they would have if they would have said no and then they would have went to the vimigi city council or the or the red lake treble council said well and they would have asked him well john how did the schools feel about this they said well they didn't think they could do it so you know i had to start out with the with the with the leadership first in the community and and and go down towards the schools and we're about at the point now we're ready to approach vimigi schools and red lake schools and ask them to support 100 percent okay do you feel the schools are doing a good job teaching the kids are it's not necessarily that you think the schools are failing no students no way i mean they're the schools i said earlier the schools we probably have the best schools in united states now that we've ever had you know and uh if you look at the students in whether it be in music or in sports or in drama i mean they're just top-notch kids you know so those kids will all graduate from high school we're not worried about those kids they're gonna do it because they have this mindset to graduate it's the kids that aren't in those organizations that i'm most concerned about so where are those kids and if a kid if a student has been failing let's say most of our school life why would they continue in school i mean who wants to who wants to do that and that's another reason why kids drop out because well you know i've really haven't done in 10 years of school i really haven't done very well probably because maybe their own problem but nevertheless they haven't done very well and so i'm not going to continue anymore um but one way that that schools can that that schools can perhaps do a better job of is that when i was a principal i think a lot of teachers got the idea that graduating kids the high school graduation rate was really the responsibility of the counselors and the principal you know and they didn't see that they're teaching a class in math for example might or should connect to that graduation and i'm just i'm kind of generalizing here but and so but i think so teachers need to need to get in their heads that every time they approach kids they need to ask themselves what did i do today to help my kids graduate and when they began doing that consistently whether to be teaching 10th grade or first grade or kindergarten then kids will begin getting the idea that yes okay i'm in second grade third grade you know i need to graduate from high school so they can begin doing that a lot earlier than what they're doing another thing they can do too is that they can take out their high school diploma and put that on the wall as opposed to their master's degree diploma or the bs diploma so kids can see that oh you don't have a high school diploma too and teachers can talk about the struggles they had in high school and so on so forth so so teachers i don't want to say that teachers are you know we're doing we just need to do more than what we're doing now okay so as you go out to these community groups do you ask them that same question then too in terms of what are you doing to help area kids or your own kids or whoever help graduate probably not enough probably not enough i should ask that more because i do go out thinking that they're going to i'm going to be bombarded with questions about this kind of crazy idea but they all seem to support it and i get the idea you know maybe aegers is right maybe we can do this and maybe we can graduate all of our students if we all could be behind it and and i hope they are talking to their kids and their grandkids and nieces and nephews about graduating in high school and so okay so these groups sign on they say they support it they're they're in your corner they cheered on you're not necessarily asking them to set up touring programs at their local church or anything like that you're not asking for a check no you just want them to keep getting the message out get the message out that's it and if i did do that you would be again going against the one of the reasons why this is i think can be successful is because it doesn't take doesn't cost anything you see which is big it doesn't take a whole lot of organization you know nothing just go out tell kids tell people you need to graduate that's all you have to do and then you have to do it relentlessly you know and once you put that idea in people's heads like me we've been preparing for this program for a while now you start thinking about how many teenish kids you run into i don't have teen kids at home but i happen to run into quite a lot throughout the week all the time and i started to think about that once we started planning for this program so as you talk to adults are you hoping then they think similar absolutely absolutely and uh when i do so i do have an update that i send out like every two weeks to people like you'll be sending you the update too and about about what's been happening and what you more you can do so we're doing things like that too but that really is a concern is that we have to do it relentlessly and i really mean relentlessly just like the way we teach our own kids to say please and thank you and pick up their clothes and so it's a relentless battle you know we focused a lot on Bemidji and Red Lake is that kind of your focus area right now initially it was Red Lake and it still is Red Lake i'll be going tomorrow to they have a student leadership conference there tomorrow at the table there handing out talking to kids and i and just this morning i was at the talk with the hospital staff there so i'll be doing that and then so whenever i get a chance to talk with groups i'll do that we have some meeting schedule with other groups in town i hope the Bemidji women's voters will call me up and have me talk with them i always like to talk to people and so we have group schedule okay you talked about student leadership in Red Lake i know in Bemidji they have the Bemidji Youth Advisory Commission you kind of have these groups of student leaders have they also signed on are they not yet they haven't i did speak i did have five minutes one time to talk to the Bemidji school board and the and the members of the school board had you know me and i've heard about 100 they supported it and so on but and they do have a one of the school board members is in charge of a student leadership group and uh and we need to connect more with that and and i will i will get back to the school board again for a whole longer period of time you know in five minutes right they don't come with funding so where is your funding coming from do you have funding is this a volunteer well you know we do have uh brochures that we pass out flyers we have passed and i did publish a book on a hundred percent so people are interested in a book they can contact me and get the copy of the book which tells all about it and uh so far it's just come right out of my pocket now that's where it's coming from okay um we talked earlier i said at the very beginning i think Bemidji district is at a 88 give or take percent for graduation which is actually a high it's actually something to celebrate right absolutely so do you have benchmarks along the way that you're going to be measuring john or how well i think i was just telling one of the workers this morning at the red lake hospital and she asked me well what will be an indication that you're making progress on this i said well when you talk to somebody in the street whether it be red lake or Bemidji and you asked them what is the goal what is the graduation rate goal in Bemidji or Beltrami county and they say 100 percent then you know we're making progress that's anybody on the street right now you could ask anybody on the street in Bemidji or red lake or black lake or motley or whatever so what is your graduation rate goal in this community anyway i don't think most could tell you what it is they should know that they should know what the goal is so now it is 100 percent if they can tell us that tell me that then we're making progress it's a cohesive community message right absolutely right okay any ideas or guesses and how long you think it might take well when that's when uh when people ask me that question how long will take i said we can do it in a year like we do in a year and the reason i stated because i think if if everybody did that you see if everybody was relentless about it we could do it in a year i mean if a kid is programmed to graduate from high school they're going to graduate but if they're not programmed to graduate they're not going to graduate so what if everybody's telling kids to graduate we can do that in a year and then and then they might say well john what if we can't do it in a year well i say we can do it in a year so you have to really think you have to be very positive about this and kids will see right through you if you don't think we can do it you know if i tell a kid you know well i i really think you can graduate uh you know i if you really try you know i but no i want you can do it i mean you can do it and you're going to do it so at what age do kids need to start getting that message well i think third grade i think third grade because when i was at the nato march charter school there and i could begin telling kids telling already that some kids were going to struggle unless they got help they were behind in reading behind in math maybe their attendance wasn't so good in school they may have been a discipline problem school so right away we can begin to identify those kids and one thing about this program here is that once the community gets behind it we're going to have fewer of those kids that are in that area and so teachers will have fewer kids to to to work on i mean to really work hard on getting those kids are graduating to bring up to grade level okay what do you still need from the community well this summer we're going to have a uh table at the bell trammie county fair and uh they're going to put on the bill the billboard outside the fair grounds something to do with 100 graduation rate it's going to go into all of those catalogs that the fair board sends out the 17 000 catalogs will be in there so the word just has to get out yet there's nowhere near we don't have the word out there yet to everybody and uh but if everybody starts spreading the word you see and i hope that all churches would buy into it i hope i as a result of this uh this program that people contact me say john we'd like to get on board too you know we'd like to do this for you so for the midget for the kids of midget so well thank you for joining us john i appreciate you get enough information about this well thanks for having me thank you for tuning in if you want to learn more about this project or if you would like to reach out and get involved you can contact either the facebook page listed below here or email address or website address so john will i'm sure be happy to take the call thank you so much for tuning in join me next time