Juneau and Harlem celebrate Graduation Matters

Montana Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau is in Harlem today for the kickoff of a program aimed at reducing the high school dropout rate and ensuring students are college and career ready.

Harlem joins 53 other districts across Montana, including Havre, who have embraced Graduation Matters Montana, a statewide effort that uses strategies crafted and implemented locally to reduce the high school dropout rate.

Faculty and all the district’s K-12 students were called to the gymnasium at Harlem Junior and Senior High School for a ceremony that opened with a performance by a Native drum group followed by speeches including by Juneau and Fort Belknap Tribal Chair Mark Azure. Harlem alum and former school board member turned comedian Kasey Nicholson talked about the importance of graduation.

Students were then each issued a card they can sign pledging to graduate. The cards will then be posted all over the school. Once they have graduated, those cards will then be returned to the signatory. According to the Graduation Montana Matters website, cards have been signed by more than 10,000 Montana students.

Rhonda Baker, superintendent of Harlem Schools, said that the school has long had ideas in place, as well as a desire, to tackle the district’s dropout rate, which currently stands at 8 percent. This spring, the district started building a strategy as part of the Graduation Montana Matters program.

Baker said that the Graduation Matters team, the district’s 10-person board, composed of students, faculty, parents and other community members tasked with planning a strategy to combat the dropout rate, is designing a student-community survey the results of which will provide a roadmap forward.

However, Baker said the plan will include several main components: early intervention when it comes to students with high rates of absenteeism, increasing parental and student participation in school decision making, peer mentoring for students heading into seventh and ninth grades and providing high quality and research-based curricula.