American Graduate Week Kicks Off

AMERICAN GRADUATE -- September 24, 2012 at 10:00 AM EDT

American Graduate Week Kicks Off

This week, the PBS NewsHour will be featuring voices of and potential solutions to the high school dropout crisis. This comes on the heels of American Graduate Day, during which more than 20 national partners joined forces to provide compelling content about the faces and solutions behind the issue.

On Monday's NewsHour, senior correspondent Ray Suarez will moderate a panel discussion featuring former dropouts. We'll hear how they turned their lives around and what lessons can be learned from those experiences. Find more about them here.

On Tuesday, we'll bring you a preview of FRONTLINE's latest documentary, Dropout Nation. The piece airs Tuesday night on your local PBS station.

On Wednesday, join the producer and other key players from Dropout Nation here for a live online chat at 2 p.m. ET. Later, on the broadcast, we hear from the 2012 "Teacher of the Year" Rebecca Mieliwocki. Mieliwocki shares her secrets to success gleaned from 15 years in the classroom, and talks about what she wished she knew when starting out.

On Thursday, we premiere our special report 'Educating a Boom.' We examine how Williston, North Dakota is trying to educate the next generation and keep them in school while struggling to build enough classrooms and hire enough teachers and staff to keep up with an exploding population.

On Friday, we end the week with an encore presentation of our story about the power of student journalism out of St. Petersburg, Florida, and how it's helping at-risk students stay in school. Thanks to a journalism mentorship program, De'Qonton Davis and his classmates report on the lingering effects of campus and neighborhood violence -- and share how telling this story changed their own lives. Watch that here:

We also get an update from De'Qonton on his latest summer project.

Join the Conversation:

Contribute your stories and thoughts in the comment section below.

American Graduate is a public media initiative funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to help local communities across America find solutions to address the dropout crisis.

Follow @newshouramgrad

Beginning October 24, 2012, PBS NewsHour will allow open commenting for all registered users. We hope that the elimination of our moderation process will enable a more organic discussion amongst you, our audience. However, if a commenter violates our terms of use or abuses the commenting forum, their comment will be removed. We reserve the right to remove posts that do not follow these basic guidelines: comments must be relevant to the topic of the post; may not include profanity, personal attacks or hate speech; may not promote a business or raise money; may not be spam. Anything you post should be your own work. The PBS NewsHour reserves the right to read on the air and/or publish on its website or in any medium now known or unknown the comments or emails that we receive. By submitting comments, you agree to the PBS Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, which include more details.

This week, the PBS NewsHour will be featuring voices of and potential solutions to the high school dropout crisis. This comes on the heels of [American Graduate Day](http://americangraduate.org/), during which more than 20 national partners joined forces to provide compelling content about the faces and solutions behind the issue.
On Monday's NewsHour, senior correspondent Ray Suarez will moderate a panel discussion featuring former dropouts. We'll hear how they turned their lives around and what lessons can be learned from those experiences. Find more about them [here](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/09/high-school-dropouts-lessons-learned.html). On Tuesday, we'll bring you a preview of FRONTLINE's latest documentary, [Dropout Nation](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/education/dropout-nation/by-the-numbers-dropping-out-of-high-school/). The piece airs Tuesday night on your local PBS station. On Wednesday, join the producer and other key players from Dropout Nation here for a live online chat at 2 p.m. ET. Later, on the broadcast, we hear from the 2012 "Teacher of the Year" Rebecca Mieliwocki. Mieliwocki shares her secrets to success gleaned from 15 years in the classroom, and talks about what she wished she knew when starting out. On Thursday, we premiere our special report 'Educating a Boom.' We examine how Williston, North Dakota is trying to educate the next generation and keep them in school while struggling to build enough classrooms and hire enough teachers and staff to keep up with an exploding population. On Friday, we end the week with an encore presentation of our story about the power of student journalism out of St. Petersburg, Florida, and how it's helping at-risk students stay in school. Thanks to a journalism mentorship program, [De'Qonton Davis](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/american-graduate/jan-june12/amgrad_05-16.html) and his classmates report on the lingering effects of campus and neighborhood violence -- and share how telling this story changed their own lives. Watch that here:
We also get an update from De'Qonton on his latest summer project.

Join the Conversation:

As we continue to report on the high school dropout crisis, we want to hear from you. Do you work with at-risk youth or know someone who has dropped out of school? What are some of the lessons learned from your experiences? What is missing in the national narrative to fight the high school dropout crisis? Contribute your stories and thoughts in the comment section below. *[American Graduate](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/topic/american-graduate/) is a public media initiative funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to help local communities across America find solutions to address the dropout crisis.* Follow @newshouramgrad