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Navajo
school,
students
fight to
overcome
amid
COVID-19
By
ANTHONY
J.
WALLACE/Cronkite
News
apnews.com
PINON,
Arizona
- One
student
runs 85
feet up
a hill
every
morning,
just to
get a
cellphone
signal
so he
can call
in his
attendance.
Another
moved to
Phoenix
by
himself,
after
his only
parent
died of
COVID-19,
to work
construction
while
going to
school
online.
Then
there’s
the high
school
senior
who
spends
six
hours
most
days
doing
homework
in a car
next to
a school
bus
turned
Wi-Fi
hotspot
– the
only way
some
kids on
the
Navajo
Nation
can get
assignments
to their
teachers.
These
kids
share a
dream:
to
graduate
high
school,
find a
way to
go to
college,
get a
degree,
land a
dream
job –
get out
of their
small
town,
succeed
and
soar.
Even
in the
best of
times,
that
dream is
harder
for
Native
American
students
to
attain.
And now
COVID-19
has
brought
one of
the
greatest
challenges
yet to
these
young
people.
For
them,
it’s
about so
much
more
than
being
separated
from
friends
or
having
to
figure
out how
to use
Zoom.
All that
isolation
and
upheaval
has been
accompanied
by death
and
great
loss.
Across
the
Navajo
reservation,
victims
of
COVD-19
include
parents
and
grandparents,
sole
guardians
and
providers,
mentors
and
teachers.
Without
them,
some
students
have
lost
their
way or,
quite
literally,
fallen
off the
map.
Said
one
district
superintendent:
“We have
some
kids
that we
just
don’t
know
where
they
are.”
___
A
SCHOOL
DISTRICT
FIGHTS
TO
SURVIVE
The
drive
from
Flagstaff
northeast
to Piñon
takes
more
than two
hours
over a
two-lane
highway
and dirt
road.
Just a
few
hundred
families
live in
this
community,
in
modest
houses
scattered
across
hills
roamed
by
horses
and
dotted
with
brush.
A
single
campus
accommodates
the
elementary,
middle
and high
schools.
Here, on
a
reservation
the size
of West
Virginia,
the
COVID-19
death
rate has
been
higher
than
that of
any U.S.
state.
So even
as some
schools
reopened
for
in-person
learning
this
fall,
those on
the
Navajo
reservation
did not.
Without
the 300
students
who
normally
fill its
cafeteria,
crowd
its
lockers
and seek
help in
its
counseling
offices,
Piñon
High’s
cavernous
hallways
are
unnaturally
quiet.
Do-not-disturb
signs
hang on
classroom
doors,
indicating
Zoom
sessions
in
progress.
Inside
one
empty
room, a
carpentry
teacher
plays
heavy
metal
music
and bobs
his head
at his
desk. In
another,
science
teacher
James
Gustafson’s
lab
tables
are
covered
with
surplus
VHS
videos
that
he’s
sorting
through
for
hidden
gems.
“‘Citizen
Kane!’”
he says.
“That
makes it
all
worth
it.”
On
Gustafson’s
desk are
printed
progress
reports
adhered
to
colorful
construction
paper.
They
identify
students
anonymously
by a
number,
tracking
their
scores
on
weekly
quizzes.
He’s
preparing
to hang
them in
the
halls
for
other
teachers
to see.
The
grades
are far
worse
than
what he
saw last
year.
“These
are
ungodly
low
compared
to how
they
should
be,” he
said,
“because
I’ve
given
the
students
who’ve
turned
nothing
in – and
there’s
a lot of
them –
I’ve
given
the
students
who’ve
turned
nothing
in a
zero.”
Even
before
the
pandemic,
Native
youth
had the
highest
dropout
rates in
the
U.S.,
leaving
school
at more
than
twice
the rate
of white
children,
according
to
federal
statistics.
Likewise,
the
graduation
rate for
American
Indian
and
Alaska
Native
children
is the
lowest
in the
country
– 72%,
compared
with a
national
average
of 85%.
“Distressing”
is how a
report
from the
National
Caucus
of
Native
American
State
Legislators
described
the
state of
education
for K-12
schools
for
Native
students.
And the
pandemic
has only
served
to
further
spotlight
disparities.
More
than 600
of the
Navajo
reservation’s
173,000
residents
have
died
from
COVID-19.
Compare
that
rate of
347 for
every
100,000
people
to
Maricopa
County –
Arizona’s
largest
– where
the
death
rate is
86 per
100,000
people.
The
risk of
returning
to class
is
greater
on the
reservation,
and the
price of
keeping
schools
closed
is
steeper.
Piñon
High
School
Principal
Timothy
Nelson
said
COVID-19
has
claimed
at least
six
parents
and two
district
staff
members
– a
front
office
worker
and a
teaching
assistant.
“Some
people
may
think
it’s a
joke and
it’s not
a big
deal,”
Nelson
said of
the
disease.
“But
when
you’re
living
with it
and you
see it,
it’s not
so much
a joke
anymore.”
Darrick
Franklin,
an
education
program
manager
with the
Department
of Diné
Education,
spent
months
working
with
officials
in New
Mexico
and
Arizona
to keep
schools
on the
reservation
closed
as
others
around
them
reopened
or went
to
hybrid
learning.
The
focus
for
Franklin’s
department,
he said,
is to
“protect
the
Navajo
people”
– a
sentiment
shared
across
Navajo
leadership.
In
August,
President
Jonathan
Nez
issued a
statement
urging
schools
to
remain
virtual
until at
least
2021 to
protect
the
safety
of
students,
teachers
and
staff
members.
“At
this
point in
time, we
have to
protect
our
children,
our
families,
our
elderly,”
Franklin
said.
“Especially
our
elderly,
because
they are
the
storytellers
… they
are the
heart of
the
Navajo
Nation.”
Shaken
by the
personal
impact
of the
pandemic,
teachers,
parents
and
students
are
overcoming
uncommon
obstacles
to learn
at a
distance.
Chris
Ostgaard,
superintendent
of the
Piñon
district,
said
only
about
50% of
students
have
some
form of
internet
connection
–
whether
it be
broadband,
a slow
satellite
connection
or just
a phone
with a
data
plan.
Across
the
reservation,
only a
quarter
of homes
have
broadband
internet,
and
fewer
than
half
even
have a
computer,
according
to
census
data.
Reaching
those
with no
connection
at all
has been
a
colossal
challenge.
Ostgaard
said
enrollment
across
the
three
schools
has
decreased
by about
100 kids
from
last
year.
Some, he
said,
have
“disappeared,
basically.”
Multiple
times
each
week,
the
district
sends
out a
fleet of
buses
filled
with
packets
of paper
schoolwork
for
students
to pick
up,
complete
and send
back on
the bus.
And
thanks
to money
the
district
received
as part
of the
federal
COVID-19
relief
package,
14 buses
have
been
equipped
with
Wi-Fi.
They
travel
up to an
hour,
often on
bumpy,
unpaved
roads,
and park
where
parents
and
students
can
drive up
and use
the
internet
to do
homework
or
upload
assignments.
“It’s
creating
a new
normal,”
said
Nelson,
the high
school
principal.
“And as
we all
knew at
the
beginning
of the
school
year,
some
things
that we
try are
not
going to
work,
some
things
are
going to
need to
be
tweaked,
and some
things
will
work.
“But
we’ll
just do
it as we
go
along.”
___
MISSING
FRIENDS
- AND
LAUGHS
About 20
miles
from the
district
campus,
one of
those
Wi-Fi
buses
sits in
a dusty
lot
across
the road
from a
gas
station.
Two
cars,
their
engines
idling,
are
parked
beside
it.
Inside,
four
sisters,
ages 6
to 17,
balance
Chromebook
computers
on their
laps and
upload
the
day’s
assignments
as their
parents
patiently
do what
they can
to help.
Math
teacher
Beverly
Mix and
construction
worker
Dekoven
Begay
have
been out
of work
since
COVID-19
began
ravaging
the
Navajo
Nation
last
spring.
But it
doesn’t
mean the
couple
aren’t
working.
“Making
sure my
kids get
online
is a
job,”
Mix
said,
“and
making
sure
that
they
understand
what
they’re
being
taught –
because
sometimes
the
teacher
only has
like 20
minutes
of
class.”
The
bus is
usually
in this
spot
every
Monday,
Wednesday
and
Friday,
but at
Mix’s
request
the
driver
came on
a
Thursday
after a
morning
spent
delivering
meals to
students’
homes.
Their
girls –
Chenoa,
Sonora,
Winona
and
Annabah
– each
have
specially
designed
car-desks
that Mix
ordered
from
Hobby
Lobby.
Their
laptops,
provided
by the
school
district,
are
emblazoned
with a
nametag
and
drawing
of their
choosing.
Chenoa,
a high
school
senior
and the
eldest,
has a
panda on
her
computer.
An ROTC
team
leader,
she
dreams
of
attending
the
University
of
Nevada,
Las
Vegas or
Embry-Riddle
Aeronautical
University
– and
hopes to
eventually
work for
the FBI.
She’s
been
trying
to stay
on track
but said
it’s
been
hard to
fill out
college
applications
without
being
able to
see her
school
adviser.
English
class is
especially
challenging
at a
distance,
she
said,
and
feedback
on her
work is
harder
to get.
“It
causes a
lot of
stress
because
you
don’t
know
what
you’ve
done and
how you
can do
better
at it,”
she
said.
Chenoa
attends
Chinle
High
School
virtually,
while
her
sisters
and many
members
of her
ROTC
team are
online
in the
Piñon
district.
She
hasn’t
seen her
friends
in
person
for six
months
but
talks to
them by
phone
and
FaceTime.
She
said
many of
them,
including
her best
friend,
lack the
support
system
her
family
provides.
“I
call her
my twin,
because
we were
born on
the same
day,”
Chenoa
said of
her
friend,
who
lives
near a
mountain
and has
no
reliable
internet
connection.
Chenoa
had to
persuade
her to
reenroll
in
school
after
she
dropped
out.
Chenoa’s
family
has
satellite
internet
at home,
but it’s
too slow
to
download
big
files or
stream
videos
simultaneously.
“Sometimes
our
internet
will go
down,”
her
father
said,
“and
they’re
stuck
without
going to
school
for a
day or
so.”
So
they
spend
about 20
hours a
week
parked
by the
school
bus for
a better
connection.
On
this
Thursday,
the bus
leaves
at 3:30
p.m. and
the
family
of six
head the
mile
back to
their
home,
which
has been
transformed
into a
makeshift
classroom.
Just
inside
the door
is a
chalkboard
with the
girls’
assignments.
A single
desk
overflows
with
glue
sticks,
composition
books,
rulers.
When
they
aren’t
doing
schoolwork
in their
parents’
vehicles,
the
sisters
usually
sit
around
the
kitchen
table on
their
laptops
together.
Chenoa
said she
really
only
ever
gets out
of the
house
when she
hikes or
goes to
see her
orthodontist.
For
the past
six
months,
it’s
been the
six of
them
here
every
day. On
the TV
is a
crime
show,
the kind
Chenoa
said
inspired
her to
pursue a
career
in
investigation.
“Most of
what
they do
is
really
predictable,
just
following
a
certain
rule of
patterns,”
she said
of the
criminals
on the
screen.
“Some of
them are
hard to
spot,
and some
of them
are
really
easy to
find.
And I
really
love
patterns.”
Chenoa’s
favorite
subject
is math,
and it’s
her
little
sisters’
favorite,
too.
Throughout
the
pandemic,
she has
tried to
be a
good
role
model
for the
girls,
who are
in
first,
second
and
fourth
grade.
The
little
ones
share a
small
room
packed
with
their
favorite
toys:
dinosaurs
for
Winona,
books
and
Pokémon
cards
for
Sonora,
and
“Frozen”
dolls
for
Annabah.
Despite
all
that’s
happening,
Chenoa
holds
tightly
to her
dreams:
“Everyone
wants to
go to
university
to get
their
degree
and come
back and
help
their
people.”
But
for now,
she and
her
sisters
and
parents
lean on
one
another.
“The
thing I
miss
most,”
she
said,
“is
laughing
with my
friends.”
___
REAL
AND
SURREAL
Unlike
their
students,
Piñon
High
School’s
teachers
report
to work
each
day,
careful
to wear
masks
and
social
distance.
Alone in
his
classroom,
11th-grade
English
teacher
Robert
LaBarge
delivers
lectures
into a
computer.
“The
kids
always
tease me
for
laughing
at my
own
jokes,”
he said,
smiling.
“But
there’s
no one
in
class!
Who’s
supposed
to laugh
at my
jokes?”
In
his
room,
chairs
are
stacked
in a
corner
and
books
sit,
unused,
on
shelves.
LaBarge
recently
started
sending
dictionaries
to
students
without
Wi-Fi to
help
them
with
their
vocabulary
work.
“It’s
this
very
strange
thing,”
he said,
“going
by these
buildings
and
these
playgrounds
and
these
basketball
courts,
and
there’s
no one
out
there.
It just
feels
weird.”
Like
many of
his
colleagues,
LaBarge
makes
himself
available
to his
students
however
he can.
He gets
phone
calls,
texts,
emails,
Facebook
messages,
Instagram
DMs.
Sometimes,
he said,
they
want to
talk
about
schoolwork;
other
times,
they
express
their
feelings
about
living
in a
pandemic.
One
of his
students
is the
grandson
of the
high
school’s
teaching
assistant,
who died
of
COVID-19.
She
worked
with
kids
with
severe
developmental
disabilities
and was
“really
funny,”
LaBarge
recalled,
once
people
got to
know
her.
“It
takes
someone
with a
very big
heart to
do that
kind of
work,”
he said.
After
she
died,
LaBarge
noticed
a
palpable
change
in her
grandson.
“He’s a
kid
who’s
always
pretty
upbeat
and kind
of
sarcastic,
and he’s
got an
outgoing
personality,”
he said.
“So
immediately
you just
sort of
notice,
that’s
kind of
gone.
He’s
feeling
some
pain.”
In
such a
small
and
tight-knit
community
as
Piñon,
he said,
every
loss has
ripple
effects.
“It
made it
more
real and
surreal,”
he said
of the
deaths
of his
co-workers.
“It’s
noticeable
that
there
are two
people
missing.”
As
teachers
inside
take
their
lunches
alone at
their
desks,
vehicles
full of
families
pull up
to a
tent at
the back
of the
school.
Nearly
every
driver
wears a
mask and
holds up
fingers
through
their
windows,
signaling
how many
meals
they
need.
During
the
pandemic,
the
school
has been
putting
together
take-home
breakfasts
and
lunches
for
district
families.
Angelica
Sandoval,
who has
an
eighth-grade
son at
home
alone,
helps
hand out
trays of
Salisbury
steak,
pineapple
and
milk.
The
previous
day, she
said,
they
gave out
more
than 100
meals.
Unable
to be
with her
son
during
the day,
she can
only
hope
he’s
getting
his
homework
done.
Life
on the
reservation
during
COVID-19,
she
said, is
“stressful,
depressing,
scary.”
___
STILL
DREAMING
In
May,
research
published
by the
Annenberg
Institute
at Brown
University
predicted
that
springtime
school
shutdowns
would
result
in
children
returning
for the
fall
semester
with 63%
to 68%
of the
typical
gains in
reading
and 37%
to 50%
in math.
Unsurprisingly,
the
researchers
noted
that
setbacks
would
likely
be
greater
for
children
of color
and
those
who live
in
poverty
–
especially
those
without
reliable
internet.
In
Piñon,
teachers
and
administrators
didn’t
need a
research
paper to
tell
them
that.
Principal
Nelson
mentioned
one
student
in
particular,
who lost
his only
surviving
parent
to the
virus
and
moved to
Phoenix
to work
10-hour
days in
construction
while
keeping
up with
online
coursework.
Feeling
overwhelmed,
he
eventually
returned
to Piñon
to live
with
extended
family.
He
isn’t
the only
one in
that
type of
situation,
said
Ostgaard,
the
superintendent.
“We
have a
few
(students)
that for
different
reasons,
I guess
you
would
almost
consider
homeless
at this
point,”
he said.
“They’re
kind of
bouncing
from
relative
to
relative,
and
they’re
in
different
places.”
Gustafson,
the
science
teacher,
worries
most
about
those
students
who
can’t
get
connected
– noting
that
many,
while
still
technically
enrolled,
have not
been
turning
in
schoolwork.
The
divide
between
the kids
with and
without
internet
is “de
facto
segregation,”
he said.
“The
students
that
don’t
have the
net, and
consequently
don’t
have
immediate
feedback
… on
material
or
whatever
else,
they
aren’t
necessarily
getting
everything
that
students
with the
net are
getting.”
Still,
for
those
they can
reach,
the
school’s
online
efforts
have
been so
successful
that the
Arizona
State
Board of
Education
granted
the
district
approval
to use
their
approaches
to
virtual
learning
to open
a fully
online
high
school
available
to any
Arizona
student
– the
Piñon
Eagles
Online
Academy.
“What
we’ve
tried to
do here
at Piñon
High is
try to
take a
negative
and turn
it into
a
positive,”
Nelson
said.
And
whenever
the
Piñon
schools
do
reopen
their
doors,
he
added,
it will
be
optional
for
students
to
return.
Despite
all that
they’re
facing,
Piñon
officials
are
still
doing
what
they can
to
inspire
their
students
about
the
future.
Gustafson,
a former
radiological
engineer
who
worked
at
nuclear
power
plants,
spoke
recently
via Zoom
to a
group of
ROTC
students
about
his
career.
It’s
motivation
meant to
remind
them
that
their
dreams
still
can be
realized.
Or, as
Gustafson
put it:
“Get me
to the
university,
get me
to the
city and
something
will
happen.”
He
knows
his
students
are
dealing
with a
lot.
One, he
said,
had
three
close
family
members
die from
COVID-19
– all
within a
month of
each
other.
Still,
Gustafson
has
faith in
their
resilience.
“There
are
students
that
have the
dream.
By
golly,
they
do,” he
said.
“They
are
making
it work,
regardless.
They’re
doing
what
they
can.”
___
This
article
was
provided
to The
Associated
Press by
the
Arizona
State
University’s
Walter
Cronkite
School
of
Journalism
and Mass
Communication.For
more
stories
from
Cronkite
News,
visit
cronkitenews.azpbs.org.
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