Last fall, as the Bureau of Indian Education promised to provide the technology its students needed to attend school online, the federal agency admitted it had a problem. Some of the laptops and wireless hotspots it ordered wouldn’t arrive by the start of the school year, making it harder for students to learn through the pandemic.
The BIE, which funds and oversees more than 180 schools and dormitories for Native students nationwide, did not acknowledge in its reopening plan that many of those orders had yet to be placed. When the school year began in September, The Arizona Republic and ProPublica reported last fall, many students across the BIE’s system had no way to attend classes online. Some worked with paper packets and received little instruction from their teachers.
Schatz leads Indian Affairs oversight hearing to examine federal COVID-19 response in Native education systems
American Rescue Plan played critical role in mitigating federal shortcomings that left Native students and schools exposed to severe COVID-19 impacts
Author: News Release
U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs
Yesterday, U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i), chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, led an oversight hearing, “
Examining the COVID-19 Response in Native Communities: Native Education Systems One Year Later.” The committee heard from the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO’s) Education-Workforce-Income Security Director Melissa Emrey-Arras, Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) Director Tony Dearman, Schurz Elementary School Principal and Pyramid Lake Junior/Senior High School Board of Education Vice President Lance West, Ke Kula ʻO Nāwahīokalaniʻōpuʻu Principal Kauanoe Kamanā, and Belcourt School District Superintendent Miche