The Federal Government Promised Native American Students Computers and Internet. Many Are Still Wait

Aubrie Sloan expected to start sixth grade in a virtual classroom where she would learn from her teacher each day and engage with classmates for the first time since the coronavirus forced her school to close in March.

Instead, she marks her attendance at Kaibeto Boarding School, on the western side of the Navajo Nation, by texting or calling her teacher each morning. Then she dives into paper packets the school delivers to her home, breezing through assignments that her mother says aren’t a challenge because she already knows the material.

Aside from two phone calls from her teacher, the 11-year-old has received little instruction from the federally-operated school since classes started nearly two weeks ago.

On Sept. 16, the first day of the academic year, Kaibeto administrators sent a letter to parents explaining that the school would not begin online classes until October. And it wouldn’t be able to distribute a computer to every student until November.

“I don’t feel like it’s quality right now,” Katinka Sloan, Aubrie’s mother, said. She added: “I know it’s not just here in Kaibeto. It’s across the board.”

The coronavirus pandemic disrupted education across the country, leaving school districts scrambling for technology to accommodate online learning. The rush caused a national backlog for computers, according to The Associated Press, which in August tallied a combined shortage of 5 million laptops among manufacturers Lenovo, Dell and HP.

https://www.govexec.com/oversight/2020/09/federal-government-promised-native-american-students-computers-and-internet-many-are-still-waiting/168852/