This week on the Minnesota Native News Health Report, better numbers from the state health department and some tribes urge caution returning to school. I’m Marie Rock.
The Covid 19 positivity rate has fallen a bit since early August, and the number of new cases a day has leveled off. The number of deaths and hospitalizations has remained steady since early July. The statewide mask mandate may have helped, though it’s impossible to say for sure. With the virus still not contained, some tribes are recommending students stay home this fall. Laurie Stern reports.
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Marie headlines:
This week on the Minnesota Native News Health Report, better numbers from the state health department and some tribes urge caution returning to school. I’m Marie Rock.
The Covid 19 positivity rate has fallen a bit since early August, and the number of new cases a day has leveled off. The number of deaths and hospitalizations has remained steady since early July. The statewide mask mandate may have helped, though it’s impossible to say for sure. With the virus still not contained, some tribes are recommending students stay home this fall. Laurie Stern reports.
The state health department has asked school districts to consider three options for fall: in-person learning, distance learning and hybrid learning, or a combination of remote and in-person. Officials say what districts and schools decide should depend on the latest county data for their areas. Tribes are relying on that data too – but at least two of them are recommending kids stay at home.
My name is Ronald Bakanaga, I’m the education director for the White Earth Nation. We're gonna protect our children. That's foremost. We're going to protect our families and we're going to protect our employees and our staff.
As education director, Ronald Buckanaga has been video chatting with school districts large and small: from Nevus to Moorhead. He’s discussing their plans for re-opening, and letting them know where the tribe stands.
Native people here on the White Earth Reservation would prefer long distance right now. I think they don't want to get their families infected because usually you got grandparents taking care of the grandkids and they don't want them to get sick. I think that's the number one cause here. I would recommend schools right now do long distance and then see where this virus is going.
Buckanaga says people need to be concerned about a possible second wave especially as the flu season begins. But he knows distance learning is a challenge for people without access to the internet.
rural schools are really at a disadvantage when it comes to long distance learning and so I've been working on some Cares Act funding to get schools like pine point to get Wi Fi hotspots and we're probably gonna have to have our IT department go and train the parents how to connect how to link it on their phone and then with their chrome Chromebook device.
Even with hot spots and training, there will be problems.
Maybe there’s 6,7,8 kids in the family and they can’t all use that same wifi hotspot.
Statewide broadband would be a great solution, but no one’s made that happen yet.
one thing's for sure, this long distance education points out disparities in education for American Indian children. Maybe we're going to start doing educational parts or training our parents will become give them some curriculum, start training them so they can help their children. And those are the kinds of things and people are listening to me because the regular education system here in Minnesota hasn't, hasn't worked at all.
So education this fall is unpredictable and, in the best case, may lead to innovation as Ronald Buckanaga suggests. Meanwhile the Leech Lake Band has urged school districts in its area to opt for distance learning too. It’s about protecting families, and elders above all. For MNN I’m Laurie Stern.
Marie #2:
And now a word from our North Minneapolis/Leech Lake youth correspondent, Jennifer Cortes. As you’ll hea, she’s not thinking much about school: