SAN CARLOS, Ariz. — After missing 40 days of school last year, Tommy Betom, 10, is on track for much better this year presence. The importance of showing up is repeatedly emphasized at school and at home.
When he went to school last year, he often came home and said that the teacher was bullying him and that other children were making fun of his clothes. But Tommy’s grandmother Ethel Marie Betom, who became one of his caregivers after his parents split, said she told him to choose his friends carefully and behave in class.
He needs to go to school for his future, she told him.
“I didn’t have everything,” said Betom, an enrolled member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe. Tommy goes to school on the tribe’s reservation in southeastern Arizona. “You have everything. You have running water in the house, bathrooms and a running car.”
A teacher and a truancy officer also contacted Tommy’s family to discuss his attendance. He was one of many. In the San Carlos Unified School District, 76% of students were chronically absent during the 2022-2023 school year, meaning they missed 10% or more of the school year.
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This story is part of a collaboration on chronic absenteeism among Native American students between The Associated Press and ICT, a news outlet covering indigenous issues.
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Years after COVID-19 disrupted America’s schools, nearly every state remains silent difficulty with attendance. But attendance was worse for Native American students — a disparity that existed before the pandemic and has grown since, according to data collected by The Associated Press.
Of the 34 states with data available for the 2022-2023 school year, half had an absenteeism rate for Native American and Alaska Native students that was at least 9 percentage points higher than the state average.
Many schools serving Indigenous students have worked to strengthen connections with families, who often struggle with higher school grades disease and poverty. Schools also must deal with distrust that dates back to the U.S. government’s campaign to destroy Native American culture, language and identity by forcing children to engage in abuse. boarding schools.
History “may prevent them from seeing the investment in public education as a good use of their time,” said Dallas Pettigrew, director of Oklahoma University’s Center for Tribal Social Work and a member of the Cherokee Nation.
The San Carlos school system recently introduced care centers that partner with hospitals, dentists and food banks to provide services to students at multiple schools. The work is led by cultural success coaches: school staff who help families address challenges that keep students from coming to school.
Nearly 100% of the district’s students are native-born and more than half of its families have incomes below the federal poverty line. Many students come from families dealing with alcoholism and drug abuse, said Superintendent Deborah Dennison.
Students miss school for reasons ranging from anxiety to unstable living conditions, said Jason Jones, cultural success coach at San Carlos High School and enrolled member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe. Acknowledging their fears, grief and trauma helps him connect with students, he said.
“You feel better, you do better,” Jones said. “Our job here at the care center is to help the students feel better.”
In the 2023-2024 school year, the district’s chronic absenteeism rate dropped from 76% to 59% – an improvement Dennison attributes in part to efforts to meet the needs of their community.
“All of these connections to community and tribe make a difference for us and make school a system that suits them, rather than something that is forced on them, as it has been for more than a century of education in Indian Country. said Dennison, a member of the Navajo Nation.
In three states – Alaska, Nebraska and South Dakota – the majority of Native American and Alaska Native students were chronically absent. In some states, the situation has deteriorated further, even as other students have seen a slight improvement, such as in Arizona, where chronic absenteeism among native students increased from 22% in 2018-2019 to 45% in 2022-2023.
AP’s analysis does not include data on schools run by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Education that are not run by traditional districts. Less than 10% of Native American students attend BIE schools.
At Algodones Elementary School, which serves a handful of Native American pueblos along New Mexico’s Upper Rio Grande, about two-thirds of students are chronically absent.
Communities were hit hard by COVID-19, with devastating consequences for the elderly. Since schools reopened, students have been slow to return. Apologies for absences sick days are still piling up – in some cases, director Rosangela Montoya suspects, students are stressed fall behind academic.
Staff and tribal liaisons analyzed each absence and emphasized connections with parents. At 10 a.m., phone calls go out to the homes of absent students. Next steps include in-person meetings with the parents of those students.
‘There is illness. There is trauma,” Montoya said. “Many of our grandparents are the ones raising the children so the parents can work.”
About 95% of Algodones students are Native American, and the school strives to affirm their identity. It does not open on four days set aside for Native American ceremonial gatherings, and students are excused for absences on other cultural days as designated by the nearby pueblos.
For Jennifer Tenorio, it makes a difference that the school offers classes in the family’s native language, Keres. She speaks Keres at home, but says that is not always enough to speak the language fluently.
Tenorio said her two oldest children, now in their 20s, were discouraged from speaking Keres when they participated in the federal Head Start education program — a system that now promotes the preservation of native languages — and struggled academically.
“It was sad to see it with my own eyes,” said Tenorio, a single parent and administrative assistant who has used the school’s food bank. “At Algodones I saw a big difference in the extent to which the teachers were really there for the students, and for all children, to help them learn.”
Over a lunch of strawberry milk and enchiladas on a recent school day, her 8-year-old son Cameron Tenorio said he loves math and wants to be a police officer.
“He’s inspired,” Tenorio said. “He tells me what he learns every day.”
In Arizona, Rice Intermediate School Principal Nicholas Ferro said better communication with families, including Tommy Betom’s, has helped improve attendance. Because many parents don’t have working phones, that often means home visits, he said.
Lillian Curtis said she was impressed with Rice Intermediate’s student activities during family night. Her granddaughter, Brylee Lupe, 10, missed 10 days of school in mid-October last year, but had only missed two days by the same time this year.
“The kids always want to go; they now want to go to school. And Brylee is much more excited,” said Curtis, who cares for her grandchildren.
Curtis said she tells Brylee skipping school isn’t an option.
“I just told her you have to go to school because who’s going to support you?” Curtis said. “You have to do it yourself. You have to make something of yourself.”
The district has made gains because it is changing the perception of the school and what it has to offer, said Dennison, the superintendent. The efforts have not only helped with attendance, but also with morale, especially at the high school, she said.
“Education has historically been a weapon for the U.S. government,” she said. “We are working to decolonize our school system.”
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Lee reported from Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Lurye reported from New Orleans. Alia Wong of The Associated Press and Felix Clary of ICT contributed to this report.
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