Wednesday, March 12, 2025

Photo: The Jack Egnaty Sr. School in Sleetmute. (Emily Schwing) There are 128 open schools in rural Alaska and the state owns just under half of them. KYUK reporter Emily Schwing dug through data and found decades of neglect and lacking accountability that’s put students, teachers, and staff at risk. Most school districts in Alaska have access to money that doesn’t come from the state, but rural school districts are different. “We do not have any local contributions. We do not have a tax base. Most of our family members, our community members, they live a subsistence lifestyle.” Madeline Aguillard is the Superintendent of nine schools scattered across 12,000 square miles in Alaska’s Interior. It’s roughly the size of Maryland. Her district relies on the state to help pay for everything from textbooks to sewer lines. “The state does have an obligation to provide a public education. … and I would hope that providing that education would also mean assistance with providing the physical space.” Since 1998, Alaska has only funded about 14% of nearly 1,800 project proposals from rural school districts. The result? Exposed electrical wiring and malfunctioning fire alarms. In one case, the school’s pipes froze and broke, so for most of the last school year, kids rode a four-wheeler, known as “the bathroom bus,” home twice a day to relieve themselves. “I think the evidence speaks for itself.” Bryce Edgmon, an Alaska Native, is Speaker of the Alaska State House of Representatives. “These bright young children show up every morning to go to school in a building that’s not fit for even anything but being ready to be demolished.” Regulations say the state is responsible for major maintenance and construction for buildings it owns. Alaska’s Education Commissioner Deena Bishop says it’s not that simple. “So that the funding for those projects comes from the state of Alaska. It’s the legislature that would provide funding.” This year, requests for investments in school infrastructure statewide come close to $800 million and a budget deficit looms as lawmakers in Juneau debate over how to balance a budget and fund education. Support for this reporting comes from ProPublica and the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism’s 2024 National Fellowship. (Courtesy National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development / Facebook) Indigenous business owners are gathering in a major conference in the Mountain West region this week to discuss ways to bring more business opportunities to Native communities. The Mountain West News Bureau’s Yvette Fernandez has more. Thousands of Indigenous entrepreneurs gathered in Las Vegas for The National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development Conference — the biggest of its kind in the country. Bryan Mercier (Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon), acting director of the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, spoke to the group. He acknowledged many conference goers are concerned about Trump administration budget cuts, but said the new administration is also working to enhance opportunities for Indigenous businesses and communities. “Energy development, economic development.” He told the crowd that energy and economic development are on the table, along with funding law enforcement. “So I’m encouraging …” He went on to encourage everybody he speaks with to “jump at these opportunities and work with this administration.” Mercier is a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon. He was appointed in September last year under the Biden administration. He said in his role he will continue to advocate for prioritizing Indigenous cultural perspectives in federal policy. A patient at the IHS Fort Belknap Hospital in Harlem, Mont. receives a COVID vaccination on April 6, 2021. (Courtesy IHS) And it was roughly five years ago this week that COVID-19 came to North America. A Princeton University study has shown that Native people saw greater rates of COVID-19 deaths due to limited access to high-quality medical care, poverty, and crowded living conditions. Tribes shut down many operations and organized vaccine clinics and pop-up testing sites to protect elders and children.   Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.