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KYUK reporter Emily Schwing spent the last year crawling through attics, basements, and classrooms in rural public schools across Alaska.
What she found was a serious public health and safety crisis that’s impacting Alaska’s Indigenous students.
There is no mechanism to condemn a building in Alaska, but in the tiny community of Sleetmute, that’s exactly what an architect recommended for the public school in 2021.
Angela Hayden is the lead teacher.
“The roof was leaking when I first started teaching here 17 years ago.”
That leak has been left for nearly two decades.
Today, the building is on the verge of collapse.
There are bats living in a utility closet and black mold throughout the walls and ceilings.
Superintendent Madeline Aguillard says kids can’t thrive in these conditions.
“They’re not conducive, for high expectations. They’re not conducive for academic achievement. They’re not conducive for athletic achievement.”
It’s not just Sleetmute. Dozens of rural public schools in Alaska face similar problems and the health risks are concerning.
Long term exposure to black mold can irritate lungs, cause chronic fatigue, and neurological problems.
Fungal spores from bat feces can also irritate lungs and cause blindness.
Higher rates of health disparities among Alaska Natives have long been documented, compared to the general population and the majority of students in Alaska’s rural public schools are Indigenous.
Education Commissioner Deena Bishop acknowledges the public health concern, but says her agency isn’t solely responsible.
“If something’s happening in the school, it’s most likely happening in other buildings in the community. So, you know, like it is a collective Alaskan issue that we’d be happy to have a seat at the table to discuss.”
Andrea John, who has three kids enrolled in Sleetmute, says she thinks it’s easy for the state to forget communities like hers.
“They’re choosing to look the other way and say the hell with us … those city people, they wouldn’t … let their kids go to school here.”
Support for this reporting comes from ProPublica and the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism. There is a Yup’ik language translation of this story by Julia Jimmy, KYUK’s Yup’ik News and Culture Producer.
A candlelight vigil is planned for Thursday night in Mesa, Ariz. for Emily Pike, a Native American teenager who disappeared in January.
She was staying at a group home in the city.
Police recently confirmed some of her remains were discovered on a remote highway last month.
Multiple agencies are now involved in the investigation, the Arizona Republic reports.
Her family and the San Carlos Apache Tribe, where she’s from, are asking for privacy.
Photo: Jeff Zylland / National Parks Service
American grasslands were once a mecca for biodiversity.
But federal data shows more than 60% of the ecosystem has vanished due to agriculture, development, and invasive species.
New research shows how the Mountain West region could play a role in the conservation of one important – and yappy – grassland animal.
The Mountain West News Bureau’s Rachel Cohen reports.
If you drive along a grassland you might not see much.
Ana Davidson says that’s until you come across a colony of prairie dogs.
“And as soon as you do, the life of the prairie is there.”
Davidson is a scientist at Colorado State University. She says prairie dogs’ underground burrows provide habitat for creatures from insects to ferrets.
Her research team wanted to know the best spots to focus on their conservation, so they mapped in-tact native grasslands, but they also wanted to know where to avoid human conflict.
“Is there oil and gas occurring there? Are there wind farms? Are there roads?”
They found the highest potential for conservation efforts in western portion of the grassland ecosystem.
That includes less developed parts of Montana and Wyoming, down to Colorado and northern New Mexico.
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