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“The GAO report said no schools in the Western region – which includes Arizona, Nevada and Utah – had been inspected since 2012, and three had not been inspected since 2008. The Western region excludes the Navajo Nation, which had three-quarters of its schools inspected in 2015.
Some of the 10 regions inspected all of their schools, while Western and three others inspected none. Nationwide, more than a third of the 180 Bureau of Indian Education schools were not inspected in 2015, the report said.
For those inspections that were done, not all were thorough – in one case an inspector evaluated a school’s multiple buildings from his car. And an inspection doesn’t guarantee that issues found are fixed, the report noted.
It cited various explanations for the inaction, noting extended vacancies in some regions – one lasting up to 10 years. Inspectors complained about a lack of travel budgets and uneven workloads, but Emrey-Arras pointed out that one region inspected all 32 of its schools while another didn’t inspect the two it was responsible for.
The report suggested improvements to the system, which Emrey-Arras said the bureau has been receptive to. But she has doubts about their implementation, given a history of foot-dragging by the bureau on other GAO suggestions.
“They (students) need to be in an environment where it’s safe to learn,” Emrey-Arras said. “That’s kinda the first step.””
– LJWorld.com, Study puts price tag on Haskell facility needs: more than $100 million.
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Indian Country 52
Indian Country 52 is a weekly project by David Bernie that uses the medium of posters that promote issues and stories in Indian Country.
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This work by David Bernie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may download, share, and post the images under the condition that the works are attributed to the artist.
