With sandy streets and sidewalks emptier than usual due to the COVID-19 pandemic, students have been attending school online from home. Tuba City is a small town in Northern Arizona, located on the Navajo Nation reservation.
Several students in the area have no access to Wi-Fi, or even electricity. Because of this, the Tuba City Unified School District (TCUSD) has been distributing physical packets of schoolwork to their students. Those who have access to the internet are able to attend class over Zoom.
The Arizona Department of Education has been giving out iPads and Verizon Jetpack MiFis (wireless, mobile wifi routers) to students who need it. However, the problem isn’t the lack of Internet access, it’s that some of them live in areas that are so isolated that they have no signal reception.
Geronie Pesodas, a 2021 Tuba City High School graduate and reservation resident, has had his fair share of wifi issues.
“Upgrading our wifi didn’t really help much either, just because it’s not about the wifi strength, it’s about our location,” Pesodas said. “Struggles with Wi-Fi are pretty common in the area.”
To get through these wifi hiccups, Pesodas would sometimes drive hours to go to his sisters’ house for a stable wifi connection.
TCUSD has also had problems with wifi connection several times. There are six schools in the district all using Zoom all at once everyday. Because of this, it would be easy for the server to collapse and cut off all of the schools’ connections.
Teachers have struggled especially throughout this past year. They aren’t able to connect to students as they used to in person. Not only that, they’ve had to adjust to teaching an empty classroom and looking at a screen all day.
Bryan Abcede, a sixth grade math teacher and instructional team leader for Tuba City Junior High School, said that this year has had a heavy effect on both teachers and students. He knows several coworkers and students who have grieved over the past year because of COVID.
“You know that kids just go to your class because they would fail [otherwise],” Abcede said, “but on the other side of the story, they’re losing family members, so you would want to make things as light as possible.”
Not only has distanced learning restricted both teachers’ and students’ abilities to attend classes, it’s also prevented students from properly doing their work.
Paige Lomatewama, a Tuba City High School sophomore, talked about how difficult it is to communicate with teachers. Students have to wait in order to get a response from their teachers because of the overwhelming amount of emails they’ve received. Lomatewama said that sometimes she’d have to wait for days to get a reply from her teachers.
Although this pandemic has been hard for everyone, Lomatewama points out that good things have come out of it, as well.
Virtual learning has given students the opportunity to self-reflect and give them a break from constantly living up to other people’s expectations. Lomatewama explained, “I feel like some people have become more self-aware and comfortable with themselves rather than being pressured by peers on how to dress or act.”
Lomatewama also said she’s been able to do schoolwork at her own pace, compared to being inside of the classroom. Social distancing has made things comfortable for her mental health in terms of taking a break from constantly socializing with people.
Many students have had to learn to become more independent this year due to being unable to ask for help. Because of this, they struggle with completing assignments, causing them to fall behind on their schoolwork.
Brooke Begay, another incoming sophomore at Tuba City High School, is the eldest of three children. Since her mom works during the day, she’s left home alone to take care of her younger siblings while attending online school. Begay is taking this past year as a learning experience to do better in school in the future.
She said she sees hope in how her generation is surviving these troubled times. “We’re gonna be OK,” she said. “We’re going through this together, and it’s gonna make us stronger and resilient.”