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Best Practices – Technology for Equitable Educational Access to Postsecondary Students in Rural Areas through Partnership with Law Enforcement 1. Contact information: Jeanne Swarthout, Ph.D., Interim President, Northland Pioneer College: jeanne.swarthout@npc.edu 2. Topic: Providing Supports for Students3. Target audience: Postsecondary students, including Native American students, located in rural, remote areas that are persistently impacted by the entrenched Digital Divide.4. A short description of the project: A partnership between Northland Pioneer College (NPC) and law enforcement agencies across the college’s 21,000 square-mile service area provided technology to keep isolated students connected to their college classes throughout the pandemic, despite quarantines. 5. What makes the submission a lesson learned or best practice: NPC’s service area includes all of Navajo and Apache counties, two of the poorest, and most sparsely-populated counties in the nation. The tribal lands of the Navajo, Hopi and White Mountain Apache People lie within the boundaries, and Native students and their families were disproportionately affected by COVID-19. While faculty were preparing for online instruction during Spring Break 2020, NPC’s Student Services division was contacting every enrolled student to identify those who were unprepared to make the transition. Some had no computer; some had no internet; some were without both.Before the CARES Act, the college’s foundation designated emergency funds to purchase laptops and prepaid Wi-Fi hotspots. The issue became how to get them to the college’s most outlying centers, including Kayenta, on the Navajo Nation, Polacca, on Hopi, and Whiteriver, on the Fort Apache Reservation, in the midst of mandatory curfews and quarantines, and the closure of tribal borders to visitors. NPC’s Director of Public Safety Education contacted the chiefs of police in all NPC communities and received permission for NPC students to work inside their closed vehicles, in NPC parking lots, where they could access the college’s Wi-Fi network. Meanwhile, he reached out to the Navajo County Sherriff’s Office, who flew laptops and hotspots to Kayenta; NCSO deputies drove them to the college’s Hopi Center at Polacca. The White Mountain Apache Tribal police transported devices to the college’s Whiteriver Center. College staff handled distribution of devices at other campus and center locations and assisted in safely disseminating them to students. ImpactBecause of these efforts in spring 2020, 70 rural, isolated students received assistive technology (laptops and/or hotspots). Sixty (85.7%) of those students completed the semester, 36 (51.4%) enrolled in the Fall 2020 semester, and of those 36 returning in Fall 2020, 23 (63.9%) are enrolled in Spring 2021, and 7 (19.4%) completed a certificate or degree following the Fall 2020 semester. This is significant, because the average Spring 2020 to Fall 2020 retention rate for all NPC students, according to the NPC Registrar’s Office, was 36.22% - approximately 10-15% lower than the average for previous years. In Fall 2020, an additional 20 students received Wi-Fi hotspots; 18 (90%) completed the Fall 2020 semester. In Spring 2021, 13 students have received Wi-Fi hotspots; 7 of those were among the Fall 2020 group who received hotspots. 6. Focus on Equity: Northland Pioneer College has prioritized a commitment to providing equitable access to educational opportunities for students across its service area. This partnership has helped the college to uphold that commitment throughout the pandemic. Still, there are locations throughout the NPC service area, especially on tribal lands, where there simply is no internet service, creating profound inequity of access to multiple resources and services, including educational opportunities. This inequity was underscored by the pandemic. The following table illustrates the disproportionate percentage of households in rural and tribal areas without computers and internet service:Table 1. Percentage of households in the NPC service area, Arizona and the U.S. with computer and broadband internet subscriptionPopulation AreaPercent of Households with a ComputerPercent of Households with a Broadband Internet SubscriptionNavajo Nation Reservation and Off-Reservation Trust Lands45.725.0Hopi Reservation and Off-Reservation Trust Lands55.826.3White Mountain Apache (Fort Apache Reservation)59.632.6Apache County55.038.0Navajo County74.860.7Arizona89.981.8U.S.88.880.4Law enforcement agencies across the NPC service area, particularly the Navajo County Sherriff’s Department, continue to deliver laptops and hotspots, provided by NPC’s foundation and CARES Act funds, as well as other educational materials, such as science kits, to students who are isolated by the ongoing pandemic-related quarantines, extending the commitment to educational access. Still, as the Digital Divide persists, the achievement gap between students with internet access and those without continues to widen, leaving those without further behind, thus permitting the ongoing cycle of poverty to endure.This project demonstrates how creative partnerships can help students surmount the barriers of isolation, and what students from populations that are traditionally under-served and under-represented in post-secondary education can achieve with appropriate support, including equitable access to internet. ................
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