The future of education is inclusive, flexible and hands-on: Small changes to Utah's education system have big impacts, especially for underserved populations.

• Author: Dodson, Jack

JUST AS WORKFORCES HAVE EVOLVED to embrace remote labor and take a more relaxed approach to different productivity styles, schools are going through a similar transition process.

Or, at least, they need to. No two students have the same matrix of needs, and because of this, education will likely shift dramatically in the years and decades to come. With new technology, changes in work culture, and better studies on development and learning--not to mention increased awareness of the power of school environments in shaping social literacy--there are massive shifts underway in education.

ACCESS TO EDUCATION

Harold Foster was visiting a school in Salt Lake City when he encountered an Indigenous student in the hall. He made a point to spend at least 10 minutes talking to him.

"This was a Navajo student who was in the fifth grade, kind of a little shy," Foster says. "I think that him, just looking at me--that there was a spark ... [native students in urban areas] don't see [other native people] in their classrooms."

As the American Indian specialist and Title VI coordinator for the Utah State Board of Education, Foster does a lot of site visits. Title VI is a federal grant program that provides an officer at schools with more than 10 native students. The board uses funding to help students apply for Pell grants, navigate college applications and more.

Foster, who was born on the Navajo Reservation, worked as a teacher in Indigenous communities like his own for 16 years. He knew how important it was for students to see representation in the adults around them, especially away from the reservation and in the Salt Lake area.

"A lot of the remote areas, they don't have access to the internet, much less access to electricity or running water in their homes," Foster says. "So that's a big challenge ... It's not that students weren't learning, it's that the opportunities weren't there for them. There was no infrastructure."

Dustin Jansen, Utah's director of the Division of Indian Affairs, says funding for our rural schools can be a big problem. "I don't think it's on par with other states," he says.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, children on reservations didn't have access to the internet and couldn't complete lessons. Down in San Juan county, Jansen points out, children were climbing up mesas behind their homes to try to get a signal. Even college students who returned home to the reservation amidst campus closures suddenly found themselves...