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SAN CARLOS, Ariz. — After missing 40 days of school last year, Tommy Betom, 10, is on track this year for much better attendance. The importance of showing up has been stressed repeatedly at school — and at home. When he went to school last year, he often came home saying the teacher was picking on him and other kids were making fun of his clothes. But Tommy’s grandmother Ethel Marie Betom, who became one of his caregivers after his parents split, said she told him to choose his friends carefully and to behave in class. He needs to go to school for the sake of his future, she told him. “I didn’t have everything,” said Betom, an enrolled member of the San Carlos Apache tribe. Tommy attends school on the tribe’s reservation in southeastern Arizona. “You have everything. You have running water in the house, bathrooms and a running car.” A teacher and a truancy officer also reached out to Tommy’s family to address his attendance. He was one of many. Across the San Carlos Unified School District, 76% of students were chronically absent during the 2022-2023 school year, meaning they missed 10% or more of the school year. Years after COVID-19 disrupted American schools, nearly every state is still struggling with attendance. But attendance has been worse for Native American students — a disparity that existed before the pandemic and has since grown, according to data collected by The Associated Press. Out of 34 states with data available for the 2022-2023 school year, half had absenteeism rates for Native American and Alaska Native students that were at least 9 percentage points higher than the state average. Many schools serving Native students have been working to strengthen connections with families, who often struggle with higher rates of illness and poverty. Schools also must navigate distrust dating back to the U.S. government’s campaign to break up Native American culture, language and identity by forcing children into abusive boarding schools. History “may cause them to not see the investment in a public school education as a good use of their time,” said Dallas Pettigrew, director of Oklahoma University’s Center for Tribal Social Work and a member of the Cherokee Nation. The San Carlos school system recently introduced care centers that partner with hospitals, dentists and food banks to provide services to students at multiple schools. The work is guided by cultural success coaches — school employees who help families address challenges that keep students from coming to school. Nearly 100% of students in the district are Native and more than half of families have incomes below the federal poverty level. Many students come from homes that deal with alcoholism and drug abuse, Superintendent Deborah Dennison said. Students miss school for reasons ranging from anxiety to unstable living conditions, said Jason Jones, a cultural success coach at San Carlos High School and an enrolled member of the San Carlos Apache tribe. Acknowledging their fears, grief and trauma helps him connect with students, he said. “You feel better, you do better,” Jones said. “That’s our job here in the care center is to help the students feel better.” In the 2023-2024 school year, the chronic absenteeism rate in the district fell from 76% to 59% — an improvement Dennison attributes partly to efforts to address their communities’ needs. “All these connections with the community and the tribe are what’s making a difference for us and making the school a system that fits them rather than something that has been forced upon them, like it has been for over a century of education in Indian Country,” said Dennison, a member of the Navajo Nation. In three states — Alaska, Nebraska, and South Dakota — the majority of Native American and Alaska Native students were chronically absent. In some states, it has continued to worsen, even while improving slightly for other students, as in Arizona, where chronic absenteeism for Native students rose from 22% in 2018-2019 to 45% in 2022-2023. AP’s analysis does not include data on schools managed by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Education, which are not run by traditional districts. Less than 10% of Native American students attend BIE schools. At Algodones Elementary School, which serves a handful of Native American pueblos along New Mexico’s Upper Rio Grande, about two-thirds of students are chronically absent. The communities were hit hard by COVID-19, with devastating effects on elders. Since schools reopened, students have been slow to return. Excused absences for sick days are still piling up — in some cases, Principal Rosangela Montoya suspects, students are stressed about falling behind academically. Staff and tribal liaisons have been analyzing every absence and emphasizing connections with parents. By 10 a.m., telephone calls go out to the homes of absent students. Next steps include in-person meetings with those students’ parents. “There’s illness. There’s trauma,” Montoya said. “A lot of our grandparents are the ones raising the children so that the parents can be working.” About 95% of Algodones’ students are Native American, and the school strives to affirm their identity. It doesn’t open on four days set aside for Native American ceremonial gatherings, and students are excused for absences on other cultural days as designated by the nearby pueblos. For Jennifer Tenorio, it makes a difference that the school offers classes in the family’s native language of Keres. She speaks Keres at home, but says that’s not always enough to instill fluency. Tenorio said her two oldest children, now in their 20s, were discouraged from speaking Keres when enrolled in the federal Head Start educational program — a system that now promotes native language preservation — and they struggled academically. “It was sad to see with my own eyes,” said Tenorio, a single parent and administrative assistant who has used the school’s food bank. “In Algodones, I saw a big difference to where the teachers were really there for the students, and for all the kids, to help them learn.” Over a lunch of strawberry milk and enchiladas on a recent school day, her 8-year-old son Cameron Tenorio said he likes math and wants to be a policeman. “He’s inspired,” Tenorio said. “He tells me every day what he learns.” In Arizona, Rice Intermediate School Principal Nicholas Ferro said better communication with families, including Tommy Betom’s, has helped improve attendance. Since many parents are without working phones, he said, that often means home visits. Lillian Curtis said she has been impressed by Rice Intermediate’s student activities on family night. Her granddaughter, Brylee Lupe, 10, missed 10 days of school by mid-October last year but had missed just two days by the same time this year. “The kids always want to go — they are anxious to go to school now. And Brylee is much more excited,” said Curtis, who takes care of her grandchildren. Curtis said she tells Brylee that skipping school is not an option. “I just told her that you need to be in school, because who is going to be supporting you?” Curtis said. “You’ve got to do it on your own. You got to make something of yourself.” The district has made gains because it is changing the perception of school and what it can offer, said Dennison, the superintendent. Its efforts have helped not just with attendance but also morale, especially at the high school, she said. “Education was a weapon for the U.S. government back in the past,” she said. “We work to decolonize our school system.”
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Black Friday Doorbuster: Best Buy Restocks $430 HP Victus Gaming Laptop DealBy DAVID BAUDER Time magazine gave Donald Trump something it has never done for a Person of the Year designee: a lengthy fact-check of claims he made in an accompanying interview. Related Articles National Politics | Trump’s lawyers rebuff DA’s idea for upholding his hush money conviction, calling it ‘absurd’ National Politics | Trump wants to turn the clock on daylight saving time National Politics | Ruling by a conservative Supreme Court could help blue states resist Trump policies National Politics | A nonprofit leader, a social worker: Here are the stories of the people on Biden’s clemency list National Politics | Nancy Pelosi hospitalized after she ‘sustained an injury’ on official trip to Luxembourg The fact-check accompanies a transcript of what the president-elect told the newsmagazine’s journalists. Described as a “12 minute read,” it calls into question 15 separate statements that Trump made. It was the second time Trump earned the Time accolade; he also won in 2016, the first year he was elected president. Time editors said it wasn’t a particularly hard choice over other finalists Kamala Harris, Elon Musk, Benjamin Netanyahu and Kate Middleton. Time said Friday that no other Person of the Year has been fact-checked in the near-century that the magazine has annually written about the figure that has had the greatest impact on the news. But it has done the same for past interviews with the likes of Joe Biden, Netanyahu and Trump. Such corrections have been a sticking point for Trump and his team in the past, most notably when ABC News did it during his only debate with Democrat Kamala Harris this fall. There was no immediate response to a request for comment on Friday. In the piece, Time called into question statements Trump made about border security, autism and the size of a crowd at one of his rallies. When the president-elect talked about the “massive” mandate he had received from voters, Time pointed out that former President Barack Obama won more electoral votes the two times he had run for president. The magazine also questioned Trump’s claim that he would do interviews with anyone who asked during the campaign, if he had the time. The candidate rejected a request to speak to CBS’ “60 Minutes,” the magazine said. “In the final months of his campaign, Trump prioritized interviews with podcasts over mainstream media,” reporters Simmone Shah and Leslie Dickstein wrote. David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.
Fox News' Trey Yingst provides details on the search for Austin Tice following the fall of Assad. Sisters Meagan and Naomi Tice express frustration with the Biden administration's failure to locate their brother, who they believe is still alive. Countries in Europe are slamming the brakes on asylum cases filed by Syrian migrants in the wake of the fall of dictator Bashar al-Assad, but it is not yet clear whether the U.S. will take similar action. The U.K. and Norway, along with E.U. countries of Austria, Belgium, Germany, Greece, Finland, Ireland and Sweden, have suspended applications from Syrians after the fall of the Assad regime. While it does not necessarily mean those people will be returned to Syria, it puts those applications in limbo in a continent that saw a massive surge of Syrian migration during the 2015 European migration crisis. TRUMP'S PLEDGE AGAINST ‘FOREVER WARS’ COULD BE TESTED WITH SYRIA IN HANDS OF JIHADIST FACTIONS The European Union has also said that conditions are not currently in place for the safe return of nationals to Syria. Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, seen during the Signing of the comprehensive program of strategic and long-term cooperation between Iran and Syria, on May 3, 2023, In Damascus, Syria. (Photo by Borna News/Matin Ghasemi/Aksonline ATPImages/Getty Images) (Getty Images) While Europe has seen a considerably more sizeable influx of migrants from Syria than the U.S., it is not clear how those cases in the U.S. will change, if at all, given the changing political dynamics in the Middle Eastern country. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services handle asylum cases, and asylum officers are instructed to consider changes in circumstances when considering those cases. So, if an applicant’s country becomes more stable, then the consideration of that case changes dynamically. Therefore, if Syria stabilizes, it may make it harder for Syrians to receive a positive ruling on their cases. US GROUP LOOKS FOR KIDNAPPED AMERICANS IN SYRIA AFTER FALL OF ASSAD REGIME: WON'T ‘LEAVE A STONE UNTURNED' But so far, there have been no pauses of Syrian asylum cases announced by the Biden administration. The White House did not respond to requests for comment on the matter. Migrants and refugees line up at the central registration center for refugees and asylum seekers LaGeSo (Landesamt fuer Gesundheit und Soziales - State Office for Health and Social Affairs) LaGeSo in Berlin, Germany, Monday, Jan. 4, 2016. ((AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)) One factor that could change in the next year is Temporary Protected Status, which grants deportation protection and work permits for nationals of countries deemed unsafe. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas extended and redesignated Syria for TPS in January, and that lasts until September 2025. Should the Trump administration choose not to extend or redesignate Syria for TPS, it would require those who are no longer protected from deportation and who do not have another legal status to leave the U.S. or face deportation. However, the number of Syrians protected under TPS is relatively few, compared to other nationalities and the situation in Europe. DHS estimated that around 8,000 Syrians were eligible for TPS in January. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP The Center for Immigration Studies cited statistics showing that the number of Syrians granted asylum between 2011 and 2023 was just over 7,000. Meanwhile, data obtained by Fox News Digital this week shows that there are 741 Syrians with deportation orders on Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) non-detained docket. In Europe, around 183,000 Syrians applied for asylum in 2023, according to the Associated Press. The U.N. refugee agency has called for "patience and vigilance" for Syrian migrants, arguing that much will depend on whether Syria's new government is respectful of law and order. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Adam Shaw is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital, primarily covering immigration and border security. He can be reached at adam.shaw2@fox.com or on Twitter .