(Tom) This week on Arizona Illustrated, how a Tucson woman created a welcoming community on wheels.

(Susan) It's not just you come here every Monday for class to let off steam, but it's also to meet new friends, meet new people.

(Tom) Education was hit hard during the pandemic.

See how Tucson Unified School District is trying to close the learning gap.

(Sylis) It's honestly better for me than in person because in here it's just you have your own office, you have peace and quiet.

(Tom) And the long and animated path of Eveli, a jeweler and a dreamer.

(Rod) She carried a piece of every place she went with her.

When she hit Hopi, it all kind of came together.

Hello and welcome to Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara.

Susan Barnett not only created a roller skating dance class, but a blossoming and inclusive community well beyond the Floor Polish dance studios where her classes are held.

Now her classes offer a safe and welcoming space for everyone looking to find balance in their lives.

♪ HIP-HOP MUSIC (Belen) When I skate, I feel like I'm able to be free, like I'm able to let go a lot.

(Jim) Main goal is not fall down and have fun.

♪ HIP-HOP MUSIC (Susan) Amazing people came out of the woodworks when I started this class.

Then I'm like, wow, you're so cool and I didn't even know you existed.

(Belen) No matter what color, skin, race, age, you can feel loved and welcome in this community.

♪ HIP-HOP MUSIC My name is Susan Barnett.

I am a roller skating dance instructor here in Tucson.

The first and the only roller dance instructor here in Tucson.

And I go by 'zohanlol' online.

We're going to learn a couple of different moves, and I'll explain it all once class actually starts, but for now, just know we'll be doing skills based.

This is me, but this is actually part of a project.

It's called the Army Man Project.

This project was at the Museum of Tiny Art.

I'm just really glad that I'm able to be a part of, like a little part of Tucson history.

So Zohan is actually a nickname that my cousin gave me.

A lot of people ask me like, "Oh, do you go by Zohan?

Is that your real name?"

But it actually, embarrassingly enough, comes from that one movie, Don't Mess With the Zohan, I know.

So yeah, let's get on our butts.

We're going to do some stretching.

You can do whatever stretch you want, or you can follow along.

I'm a student at the University of Arizona.

So I have like two lanes in my life, where it's like my roller skating life, and also like my professional life as a journalist.

So it's always been like my little alter ego, if I could say that.

[ LAUGHS ] The way that this class is going to work is, I'm going to show you guys a move that is beginner friendly.

First time I ever went skating was like 11 years old.

It was one of those things where like, if you were good in church that day, you would get to go to Skate Country.

And then when I was older, I started skating outside in basketball courts after work.

I really just wanted to spend some time by myself and to not be boring.

I honestly, I really picked it up because I thought I was too boring.

And I was like, what can I do to make myself a little more exciting?

I like to say that I was a roller skater before the pandemic made it cool.

And then once the pandemic hit, I started to grow a lot on social media and I really wanted to do something with that.

♪ UPBEAT MUSIC A lot of dance studios are actually against roller skating.

They don't allow it on their floors.

And then I reached out to Marina from Floor Polish.

And when I went into this meeting, I didn't think that I would be doing it every week.

But then she asked me, she was like, "Hey, so Monday's 5:30 work for you then, like every week?"

And I was like, "Yeah, sure, I can do that."

It was only supposed to be a one-time thing, and it just kind of grew from there.

And I'm really happy I continue doing it.

(Belen) She's a huge part and inspiration of how I started.

We talked about her skate classes, and I saw her bloom from when she's talking about it to when she got into it and started the studio.

(Susan) I was just hoping that I would post this flyer and it would take off online.

(Ashley) I saw Susan's post on Instagram and she said she was doing a skate class so I came to check it out and I've been here ever since.

(Jim) My initial desire for starting skating in these classes was to regain my balance.

I was doing a lot of work at a desk job and not getting out enough, so I needed some exercise.

(Ashley) At first I was a little nervous because I'm very introverted and coming into a big class, but everyone made me feel welcome, especially Susan.

(Belen) You can be here and be like in your own space and feel comfortable, even if you're young, if you're old.

(Jim) I've always felt like I'm really slow and really unbalanced compared to everybody else.

slow and really unbalanced compared to everybody else.

Yeah, I felt like a toddler taking his first steps the whole time.

(Belen) You don't leave anybody behind.

You just want to include everybody.

(Susan) Do we need any help over here?

Let me see.

(Jim) This is a very inclusive group.

Really great people, skate people in general, but this class especially.

(Susan) And then also your hips and your shoulders are the steering wheel to your body.

So whichever way your hips and shoulders go, that's where your body will go.

So for example, if I push these back, I will go back.

If I push these forward, I will go forward.

(Belen) So I feel like Jim should get an award because he's been here since day one.

(Susan) He's my most loyal classmate here.

He's gone to every single class since the very begining.

(Belen) He just really pushes himself to do better every day and the goal is always to just get here.

(Susan) It's not just you come here every Monday for class to let off steam, but it's also to meet new friends, meet new people.

A lot of people became friends in this class and from that a lot of things sprouted.

But try to just move it in all kinds of movements.

And whenever I practice for anything, I always spend 20 to 30 minutes.

(Belen) I do create skate charms that I do personalize for people's skates and I started a roller skate community group, which is called Tucson Skate Club and I started holding trail meets and skate parties.

♪ GENTLE MUSIC Susan makes me very presentable and puts me up front to help her guide and as like a co-teacher.

(Jim) And we've had all kinds of great activities, potlucks and trail skates and almost a family.

Putting it in one of the holes, because it's every other hole that you put it on the thing.

♪ UPBEAT MUSIC (Susan) Oh guys, come on!

She's like two minutes away!

Get in!

Come in!

(Belen) Oh, I just want to cry.

I did not expect for so many people to come out to show me how loved and appreciated I am from this community.

(All) Happy birthday!

- (Belen) It means a lot.

The best thing I could ever ask for people to do for me.

(Susan) She's been a staple in our community and I'm glad that we were able to throw that event on and show her how much she really is appreciated.

(Belen) It was special because I do a lot so it's nice to be able to have a comeback so strong and to know that I'm so loved.

♪ UPBEAT MUSIC (Susan) It's going to be on the front leg.

So for example here, my weight is on this leg.

Once I graduate, I'll be able to offer more classes.

I want to offer classes to kids, partner with some local schools and do something with children.

I love kids so much.

Right now this class is only 18 up.

I would love to continue expanding this class and then eventually obviously working towards opening our own spot up.

Just hoping to do more events and to bring more people into the community and to... Inspire more people to put their skates on and just go out and have fun.

(Belen) If you ever want to learn how to roller skate, do not be scared because the first day could be your first day until a whole new life that you never knew that you didn't discover.

♪ UPBEAT MUSIC [ CHEERING ] (Tom) That last story was produced by student producer Laura Holanszky.

Not only is she a great storyteller, she's also an NCAA National Champion on the U of A's Women's Triathlon Team.

Thank you, Laura, for all your hard work.

When the pandemic hit, everything changed, especially when it came to education.

Classrooms went quiet, screens lit up, and for a lot of students, the learning gap just kept growing.

Next, we get a closer look at how Arizona families and educators are working to close that gap.

From Tucson Unified School District's new virtual model to personal resilience, this is a look at what recovery really looks like from those living it.

This is a part of our ongoing series, "The Long Road," how COVID-19 changed our world.

(Narrator) The COVID gap in education has caused a dramatic and measureable decline in educational outcomes for children across the U.S., with Arizona experiencing particularly sharp setbacks in math and reading proficiency, as well as chronic absenteeism.

(Sylis) I was in first grade and when it happened it was just really scary.

(Jennifer) I mean, the whole world shut down so we all had to re-invent the wheel.

(Michelle) COVID had a lot of bad effects on education especially with students in their learning gaps.

(Narrator) According to the Arizona Department of Education, statistics show that for subsets of students Math proficiency was down 11%, Reading was down 4%, and Chronic Absenteeism doubled from 13 to 26%.

These drops accounted for more than half a school year's worth of learning loss.

(Michelle) I think it's a slow recovery process.

I think especially once a learning gap happens it's very, it's very hard to close it because you always want to make that year's worth of growth, but if you're making a year's worth of growth because that's what we're giving students they're still keeping that learning gap.

So, the goal is to really be able to help students make more than that year's worth of growth.

[Typing] (Michelle) Hey Yellowbird, how can I help you?

We are an online academy that is available for students grades Kinder through 12th grade.

We have two programs.

Our first program is a teacher-led program.

It's just like going to a brick-and-mortar school, but you do it online via Zoom.

Our second program is a self-paced program available for students in 6th through 12th grade.

This allows students to work at their own pace I think some students are feeling behind and afraid to reach out in those larger classrooms.

So, being able to provide that self-paced learning where students can get one-on-one tutoring on a daily basis if they so choose to do that, allows them to work in an environment that is helpful to them.

[Dialing phone] [Phone ringing] Hey, Liliana, this is Mr. S over at TUVA Just wanted to check in, see how you're doing?

(Stan) It's critical because if it wasn't for that virtual environment, a lot of students would lose meaningful access to education.

We missed seeing him for class, just want to make sure he's doing okay.

I'm getting a lot more opportunities to work with our at-risk youth on the self-paced side.

So, maybe students who have chronic medical conditions and they're not able to be in a traditional classroom.

Maybe young parents who don't have access to child care during the day.

Or just students who are supporting their families.

They need to work full-time.

So, in the self-paced arena, a lot more opportunities to work with that student population.

(Narrator) Vulnerable groups, including students of color, English learners, and homeless students, have disproportionately been affected.

Underscoring the urgent need for targeted interventions to address these gaps.

(Michelle) We really try and look at our data and manage what students are being successful and students that aren't.

Start reaching out to those families start reaching out to those students to see what we can do to help them be successful.

(Stan) Lots of social-emotional checks, uhh checking for understanding on what they're working on, adding things to make things more interesting or differentiating it so it works with their interests.

(Michelle) We noticed as schools were starting to go back to in-person learning, that some families were not ready to do so.

And so being able to have that environment that is going to best suit you where you're not going to have those distractions from other students allows you to do better in school.

(Online Teacher) So, please follow along.

If I'm cutting out, let me know.

(Sylis) It's honestly better for me than in-person because, you know, in here, it's just you have your own office.

Um, you have peace and quiet.

There's no disruptions.

(Online Teacher) What do scientists think?

Does someone have an idea?

(Jennifer) COVID changed things for a lot of parents and, and for me and my family, we, we just adjusted and did it differently.

I'm not only his teacher, At times, um, I'm his Lunch lady, I'm his custodian, Umm, I'm his principal.

Sometimes I have to be those different hats and I maintain a full-time job at home.

(Jennifer) It's possible?

Ok. (Sylis) During COVID, it changed, it was different.

And then eventually I went to online school and here I am now, still online.

And I haven't gone back in person.

(Jennifer) As a parent I was getting shamed too.

You know, what about his social skills?

And that was something that I felt strongly about to support him.

I'm part of the PTO for the school and now we're doing in-person events.

We got to go to the park and go see each other and play and you know, interact.

(Sylis) I learned kickball.

I didn't know it at first but we played it, and I got the hang of it (Jennifer) Parents are different and I think that the parents should choose for their child what's best for their child and how they're going to thrive.

(Narrator) According to a 30-state analysis from Arizona State University, while educational recovery has been slow the average student has recovered about a third of their pandemic-era learning losses in Math and a quarter in Reading.

Meaning the average American student is less than halfway to a full academic recovery.

(Stan) There was a time we were in a canyon coming out of the pandemic, but thankfully starting to see proficiency not where it was four years ago, but seeing a healthy data trend line heading up.

(Narrator) So, while researchers believe that student's learning could eventually catch up, they also add that the effects of the pandemic along with recent changes to education on a national level will have lasting, negative effects on educational equality.

(Michelle) It's a digital society and I don't think it's ever gonna go backwards.

It's just going to become more and more digital and having that education online is allowing them those opportunities to start faster than everybody else.

(Jennifer) One thing I learned is that kids are resilient.

You know, they really are.

And our motto at TUVA is "Dream Big" and they're dreaming big.

They, they're gonna be doing some great things.

I, I have high hopes for them.

Eveli is a jeweler originally from Algeria and raised in the vibrant cultural landscape of Morocco.

Now from 1968 to 1972, she lived among the Hopi, an apprentice to the legendary Hopi jeweler, Charles Loloma.

Eveli's sculptural jewelry is inspired by the Southwest and reflects her reverence for nature.

She's the only non-Native American artist ever to exhibit at the Wheelwright Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The animation you're about to see was created as a final project for assistant professor Nicole Antebi's animation class at the University of Arizona School of Art.

They toured AZPM and collaborated with producers to help tell Eveli's story.

Special thanks to Nicole and all her students.

(soft music) ♪ SERENE PIANO MUSIC (Julia) To where the jewelry of Eveli is to feel the spirit of the earth, to be held by the rawness of the stone, bone, gold, and silver, to acknowledge our own spirit.

(Mark) Eveli is the connection to Charles Loloma, who's one of the most important Hopi artist, period.

She has a spiritual connection with her artwork, her jewelry, and her sculpture.

(Julia) To wear the jewelry of Eveli is to be seen and touched by beauty, to receive the honesty of an artist's heart.

I was born in Algeria, North Africa.

I grew up in a lot of isolation when I think of my childhood.

It's like a huge empty space.

You don't have any toys as a kid.

You're just on your own out there playing with rocks and lizards and snakes.

But of course I was surrounded by Berber culture.

In the house all the rugs and all the blankets, Moroccan weavings.

The implements in the kitchen were all brass and copper.

My parents were not of the high class.

I was considered to be French because my parents sort of French and Spanish descent, but I never felt really French.

I was very affected by listening to the muezzin five times a day calling for prayer.

For me, that was one of the greatest mystical and spiritual moments that I had in life.

All of my life, for some reason, I've always had teachers take me under their wings.

Going to France with a high school teacher because I was already 18, so I was okay.

I would be going to university receiving scholarships.

I did not feel at home in Europe, and I became very ill.

When I came back to living state, I remember saying, "from now on, I'm gonna live on vacation."

The first thing I did is start painting, embroidering, making puppets.

As I was recovering, I would listen to temple music, you know, with the big boom, you know, and... [LAUGHS] It kind of put me in a different state of mind, and this big voice came through me, telling me I had to go to North America.

I immediately went to the American Alliance.

Somebody was selling a ticket to San Francisco.

Even though I was scared to death, I could not help myself, I had to go.

I was starting to look for Indian people.

Somebody invited me to go to a concert at the Fillmore.

I saw a group of people.

They were talking about a Native American resisting the draft.

You know, it was still Vietnam War.

They said that there would be a trial at the federal building.

I went there, I pressed the button to get the elevator, and this huge elevator came up with two big doors opened up.

It was filled with all the Native people from the Southwest in their ceremonial regalia.

Just stood there.

My mouth dropped, and I thought, "wow."

And so I stepped into the elevator.

They made room for me, and they immediately started talking.

And the people who communicated with me were people from Hopi.

were people from Hopi.

And then we went through the whole trial.

At the end of the day, they told me, "Well, you want to come with us at the Intertribal House in Berkeley?"

It was in a big room.

I was the only non-Indian in the whole group.

After we ate, they started drumming and dancing.

So here I am among all of them, dancing with them.

All of a sudden, I get, through my whole body, I felt like.

I was like, blissful and thinking, "Oh my God, I finally got home."

[LAUGHS] They left me an address, and a couple of months later, the same thing happened to me like when I was in Paris, telling me, "It's time to go to Hopi," took off for the reservation.

I said, "I came to see the bean dance."

And I thought after the bean dance that I would leave, and they said, "No, you can sit there if you want to."

So, okay.

This man came and sat right next to me.

He immediately started talking with me.

Well, I didn't know who Loloma was, but that was Loloma.

So he told me, "Would you like to learn how to make jewelry?"

I said, "Of course, of course I do."

That's how I started to make jewelry eventually.

(Mark) Now that Charles is gone and he can't contradict them, everybody claims to have apprenticed with him.

Truthfully, only two, maybe three people did, Verma and her sisters Sherry and Eveli.

(Julia) You could see her influence with Loloma, but then she also influenced him.

(Eveli) It is very essential for our own health and happiness, mental happiness, to find beauty, see beauty, and create beauty.

And I found that through making jewelry and working with stones.

This piece she brought in for me to sell.

It's a snake design.

As you see, I have another snake on.

And it was like, I don't want to make money off it.

I want to keep it forever.

This ring the Hopi mesas just reminds me of being up at Hopi.

(Eveli) I'm working in Loloma style and I use exactly the same material that he was using.

Parallel to that, I was doing a lot of bone work.

So this is like a steak bone, this is a lid, inside there is an empty space.

The first thing we did together was a piece from one of her clients.

A piece of inlay had fallen out and she asked me, "Is this is something you can fix?"

I quickly realized, "Here's the teacher right in front of me."

It was really exciting, kind of getting a peek into her process.

Then the book started looming.

(Lisa) So this book is a manual for her life.

She's showing it to people and saying, "This is how I've lived."

(Rod) She carried a piece of every place she went with her.

When she hit Hopi, it all kind of came together.

(Eveli) Hopi and yoga have been the ground of survival for me as an unmarried woman and as a forever foreigner wherever I am.

Hopi really reconnected me to Earth.

Yoga connected me with the reverence we need to have in everything we do.

Traditionally, before you do a yoga class, you offer it.

And at Hopi, everything you do, you offer.

This is the state of mind in which I created my jewelry.

They were all offerings, every one of them.

I spent a week photographing two or 300 pieces of her works.

She never repeated a single piece.

And every piece had this incredible respect for the materials.

(Lisa) Other jewelers would say, "why are you using that piece of turquoise?

It's mottled or it's cloudy or it's not good quality.

It's not valuable."

She was finding the strengths in their imperfections to tell the story because they looked like clouds or they looked like dappled pools of water and reflections coming off the water.

In formal jewelry, people always use the best quality material, which is fine.

But I was using the stones as pigments.

So I was interested in all the different hues and the different inclusions and really weird stuff that was happening in the stone.

(Mark) Eveli didn't find her artistic vision just to jewelry.

It was about sculpture, drawing.

It was about her approach to life.

(Mark) Eveli did some bronzes, and she's not known for this, and they really kind of represent Eveli.

She says "life's a journey to the center of who you are, and discovering your link to infinity, and how you relate to everything else."

Community is very important to her.

She, at 83, gets together with friends all the time.

She bikes, she hikes, she teaches yoga twice a week.

I wanna be Eveli when I grow up.

[LAUGHS] The significance starts on a void, and it will end on a void.

And the void will circulate throughout, using open passages from one page to the other.

Through these passages, the immense being of the universe, and ceasingly breathes with the deep vibration of tubas, resounding in infinite harmony.

Through these corridors of never-ending life, the great force at work attracts and pulls all living things, giving birth, shaping our lives, and taking us away.

♪ SERENE PIANO MUSIC (Tom) Like what you're seeing on Arizona Illustrated?

Then connect with us on social media for even more Arizona Illustrated.

Got an idea for the show?

A comment or question?

Let us know.

Like, follow and subscribe to Arizona Illustrated on Facebook, Instagram and X.

Before we go, here's a sneak peek at a story we're working on.

(Jim) I bet you didn't couldn't believe that a young man with one leg could shoot par, and another lady who was legally blind could also shoot par.

These students are amazing.

We're all kind of equal when it comes to the course, because we're all playing the same course.

(Anthony) You still gotta read the same putts.

You still gotta make the same shot.

You gotta hit all the same piece of water.

I mean, it's all a challenge, regardless of who you are.

That golf course is the equalizer.

Very good.

Thank you for joining us here on Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara.

We'll see you again next week.