Polygamous Utah Town Faces Unique Challenges Amid Pandemic

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the polygamous town of Hildale, Utah, faces unique economic and educational challenges. Residents like Ross Chatwin, who has five children attending public schools, express concerns about the quality of education at home compared to what they would receive in school. “We want them to be in school again,” Chatwin said, highlighting the difficulties of remote learning in a community with limited internet service.

Chatwin, who left the religion nearly two decades ago, noted that the enclave has changed significantly since then. “A lot of the families that were supporting Warren Jeffs have now moved away,” he said. “The people that are here don’t really have any fondness for Warren Jeffs anyway. They don’t want to even talk about him.” While Jeffs remains the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, his influence over the residents has waned as he is incarcerated in Texas.

The economic struggles of Hildale have been exacerbated by the pandemic. Chatwin described the community as “economically struggling” and noted that the closure of businesses and schools has intensified existing hardships. “There’s a lot of people that are jobless,” he said. “We’re economically struggling here, and we were before. Now it just made it 10 times worse.”

At the two public schools in Hildale, 100 percent of students qualify for free and reduced lunch, according to district officials. Steven Dunham, director of communications for the Washington County School District, described the shift from a “very low income” community to one with “zero income.” “When you drive through those streets of Hildale, it’s very clear that this is a community that is struggling,” he said.

The school district withdrew from Hildale in 2000 after Warren Jeffs instructed his followers not to attend public school. The district reopened the elementary school in 2013 and added a high school in 2015, marking a significant shift in the community’s relationship with public education.

Source: Read the original report