Hey VelaAMattingly,
during my research for my issues, i discovered your problem. Because of my research i can give you the advice: If you are planning on walking on “static Meshes” there is an option that allows you to disable the impact of navigation mesh bound volume on it. In short your AI is ignoring this area.
Open your static Mesh / details panel / navigation / has navigation Data. -> Turn the option “has navigation data” off.
Unfortunalty that’s all i can say…
I hope you need this advice still this year 