contract school

Navajo Studies Department

Year

Created in 1966 as the first contract school in the country, Rough Rock is a Navajo-run institution that combines traditional Navajo learning with Western education. Its Navajo Studies curriculum, which addresses such subjects as culture, history, and language, was named by the Tribal Council as the only "Navajo Studies" program on the reservation. Today, students from any of the Nation's chapters are eligible to attend. As the first school to be controlled entirely by a local Indian community, Rough Rock Community School paved the way for the approximately 200 contract/grant schools that have subsequently opened on Indian reservations across the United States.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

"Navajo Studies Department". Honoring Nations: 1999 Honoree. The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 2000. Report.

Permissions

This Honoring Nations report is featured on the Indigenous Governance Database with the permission of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development.