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.