Rough Rock Demonstration School

1966

Once a federally-run boarding school, the Rough Rock community successfully campaigned to gain control of the school. The resulting school centered Navajo cultural knowledge, and allowed students to learn in their language – a huge shift from the English-only boarding school policies. Galena Dick, one of the school’s first teachers, described the institution as “a place for Navajos to be Navajos.” More broadly, it helped set the stage for a country-wide movement towards Indigenous language revitalization within education. 

Image credit: Virginia Hoffman