{"id":46711,"date":"2021-05-20T01:17:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-20T07:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/ute-mountain-ute-tribe-awarded-2-7-million-education-grant\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:33:33","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:33:33","slug":"ute-mountain-ute-tribe-awarded-2-7-million-education-grant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/ute-mountain-ute-tribe-awarded-2-7-million-education-grant\/","title":{"rendered":"Ute Mountain Ute tribe awarded $2.7 million education grant"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Tina
Tina King-Washington is one of the leading proponents of a new Ute Mountain Ute charter school in Towaoc. In this photo from 2015, King-Washington gives new teachers for Montezuma-Cortez School District Re-1 a tour of the Ute Mountain Ute education center.<\/span>The Journal file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe has been awarded a $2.8 million grant to support education efforts and the new Kwiyagat Community Academy charter school.<\/p>\n

The grant is from Colorado\u2019s Response Innovation and Student Equity fund, derived from the federal CARES Act.<\/p>\n

RISE was created in Sept. 2020 to support high need schools, and address education challenges related to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

Based in Towaoc, the Kwiyagat Academy is opening this fall with 30 students in kindergarten and the first grade. It will focus on academics, and project-based learning with an emphasis on teaching Ute culture and language. Kwiyagat means bear in Ute.<\/p>\n

\"Ute
Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Chairman Manuel Heart sits at his desk in the Tribal Office. The Ute Mountain Ute tribal flag hangs in the background. As a sovereign nation, the tribe is working toward self-sufficiency, including in education, Heart said.<\/span>Emily Hayes\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

During a Jan. 26 press conference announcing the grant award, Ute Mountain Ute Chairman Manuel Heart discussed the tribe\u2019s new school and education plans.<\/p>\n

He said three-quarters of Ute Mountain students go to public schools in Cortez, and the rest go to boarding schools in Washington, Oklahoma and California.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to bring it home and create a curriculum that really meets the needs of our students and helps them understand their culture and where they come from,\u201d Heart said.<\/p>\n

He said it is especially important in a rural area like the Four Corners to have a curriculum for students that includes the modern technology and instruction they will need to succeed.<\/p>\n

Keystone Policy Center has been working with Ute Mountain Ute leaders for nearly two years on the new charter school for the reservation.<\/p>\n

The center\u2019s senior policy director, Ernest House Jr., is a Ute Mountain Ute tribal member and former executive director of the Colorado Commission on Indian Affairs.<\/p>\n

As part of the school planning process, Keystone brought together tribal elders, community partners and students from early childhood through higher education.<\/p>\n

\"Educator
Educator Crystin Furse tutors Robert Bancroft, 7, of Towaoc in this file photo. The Ute Mountain Ute Education Center has partnered with Fort Lewis College\u2019s Teacher Education Department on a tutoring program that helps students with online learning platforms.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A central pillar of the plan is called \u201cGrowing Ute Steam,\u201d according to Ute Mountain education officials. It aims to integrate Ute arts, language, and culture with programs of science, technology, engineering, Native American arts, and math in order to prepare students for the future workplace.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn past generations of our grandfathers and parents, a lot of our students were taken away from their homes and taught to assimilate into the system,\u201d Heart said. \u201cI think while each one of us are looking to streamline education to meet the needs of our future, we also want to include the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

For information, visit the Kwiyagat Community Academy<\/a> website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Funding will support reservation charter school<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[120,685,155,28,29,144,547],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-46711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado","tag-coronavirus-covid-19","tag-education","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-towaoc","tag-ute-mountain-ute-indian-tribe"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46711"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86995,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46711\/revisions\/86995"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46711"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=46711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}