Our Affiliated Site: The Tuba Boarding School in Tuba, Arizona

 

facts about tuba boarding school: 

  • Grades Served: Kindergarten – eighth grade
  • Facility Description: A large campus setting with ongoing renovation. There is a main office building, as well as small buildings comprising classrooms and dormitories.
  • Staff: The school employs more than 40 teachers and almost 80 dormitory counselors.
  • Education: Curriculum adheres to Arizona public school standards. Core academic subjects are taught, as well as Navajo history and culture. Only the older generations speak the quickly-fading Navajo language.
  • Medical Care: Provided for the students, as needed, free of charge.
  • Activities: Apart from academic studies, the students enjoy regular activities such as scouting and chess, and outdoor sports such as basketball, track, football, softball, and volleyball.
  • Handcrafts: The school encourages the Navajo children’s remarkable talents at making crafts, particularly in the areas of leather work, bead work, and painting.
  • Basic Needs: As with all of our affiliated sites, our volunteer coordinators determine the individual needs of each sponsored child, and those basic needs are provided to them regularly. Items include but are not limited to clothing, shoes, bedding for the home, hygiene items, medications, eyeglasses, and school supplies — all of which help them overcome the barriers they face living in impoverished households.

The remote community of Tuba City is situated amid the incredible desert beauty of north-eastern Arizona on the Navajo Indian Reservation, less than forty miles from the Grand Canyon. The Reservation comprises more than 27,000 square miles of spectacular but inhospitable countryside, extending into both Utah and New Mexico. Despite its massive scale and rich cultural heritage, residents of the Reservation are desperately poor. There is virtually no employment, and broken homes, alcoholism, and inadequate food are constant manifestations of poverty.

For this reason, the Tuba City Boarding School serves as a beacon of hope to its surrounding community, providing children here with a quality education — the key to breaking the cycle of poverty so that students may rise above the difficult economic circumstances from which they come.