The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe’s Kwiyagat Community Academy has added fourth grade to its roster of class offerings, with the goal of offering kindergarten through 12th grade in the future.
The school, which opened in September 2021, is Colorado’s first charter located on a reservation. It was authorized by the Colorado Charter School Institute.
Kwiyagat, which means “bear” in the Ute language, started out with the capacity to teach kindergarten through second grade in its first year. Now, nearly three years later, the school is adding fourth grade to its roster after the addition of third grade during the 2023-24 school year.
The school had 57 students enrolled during the last school year.
One of the things that makes the school unique, other than its location, is the school’s commitment to keeping the Ute language and culture alive.
Within the walls of the school, students are not only taught the fundamentals of reading, writing, English, math and science, but are also taught the Ute language, history and culture.
“I wanted to include in the curriculum the history of Native Americans and the Ute tribes in general,” Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Chairman Manual Heart told The Journal. “That’s why we focus our curriculum on the history of who we are. If you look at public schools today, they have hardly anything on Native Americans … there’s really nothing about tribes and how they went through some challenges.”
Heart shared that the tribe’s partnership with a linguist has resulted in a Ute language dictionary that currently has over 8,000 words and counting.
Before active efforts began to record the Ute language and create spellings for the words, the language was considered to be on the brink of extinction.
While still considered endangered, the language is coming back to life in the lives of the Kwiyagat students.
“The young students are actually learning to speak the words and spell it,” Heart said. “We’re starting to spell it now. Our tribe has never been able to write it … we’re really trying to create a new curriculum to expand the language a bit more.”
Heart said they are still looking for more teachers to work in the school. Teachers do not have to be Native to teach in the school.
The tribe is also hoping to continue expanding the school grounds and student population, with the eventual goal of having a school with kindergarten through 12th grade, a trade school and junior college all on tribal land.
Some of the areas Heart mentioned he’d like to see taught in the future junior college would be political sciences, health degrees and prelaw.
For the trade school, Heart envisions students being taught how to be electricians, HVAC, plumbers, carpenters, construction workers, agriculture workers and more.
“We’re really moving forward as any other city or county, helping families move forward and educating their children so that they go into a great career,” Heart said.
The tribe has also adopted a “living document resolution” that will help build the future “education quadrant” of the tribe that Heart said could take place over the course of the “next several years or decades.”
“We’re building a campus,” Heart said. “It is a living document that this council or current administration passed, really envisioning how we’ll be moving forward into the future.”
