First-grade student RedSky Lang draws on the whiteboard during a Ute language vocabulary game led by Betty Howe, a tribal elder and Ute language teacher. (Shannon Mullane, Special to The Colorado Trust)
To read more of Mark Stevens' article, please click here.
Twelve miles south of Cortez, in the southwest corner of Colorado, a right turn on Mike Wash Road leads three miles up to the town of Towaoc on the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation.
Towaoc is pronounced toy-awk. The town is due east of the cliffs that form the “toes” of the sacred Sleeping Ute Mountain, a 9,984-foot peak with a profile that is said to resemble a Ute Indian chief resting on his back with his arms folded. About 1,200 people live in Towaoc. It’s 22 miles as the crow flies to the Four Corners National Monument.
Kwiyagat Community Academy, or KCA, opened in September 2021, is Colorado’s first charter school located on a Native reservation. In the Ute language, kwiyagat means “bear.” The hope is that the school will keep the Ute language and culture alive and strengthen the Towaoc community, too. Towaoc is the poorest ZIP code in Colorado, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, with 37% of families living below the poverty line.
The first 16 months suggest the school is taking root, with enrollment and community-wide enthusiasm as the key measures of success. The school is a lively focal point of activity on the southern end of the small downtown square.
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