Pine Hill Schools (New Mexico)

Pine Hill Schools is a K-12[1] tribal school system operated by the Ramah Navajo School Board, Inc. (RNSB), in association with the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE), in Pine Hill, New Mexico.[2]

It is on the Ramah Navajo Reservation and was originally known as Ramah Navajo High School.

In January 1995 it had 460 Ramah Navajo students.[3]

History

Therefore, the Ramah Navajo Indian School Board was established on February 6, 1970, by parents seeking a local schooling option as Gallup-McKinley County Schools had closed the local Ramah High School in 1968, which forced Ramah Navajo teenagers to board at distant Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) boarding schools once again after having the option of local schooling since 1954. The members of the school board traveled to Washington, DC on February 25, 1970, to lobby members of Congress and the BIA. After BIA commissioner Louis Bruce promised assistance, the board members went to New York City and got funding from private foundations. On September 12, 1970, the school was dedicated in the former Ramah High School. The lease at that location ended in 1975, so the school moved to Pine Hill before electricity, telephone, and water services there started. Students voted in the current name of the school. The dedication was held on September 26, 1975.[4]

The establishment of a tribally-run school was inspiration for the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, which allowed tribes to take over schools from the BIA.[5]

In January 1995 the Ramah Navajo chapter and the associated Ramah Navajo School Board sued the New Mexico Public Education Department and the Gallup McKinley County Schools, arguing that the defendants breached the tribe's sovereignty by allowing the school district to extend school bus services further into the tribal grounds and therefore taking students who would have attended Pine Hill schools and violating a previous agreement between the tribe and the school boards of Cibola County and McKinley County. The state had ordered the school district to move the bus stops closer to the students' houses.[3]

Campus

The kindergarten opened in 1976, and the middle school opened in 1989.[4]

The school system has a dormitory, which opened in 2007; 66 units of employee housing, which opened in 1995; and a childcare center, which opened in 1993 and had a new modular unit in 2007. There is also a multipurpose building which opened in 1989.[4]

See also

References
  1. "Pine Hill Schools". National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved 2021-07-20.
  2. "Pine Hill Schools". Bureau of Indian Education. Retrieved 2021-07-20.
  3. Obsatz, Sharyn (1995-01-10). "Navajos sue over student numbers". The Santa Fe New Mexican. Santa Fe, New Mexico. p. 1B. - Clipping from Newspapers.com.
  4. "RNSB History". Ramah Navajo School Board. Retrieved 2021-07-20.
  5. Linthicum, Leslie (1995-03-06). "Navajos Say County Is Stealing Students". Albuquerque Journal. Albuquerque, New Mexico. pp. A1, A3. - Clipping of first and of second page at Newspapers.com.

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