DEAP’s founders sought to create a school that is driven by community needs and hopes for empowering our youth and families. To identify community needs and hopes, planning team members conducted several planning meetings, a survey, and door-to-door conversations with community members. Through consultation with local youth, tribal leaders, educators, and elders, we believe we have developed a strong mission and goals to target community needs. DEAP will provide students with not only educational opportunities but also opportunities to transform the community through focused planning and action. The consultation with community members provided the foundational focus areas of DEAP. Many community members stressed the need for an education that would give students skills to transfer to the community. They identified a need for opportunities in interacting with the land and people through community service and action, agriculture education, wellness and Diné culture revitalization.
DEAP is a community-led, state-chartered school that opened in September 2015 and serves grades 6-8 on the Navajo Nation. DEAP embraces Navajo culture through an agricultural and science-based curriculum aligned with Navajo content and state standards. Our mission is to help students develop a sense of place, tradition, and wellbeing, preparing and empowering youth to transform their community and the world around them. DEAP is a member of the NACA Inspired Schools Network (NISN).
Our students will be able to use their cultural, vocational and academic skills to analyze their surroundings in order to plan the transformation of their community and their world, live a healthy life and use the tools they were taught to achieve holistic wellness, use their understanding of identity, and its impact on local and global communities to promote the restoration and perpetuation of Diné culture, and honor the history and the legacy of the Dzi? Dit ?’ooí area by consciously balancing the needs of the land with the needs of the people.
Shepard Springs Boulevard/Mill Road