Working with schools on the Navajo and Hopi Nations

During a week-long visit to both the Navajo Nation and Hopi Nation, Reader to Reader's executive director David Mazor met with school officials from a host of schools across the 27,000 square-mile region.

One of the schools new to Reader to Reader is Nizhoni Accelerated Academy in Tuba City, Arizona, a town of 8,000 in the Painted Dessert area on the western end of the Navajo Nation.

Tuba City has 49% unemployment and one-third of its residents do not have electricity or running water in their homes.

The alternative school, which is a public school in the Tuba City Unified School District, is headed by principal Henry Henderson. 

Mr. Henderson was previously the principal at Navajo Pine High School in Navajo, New Mexico.

  

Reader to Reader has a decade-long partnership with Navajo Pine, including having brought a group of Navajo students to Amherst, Massachusetts on a trip chaperoned by Mr. Henderson.

"We are so pleased to work with Mr. Henderson once again to boost the resources of the Nizhoni Accelerated Academy," David Mazor said. "We look forward to greatly increasing the number of books available for their students, and we also hope to involve their students in our Read, Think. Share Mentoring Program."

Reader to Reader's Navajo outreach work is funded through the generous support of the Fordham Street Foundation, the Hiatt Family Foundation, and Jean and Lynn Miller.