Tah named Navajo Nation superintendent

 

A ndrew Tah started as an education coordinator in 1972. It is an unceremonious beginning to a career in education nearly four decades long, which has led Tah to becoming the new Navajo Nation superintendent of schools.

Andrew Tah

On Friday, March 20, the Navajo Nation Board of Education selected Tah to head the tribe's effort to improve reservation schools, which began with a major reform of its education laws in 2005. As superintendent, he will head the Department of Diné Education.

Tah, 60, currently lives in Tuba City where he serves as superintendent of Greyhills Academy High School. He is expected to report for his first day at his new job April 6. The board of education is currently working on details of his employment contract, including his salary and contract length.

He was among three finalists interviewed by the board. Board President Jimmy Begay did not return a request for an interview, but Tah speculated on why the board favored him.

"It was probably all of my experience," he said. "Most of my experience is in grant schools and Title X emphasizes working with grant schools. That's probably what gave me an edge."

It's true, if there ever was an expert in grant schools - those that were previously run by the BIA but are now under control of the tribe using federal funds - it would be Tah.

In 1985, he oversaw the transition of the old Tuba City High School into one of the tribe's first grant schools, now called Greyhills Academy High School.

"He was the one who initiated the grant school," said Robert Yazzie, vice president of the Greyhills board of directors. "He's the one who pushed it through the long process."

Tah did so with the intent to create a school that combines both mainstream curriculum with traditional Navajo tenets. Several employees of the school say this has been his major emphasis over the years.

"He always envisioned Greyhills to be a Navajo school where culture and language are honored and delivered to students," said Principal Marie Morales. "We appreciate that vision."

Tah also wanted to create a viable alternative to the current Tuba City High School, the local public school.

Greyhills, Tah said, was designed to offer a combination of vocational and college preparatory courses. The school currently includes a program that allows students to take classes from Coconino Community College, earning up to 12 college credits before graduating high school.

Tah, who is originally from Many Farms, Ariz., has spent most of his career at the Greyhills, though his first job was with the Navajo Nation's Division of Education, which eventually became the Department of Diné Education. He started at Tuba City High, as Greyhills was then called, in 1973.

From 1982 to 1984, he served as principal at Many Farms High School and returned to Tuba City High in 1984. The following year, he led the school as it transformed into a grant school, a name deriving from the federal grants that are issued to the tribe by the Bureau of Indian Education to fund the former BIA schools.

From 1992 to 2002, Tah left Greyhills to serve as education program administrator with the federal Office of Indian Education for the Navajo Region. Outside of that period, he has led Greyhills Academy, using what he hopes is a solid combination of mainstream curricula and Navajo culture to improve student achievement.

Good results

Judging from BIE figures, his philosophy works.

Of the Navajo Nation's 66 federally funded schools, including grant and contract schools, less than 10 percent currently make adequate yearly progress, the federal benchmark for academic achievement.

Of the schools that do meet AYP, Greyhills Academy has made the mark five of the past six years.

It's more than just the curriculum, Tah said.

"I know the day I report in, we're going to start running," Tah said of the duties that await him.

Among his priorities to help improve learning in Dinétah's ailing schools. Tah said he'd like to focus on instructional development - teaching teachers more effective methods of working with students.

"It all boils down to what the teachers are instructing the students and how they actually put it to use," he said. "Working with the teachers, that's where the action is at. We have to make sure that students are happy and enjoy what they are learning, that they enjoy being in school."

However, there is also the other side of school management, the business end. Throughout the country, schools are feeling the global economic crisis. Locally, public school districts are facing deep budget cuts.

That is not the case for Greyhills Academy, Morales said.

"We are actually hiring for additional positions," she said.

Of course there are plenty of differences between one federally funded school and an entire school district, but Morales is willing to bet that much of Greyhill's good fortune comes from Tah's mastery over budgets.

"The man has a calculator for a mind," Morales said. "He knows budgets, he always finds a way to make the budget follow the goal."

Regina Hale, acting federal project director, manages the school's federal grants. During her time in the position, she has seen Tah find federal and state money for the school. He is also very strict in following grant guidelines, which require grantees to follow specific rules with the money or risk losing it.

The same goes for company time.

"He is a time person," Hale said. "He expects you to work. If he tells you to get the work done, the work should be done that day."

Still, Tah's staff said his direct management approach is effective, with few if any complaints filed against him.

Frances Begaye, Greyhills humanities dean, said Tah closely follows the written procedures, thereby reducing grounds for complaints about political favoritism.

"He doesn't make arbitrary decisions," Begaye said. "He looks at the law and interprets it, so it's outside of any kind of emotional or political system."

Robert Yazzie, vice chairman of the Greyhills board, agreed, saying personnel matters are always handled by Tah and never reach the board.

"He handles those pretty good," Yazzie said. "He sits down with the parents or the teachers and it never reaches the board's attention. Everything was resolved by him."

Among his other first items of duty, Tah said he plans to work on securing some of the education money set aside in the federal stimulus package.

"It'll be a lot of reporting and working, we're going to start off in a good pace," Tah said. "Oh yeah, I'll enjoy it."

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