Trust for Public Land and Santa Fe Indian School Celebrate Opening of New Tribal Schoolyard Honoring Indigenous Culture and Connection to Land
SANTA FE – Trust for Public Land (TPL), in partnership with Santa Fe Indian School (SFIS), Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIE), and local partners, today celebrated the grand opening of the first phase of a newly transformed Tribal Community Schoolyard—a space designed to honor Indigenous culture, promote outdoor learning, and strengthen community connections to land and place.
Announced in 2022, the pilot program between the BIE and TPL was designed to engage the school and Tribal Community to create and steward nine Tribal Community Schoolyards.
The SFIS schoolyard is the first Tribal Community Schoolyard through this partnership, of which TPL is also a national pass-through partner of the U.S. Forest Service to reimagine these outdoor spaces with an emphasis on planning, planting, and maintaining tree canopy.
“Through the program, we’re honoring Indigenous knowledge and community leadership in every step of the design process,” said Dr. Jennifer Santry, Director of Trust for Public Land’s Tribal Community Schoolyards Program. “The Santa Fe Indian Schoolyard is a powerful example of how schools can be centers of culture, learning, and connection to nature.”
“Kids at Santa Fe Indian School, and across New Mexico, deserve learning and community spaces that connect them to who they are and where they come from. This project will accomplish exactly that, creating an outdoor space that embraces students’ heritage and well-being,” said Senator Heinrich. “I’ll continue for advocating at the national and state level to make this a reality for all of our students.”
Founded in 1890 and owned and operated by the 19 Pueblos of New Mexico, The Santa Fe Indian School sits on a 115-acre campus that houses the academic buildings, community buildings, and serves 700 students. Yet, the school is often inundated by flash flooding that renders classrooms and dormitories unusable.
Earlier this year, the Environmental Protection Agency awarded the school a grant for their ‘Water is Life’ vision to make the campus more resilient to flash flooding and create opportunities for culturally relevant outdoor learning and recreation. Though this grant was terminated, the partnership swiftly identified alternative funding sources to advance a portion of the ‘Water is Life’ vision in the first phase of the Tribal Community Schoolyard.
Students from the SFIS designed their schoolyard as a place for recreation and to celebrate Indigenous foodways. The new schoolyard features outdoor classrooms, native gardens, gathering spaces, and play areas inspired by traditional ecological knowledge and local Pueblo design principles. The project reflects SFIS’s commitment to education rooted in cultural preservation, environmental stewardship, and community wellness.
Dr. Yann Lussiez, SFIS Middle School Principal, said, “I love the look of it, I think it’s very original. I love that it was built with cultural tradition in mind. It’s nice to see the students interact with each other more and have fun.”
The schoolyard demonstrates how collaborative design rooted in Indigenous leadership can strengthen education, climate resilience, and cultural preservation. As future phases are completed, the hope for the space is that it will serve not only as an extension of the classroom but also as a community gathering place where generations can connect through shared language, ceremony, and land stewardship.
“This project was designed with, by, and for the community, ensuring that students can learn in a space that reflects their heritage and strengthens their connection to the land,” continued Santry.
Funding for the schoolyard came through the Forested Community Schoolyards Pass-Through Program, a partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Kellog Foundation.
TPL is working to make Community Schoolyards, school grounds that improve health, climate resilience and learning outcomes, the standard across the country. TPL’s partnership with BIE and the SFIS demonstrates the power of this model in Tribal communities and offers insight as we scale this work.
To date, TPL has created over 350 Community Schoolyards projects nationwide, working with communities to transform often vacant and depressing school lots into vibrant green spaces that improve student education outcomes, create climate resilience, and provide close-to-home park access for communities during off-school hours.
One such project is located in Chiloquin, Oregon, which serves as the capital of the Klamath Nation. Involvement from students and the community was integral to the design for the new space, which includes a restored meadow, walking paths, a covered basketball court, an outdoor classroom, and artwork that celebrates the Klamath language. The success and excitement generated from the Chiloquin schoolyard transformation has served as a model for the Tribal Community Schoolyard Pilot Program.
This effort also builds from more than two decades of partnership between Trust for Public Land and more than 70 tribes and native groups to protect tribal homelands and culturally significant places including ancestral burial grounds, fishing sites, and lands that supply traditional foods and medicines. All told, TPL has protected or helped return more than 200,000 acres of land to tribes and native groups.
About Trust for Public Land
Trust for Public Land (TPL) is a national nonprofit that works to connect everyone to the benefits and joys of the outdoors. As a leader in equitable access to the outdoors, TPL works with communities to create parks and protect public land where they are needed most. Since 1972, TPL has protected more than 4 million acres of public land, created more than 5,504 parks, trails, schoolyards, and iconic outdoor places, raised $111 billion in public funding for parks and public lands, and connected more than 9.7 million people to the outdoors. To learn more, visit tpl.org.
