Fri, 25 Sep 2026 13:32:52 -0700WeeblySat, 14 Jun 2014 01:20:18 GMThttps://www.ethicalleadership.org/overcoming-historical-divides-eastern-cibola-county-new-mexico/overcoming-historical-divides-eastern-cibola-county-new-mexicoCollective Leadership Principle Learned: How to cultivate courage and patience to overcome historical divides and work together across Pueblo and Hispanic jurisdictions and cultures.

Outcome: Brought two Pueblo and two Hispanic Land Grant communities together to build new high school that reflected all four cultures.

Outcome: Acoma Pueblo formed new Department of Education to give this Native American community direct control over the education of their children.

Collective Leadership Principle Learned: How to cultivate courage and patience to overcome historical divides and work together across Pueblo and Hispanic jurisdictions and cultures.

New Mexico Community Foundation and Laguna Department of Education. The communities in eastern Cibola County, New Mexico are some of the oldest in North America. Today’s residents have a complicated history of different cultures living together in the same region. Residents include Laguna and Acoma Native Americans as well as a smaller group of Hispanics in Cubero and Seboyeta – descendants of the original encounter with Spanish over 400 years ago. All four communities are dedicated to the educational success of their children.

How are they improving the opportunities and success of their children?
The Pueblo and Hispanic communities of eastern Cibola County realized that their children were not doing as well as students in the Western part of the county. They discovered that their school funding was considerably lower in their part of the county. They realized they needed to work together to create a different future, so they formed a collaboration (see KLCC Bridge article below) to gain funding a build a new high school. As they built the new school, they incorporated unique aspects of each culture into the architecture of the building.

They viewed the opening of this new high school in their community as an opportunity to help shape a new collaboration between local community leaders and educators. They formed a broader coalition of community members from the four communities. One of their specific goals was to improve the integration of the Hispanic and Native communities’ knowledge, languages and cultures into the school system’s curricula.

They brokered a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between the boards of Grants and Cibola County School Districts, Pueblo of Laguna Department of Education, Sky City Community School, Pueblo of Acoma Commission on Education and St. Joseph’s School Board, which commits the five entities to meeting regularly to discuss ways to more successfully transition students from “feeder” schools to the Laguna-Acoma High School. They also work collectively to improve the educational process for students attending schools in Eastern Cibola County.

The Laguna Pueblo had its own Department of Education to provide greater tribal authority for the education of Laguna youth. During the process of collaboration, the sister community of Acoma formed a new department of education. Their focus was on teaching the Keres language and incorporating culture into the curriculum.

Creating collective leadership capacity. It is not easy to bring people together when they are separated by hundreds of years of living side-by-side in different cultural communities. The New Mexico communities learned how to find a strong shared purpose of improving the lives for all their children, to help them build new, more interconnected relationships.
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