Navajo Preparatory School

Navajo Preparatory School is a college preparatory school located in Farmington, New Mexico. The school is fully sanctioned by the Navajo Nation since 1991 when the previous Navajo Academy closed due to lack of funding. The campus is currently undergoing a remodelling project for the past few years that includes new dormitories, classrooms, and an athletic sports complex. The school colors are black, turquoise, yellow, and white which represent the four seasons in Navajo Culture and the mascot is the eagle. The previous school colors for Navajo Mission and Navajo Academy were red, white, and blue.HistoryNavajo Prep was also known as Navajo Methodist Mission, Navajo Mission Academy and Navajo Academy .Navajo Methodist MissionIn 1891, Mary L. Eldridge and Miss Mary Raymond were sent by the Women’s Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church to build a mission to administer to the spiritual needs of the Navajos in Jewett, known today as Hogback, New Mexico. Mrs. Mary Eldridge Tripp initially opened her cabin in 1896 as a day school for Navajo children. In 1899, a three-bedroom school house opened in Hogback, New Mexico. The school house consisted of three rooms. Two rooms were used as dorms; one for a boy’s side and the other for a girl’s side, the last room which was in the middle of the two rooms was used as the classroom. In 1899, a boarding school was attached to the school building. There were thirteen Navajo children enrolled as boarding students and twenty three white students as day students. From 1896 to 1903, the cabin that started the United Methodist Mission School was expanded. There was a new school house, new dormitory, and a new dining room built. Native American children that attended the school were so far away from home that they had trouble adjusting to the life they now lived by. Teachers would get frustrated not at the children, but rather at the fact that their teaching techniques did not seem to be effective.