A new elementary school is desperately needed in the small southern Utah town of Bluff.
The current facility was built in the 1950s. It doesn’t have enough space for the growing student body. And its septic system could fail “any day,” said San Juan County School District superintendent Ron Nielson.
But finding a suitable spot to relocate has been complicated.
The district’s first choice, a small lot near State Route 163, abutted an ancient American Indian burial ground — making it unacceptable for many Navajo families whose kids make up roughly 90 percent of the school’s enrollment. After three years of heated debate and stalled construction plans, negotiations are again underway to secure a second site.
The school board is interested in a 22-acre parcel owned by the Utah Navajo Trust Fund where the tribe hosts an annual fair in the fall. Already there are concerns.
The newly proposed site sits in a dry, sandy creek bed that could be hazardous in a flash flood, fears Navajo Nation Council delegate Davis Filfred. “That’s kind of a wash area,” he added. “If that wash comes out it might wash away the construction.”
Archaeological and geological appraisals could be finished in four to six weeks, Nielson said, giving school officials a better sense of any possible snags.
Bluff, which recently incorporated, sits at the doorstep of the new Shash Jaa National Monument, the 130,000-acre preserve President Donald Trump carved out of the former Bears Ears National Monument. Five tribes had fought for the original, larger designation to protect antiquities and sacred land. Some feel that same fight underscores the efforts to rebuild the elementary school.
About three decades ago, the remains of 18 American Indians were removed west of Bluff to make way for highway construction. The first site for the new elementary school, Filfred believes, would have been too close to the excavated sites where Ancestral Puebloans, or Anasazi, lived centuries ago. He’s visited the tract and saw pottery and other artifacts on the ground.
“We don’t want any construction there,” he said. “It’s like going to a cemetery. … That’s where our ancestors have been.”
After the school district purchased the land for $500,000 in 2015, the Navajo Utah Commission requested that officials find another location. “The cultural beliefs and practices of the Navajo people are strong, enduring and meaningful in particularization to disturbance and disrespect of archaeological sites,” it wrote, in part, in a resolution.
Tribal leaders also sat down with Gov. Gary Herbert in a closed meeting this week to restate their stance and ask for his support.
“We’re not planning to build on sacred sites — or to allow that,” said Antonio Ramirez, spokesman for the Navajo Nation’s Office of the President, after the discussion Monday.
If the controversy is not resolved soon and a new school built, Bluff’s kids may have to be bused to Montezuma Creek or Blanding. That could add an additional 20 minutes to a commute that’s already an hour or more for some Navajo students living on the reservation.
The current Bluff Elementary School is stable for now, superintendent Nielson said, but the septic system was last overhauled in 2001 and only expected to last five years. There’s also no room to expand.
“We just feel like a new day could bring a big problem,” he said.
Nielson believes the location near the wash is “a very realistic option.” Filfred suggests the school be built on the reservation so it’s more centrally located for the roughly 120 students enrolled there. Both agree the present site is unfit.
So far, nothing is binding. But if there aren’t any problems with the wash location, district officials intend to swap the parcel for a plot they own in Monument Valley that the trust fund currently leases for a medical and dental clinic. It isn’t clear what they’d do with the property near the burial ground.
Utah state Treasurer David Damschen, who serves as chairman of the trust fund board, has helped broker the deal and believes “it’s time to move on” and vacate the aging elementary school.
“[The students] deserve a much better facility than what they’ve got.”
