Our Schools

BIE has responsibility for 184 elementary and secondary schools and dormitories as well as 24 colleges, our Bureau-operated post-secondary institutions. Our colleges, schools and dormitories are located on 63 reservations in 23 states across the United States serving approximately 60,000 students representing 238 different tribes. One can visualize this wide-geographic span by watching the sun rise on the Passamaquoddy reservation, the first stream of daylight to touch the United States on the east cost of Maine and then watching the sun set on the Quileute reservation, the last stream of daylight to touch the United States on the west coast of Washington.

The majority of the schools are located in Arizona and New Mexico, with most of these schools located on the Navajo Reservation, but also including the Pueblos and Apaches of New Mexico and the Pimas, TohonoO'odhams, Hopis and Apaches of Arizona. The area with the second greatest number of schools encompasses the states of North Dakota and South Dakota on the reservations of the Sioux Nation, Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara and Ojibwe. The area with the third greatest number of schools is located in the northwest region of the United States.

The remaining schools are scattered on reservations throughout the United States from the Seminole and Miccosukee in the everglades of southern Florida to the Choctaw in Mississippi and Cherokee in North Carolina; from the Saulte Ste. Marie Chippewa and Potowatomie in the upper peninsula of Michigan to the Sac and Fox of Iowa and the Kickapoo of Kansas; from the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma to the Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw and tribes located in the southwestern area of Oklahoma; from the Saboba in southern California to Muckleshoot near the Puget Sound of Washington.