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The San Carlos Unified School District has worked to recruit teachers with deep connections to the San Carlos Apache Reservation and who represent the community they serve.
From classes created to preserve Apache language and culture to general education classes, many instructors are products of the SCUSD system or have lived on the San Carlos Reservation for the majority of their lives.
Betty Kitcheyan teaches Apache language in the District and also at San Carlos Apache College. A White Mountain Apache Tribe member from Cibecue, Kitcheyan moved to San Carlos in 1988 after marrying a member of the San Carlos Tribe.
Shortly after the move, she applied to the school district and was hired as a teachers assistant. After receiving encouragement from her coworkers, Kitcheyan began taking summer classes at the University of Arizona to earn her teaching degree.
Given that she had three children to raise, it was difficult for her to spend so much time away from home, so when Prescott College was looking for students to participate in a new remote-learning program, she signed up.
“They didn’t call it ‘online’ back then, so I had to recruit teachers with masters degrees to teach the courses I needed,” Kitcheyan says. “It was all here in San Carlos, so they would get the syllabus and all the materials they needed from the college in order to teach me.”
In 1996, she graduated from Prescott College with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education. Former San Carlos Chairwoman Kathy Kitcheyan, who was principal at San Carlos High School at the time, asked Betty Kitcheyan to teach Apache history at the school.
She transitioned to teaching Apache language at Rice Elementary and eventually retired in 2016. But Kitcheyan recently returned part-time to teach Apache language and native arts and crafts to high schoolers.
While feedback from her students has been positive, Kitcheyan says teaching traditional language and culture can be difficult because of access to cell phones and other technology that is largely based in the English language.
“Last semester, I was having a tough time because they always want to be on their phones,” Kitcheyan says. “But it seems like they’re doing better this semester and I have more students really paying attention.”
Kitcheyan works in tandem with Joyce Johnson, an Apache language expert who was raised on the Reservation and attended SCUSD from K through 12.
Johnson studied Native American Curriculum Development, American Indian Studies, and Reading, Language and Culture at the U of A and holds a B.S. in Early Childhood Development, Family and Consumer Resource. She has worked in education for 30-plus years, teaching Pre-K through college, and is the former Language Preservation Coordinator for the San Carlos Apache Tribe.
“My aim is to help develop and improve students’ Apache skills, as well as interest in the culture, as I am passionate about my heritage,” Johnson says.
After attending several schools throughout her childhood and graduating from Globe High School, Johnson earned her first degree from U of A in 1989 and returned to the Reservation with dreams of running a daycare center.
When that did not pan out, she went to work for the school district as a teaching assistant, but the following year found herself in charge of a Special Education classroom filled with toddlers aged 2-5.
“I went in there not knowing anything about special ed students,” Johnson says. “I started teaching these little babies while I weaned them from the bottle and changed diapers.”
Johnson was soon asked to teach Apache language and participated in a summer program creating a PreK through 12 grade curriculum with a group that included Betty Kitcheyan.
She began teaching at the primary school level, but moved to middle school but eventually joined Kitcheyan at the high school.
Johnson left the school district in the early 2000s, but returned in 2012 to once again pair up with Kitcheyan.
Throughout her career, Johnson has worked with anthropologists and linguists at several universities throughout the country, from New York to Fairbanks, Alaska translating and interpreting ancient texts that very few living people understood.
“The reason I work with universities, linguists, anthropologists, history majors and social studies is I want these things recorded, so that it’s saved,” Johnson says. “I’m not going to be here forever and if I can transfer that knowledge, in 100 years it’s gonna be there even if I won’t be here.”
Sisters Quannah and Tawnya Stevens are both lifelong residents of the San Carlos Reservation and have supported each other throughout their lives and careers.
Elder sister Quannah teaches math and coaches cross-country and seventh grade boys basketball at Rice Middle School. She attended Rice Elementary through SCHS and spent two years at U of A, thanks in large part to her father’s love of Arizona Wildcats basketball, which had just won its national championship.
“My dad was a big U of A fan, but it probably wasn’t what I wanted to do,” Stevens says. “I was torn about that, so I spoke with my pastor’s wife and my mom and a couple of ladies from our church and they encouraged me to find a job until I can figure out what I wanted to do.”
She ended up working at the special education preschool and said that was when “the spark” for education came to her.
Much to her father’s chagrin, Quannah continued her education at Arizona State University, where she earned her teaching degree, graduating with honors and magna cum laude. She is currently working to earn her masters in counseling from Grand Canyon University, as there is a need for student counselors in the District.
Her love of sports also led to her coaching position. As a San Carlos student, she represented the state in a basketball tournament in Belgium, but her father drew the line when she wanted to go to a volleyball tournament in Australia.
An unfortunate injury in her senior year sidelined her athletic career, but she looks at coaching as an extension of her role as a teacher.
“I had 15 boys on my team last year and every single one of them got equal playing time,” Stevens says. “That was a challenge in itself, but that’s the kind of coach I am. I’m a teacher coach, taking them from the beginning and giving them skills.”
Tawnya Stevens has taught in the school district for 12 years, recently transitioning to teach writing for Exceptional Student Services.
As a lifelong resident of the Reservation and product of the SCUSD, she often uses her experience to help keep her students in line. She says her connections make for good relationships and her students often gravitate toward her for guidance.
“I’m related to a lot of them or went to school with their parents,” Tawnya says. “I tell them good stories about their parents, so they know I know them.”
Tawnya Stevens originally wanted to be a nurse and attended classes briefly at ASU. She had a baby at the time, so Quannah spent time in the Valley helping out. Eventually though, Tawnya returned to the Reservation to study at the local college.
“It was a culture shock coming from the Reservation to the big city, so I came back here and started to take classes,” Stevens says.
After getting a job with the school district, Tawnya entered a recruitment program to get her teaching certificate. She earned her masters degree, mainly through self-motivation.
“Our mom was a teacher, so education was always important to us,” Stevens says. “They weren’t really expecting us to go to college, but they supported us and encouraged us to keep going.”
Her main goal is to let her students know that they can do anything if they apply themselves to the task.
“I’m teaching them that they can do anything they want if they put their minds to it,” she says. “A lot of times they have the idea they can’t do it because they’re from the Rez, so I give them examples of my sister and coworkers I went to school with. We all graduated, and a lot of us kept going to school and got our masters and doctoral degrees.”
This article has been updated to correct details of Joyce Johnson’s biography.
Journalist, writer and editor who has worked for community newspapers for more than 15 years. After four years at Davis-Monthan AFB and a few years living in Tucson, moved to California to find his fortune. He is happy to be back in Arizona, in the mountains he loves.
Hello this is Joycelene Johnson, I would like to correct the following two items:
1. I never attended SCUSD schools. I attended 10 schools K-12 and I graduated from Globe High School but I taught Pre-K through 12 with the SCUSD.
2. I worked with San Carlos Apache Planning Department as the Language Preservation Coordinator for 2 years, currently I am not associated with the San Carlos Apache Tribe’s Language Program.