Cracked windows, a bat colony in the ceiling, spotty heating and close proximity to hazardous contaminants in a long-dilapidated school brought over 100 tribal members to the Nevada Legislature on Thursday, where they said long-standing funding pleas for a new school have long been neglected.
The public Owyhee Combined School on the Duck Valley Indian Reservation hosts 330 students from pre-K through 12th grade. It’s in a remote area along the Nevada-Idaho border, 100 miles (160.93 kilometers) from the 20,000-person city of Elko, Nevada, and 100 miles (160.93 kilometer) from 16,000-person city of Mountain Home, Idaho. The Shoshone-Paiute Tribes on the reservation have about 2,000 members, nearly all of whom have attended the school built in 1953.
