For a long time, schools have been used to erase Indigenous identities. Take the boarding schools of the 19th and 20th centuries where children were forced to shed their culture and assimilate into a Euro-Christian one. And the erasure can still be seen today in curricula and the staggeringly low graduation rates for Indigenous students. But a new charter school in southwest Denver hopes to reclaim what’s been lost and invest in the future of Denver’s 200 different Indigenous tribes. On a recent visit to the American Indian Academy of Denver, City Cast Denver guest host Avery Lill met the school’s founder, Dr. Terri Bissonette.

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