The Red Cloud High School student Jacob Rosales is celebrated for his academic achievements that are providing him with post-high-school educational opportunities. "It’s not our fault,” Rosales said, when asked about what he wants people to know about life on the reservation in Pine Ridge, South Dakota. “There’s a liquor store right across from the border. Right over there.” In spite of the challenges young people face on the reservation, Rosales is spending the summer in the Washington, D.C., area for an internship at the National Institutes of Health, after which he’ll be heading up north to start college at Yale University. Rosales has long been on a mission to attend a prestigious university, but if he hadn’t gotten in to Yale, he had plenty of backups: He was accepted to six other Ivy League schools. #

The biology teacher Katie Montez, standing, works with students on a lesson during class at Red Cloud Indian School high school. Red Cloud boasts an ever-growing roster of alumni who are leaders in fields ranging from medicine to the arts and a network of faculty members with elite-college degrees. Red Cloud also has a record-high 72 Gates Millennium Scholars, more than any other school its size in the nation. #

A hallway mural at Pine Ridge High School on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. The high-school guidance counselor Dennis Dolezal explains some of the challenges facing college-bound high schoolers can be as simple as being homesick once away from the region, to more complex hurdles like navigating financial aid programs, noting that over 95-percent of the school's students are considered impoverished. #

The freshman Mateja Sitting Crow, front left, follows along during a biology lesson in the teacher Katie Montez's class at Red Cloud Indian School high school on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. #

The Red Cloud High School student Araceli Spotted Thunder moved here from Oklahoma City when she was 13 precisely so she could attend Red Cloud. Neither of her parents graduated from high school and they wanted more for their daughter. For Spotted Thunder’s mom, whose family was originally from Pine Ridge, the school’s reputation and close-to-nothing price tag were enough to convince her that this is where her bright and promising child needed to be. Now a recent graduate of Red Cloud, Spotted Thunder will be driving 600 miles northeast in the fall to major in sociology at Minnesota State University. “It’s scary thinking I’m going to be the first to be going to college,” she said. “But I’m also really excited about it.” #

Many of the student's lockers are decorated to celebrate athletic achievements and college acceptance letters at Red Cloud Indian School high school. At Red Cloud, students must take four years of Lakota-language classes in order to graduate—on top of “spiritual-formation” courses that incorporate Catholicism and Lakota spirituality—and they can choose from a menu of culturally relevant electives, including ethnobotany and Native American literature. College and after-school-club posters line the halls, as do signs with inspirational quotes in both Lakota and English from Oglala Sioux leaders and the Pope. Its campus houses a Heritage Center, which includes an art gallery and a gift shop that features work by Lakota artisans. #

A view of the computer lab at Red Cloud Indian School high school on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. As a private school, Red Cloud requires families to opt in—to be proactive about their kids’ education and literally invest in it by paying nominal tuition. The return on investment is huge: Just over 95 percent of this year’s graduating Red Cloud seniors are headed off to college in the fall, compared with roughly 70 percent of recent high-school graduates nationally. But Red Cloud, which is funded mostly by private donations, is different from most private schools in that it serves a population that’s almost universally poor—all but two members of the most recent senior class are eligible for Pell grants. Well over half of the kids enrolled at Red Cloud lack internet access at home, and the school prohibits teachers from assigning homework that requires a computer. Tuition costs a mere $100 a year. Families with more than one child enrolled pay an annual maximum of $200. #

In the fall, Deanna Mousseau, a recent graduate from Pine Ridge School, will attend Black Hills State University, a two-and-a-half-hour drive northwest of the reservation close to the Wyoming border, for a year or so before transferring to an out-of-state school. It’s all part of Mousseau’s “weird, long eight-year plan,” a detailed blueprint that involves her pursuing a Ph.D. and working as a child psychologist. She’d like to incorporate Lakota traditions into her psychology practice and travel to various reservations to work with Native youth. “I plan to do everything different in college,” she recently said, noting that she has already secured grants to help pay for tuition, and “I have already enrolled myself in some programs that will help keep me on target.” #

A view of Red Cloud Indian School campus on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. The Holy Rosary Mission was founded in the late 1800s by Jesuits leading a religious mission, building the campus that would later become facilities for the early beginnings of Red Cloud Indian School. The Catholic educational institution is now run in cooperation with the local Lakota people and Jesuits, relying almost entirely on donations and grant funding to keep the facility running. The high school has some the highest graduation rates on the reservation. #

A view of the gymnasium at Little Wound High School in Kyle on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Charles Cuny Jr., the superintendent of Little Wound, which is a tribal-grant school, said that whether or not a student stays on track with their postsecondary plan—be it in college, the military, or the workplace—is just as important as whether or not she had a plan to begin with. Far too often, where Native students are at socially and emotionally is not where they should be. According to Cuny, that’s largely because schools lack the resources to adequately equip kids with the skills they need to persist once they’re no longer engulfed by the safety net that is high school on the reservation. #

A roadside memorial as seen on the highway outside of Kyle on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Pine Ridge doesn’t get much national attention except when the news is sad. Unemployment and gang violence are rampant. The life expectancy for men is just 48. A youth-suicide epidemic has plagued the reservation in recent years, with a cluster of nearly 200 teens killing or attempting to kill themselves in the span of a few months starting in late 2014. And even though Pine Ridge remains a “dry” reservation, alcoholism is widespread; until recently, residents could, as Rosales pointed out, easily drive just a few miles south into Whiteclay, Nebraska, to buy booze. #

The Red Cloud High School alumnus Maka Clifford returned to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation after his college and graduate studies. He now works as a Volunteer Coordinator at the school, and helps oversee the school's program partnership with Magis, a Catholic service-based graduate program centered on teaching. #

Demetrius Blacksmith, with the Thunder Valley Workforce Development Program, works on a roof of one of the homes being built for the organization's sustainable community on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. With youth and the spiritual and cultural identity of Native families as the foundation for their goals, Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation is working to build spaces, programs, and communities that will greatly impact the socioeconomic condition of Native people living on the reservation. #

Matt Kull, standing center, Thunder Valley Workforce Development program director, talks about the day's objectives and the work crew's progress on the sustainable community being built on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Thunder Valley, a local nonprofit, strives to fill in the gaps for these non-college-bound young people and to empower Lakota families with a grassroots approach. Working in seven core themes, from language revival to food sovereignty, Thunder Valley steps in where, and when, schools fall short. Its slogan: “Native youth on the move.” #

Chyler Weston, with the Thunder Valley Workforce Development Program, moves lumber as part of a specific program in which participants are building a housing development with energy-efficient townhomes and rentals that could eventually serve as many as 900 people. #

Andrew Iron Shell, community-engagement coordinator, speaks about the work being done by the Thunder Valley Community Development Center teams. The workforce-development program has swelled in popularity over the years: For this class of participants, according to Iron Shell, it received more than 100 applications for its 15 spots. Perhaps that is in part because it’s a paying gig—participants get paid $6.25 an hour plus bonuses. But the demand can also be explained by one of the program’s core goals: to not only to give students job-training, but also to give them the confidence and financial savvy to become homeowners themselves. #

Charles (Chuck) Good Voice Elk, second from left, with the Thunder Valley Workforce Development Program, works on site at the organization's sustainable community currently being developed on reservation. The 10-month construction program involves much more than a vocational-training course: Built into the model is an emphasis on social-emotional health and cultural revitalization, with activities such as trauma-sensitive yoga and equine therapy complementing the workforce-development projects. #

Thunder Valley Workforce Development crew members gather to discuss the day's objectives and progress on the sustainable community being built on the reservation. Morning meetings generally start with the students and trainers standing around tables arranged in a rectangle in a dusty room in Thunder Valley’s trailer complex. After a sage-smudging ceremony, the participants proceed to go around the table and say what they are thankful for that day. #