The creation of the Kwiyagat Community Academy is the cornerstone of Growing Ute Futures, but it is not the only impact of the endeavor. Growing Ute Futures is an education masterplan for the entire community as there are so many more families with students –from Kindergarten all through high school—who don’t attend KCA than do. Growing Ute Futures…

Kwiyagat Community Academy officially opened in 2021 and was finally able to put into practice what had previously just been an abstract plan – a culture-based curriculum grounded in Ute traditions that also delivers a modern academic education to prepare young students for the world. When you hear the world trailblazing—that’s exactly what this ap…

In the second part of our four-part series on the Growing Ute Futures initiative, we highlight the bold steps taken by Tribal leaders and their partners to upend generations of educational missed opportunities: the creation of the state’s first-ever tribal-run charter school operation on an Indian Reservation. This is the story of the creation of t…

In 2020, at the direction of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Council, educators, and families, Keystone Policy Center began facilitating strategic planning to develop an innovative, culturally-based education system for students and their families on the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation. A central pillar of this plan was integrating Ute arts, language, and…

We're thrilled to announce the recipients of the 2023 Keystone Leadership Award. Keystone Policy Center established the Keystone Leadership Awards in 1994 to recognize extraordinary leadership by individuals and organizations whose work embraces our model, spirit, and mission of creating lasting solutions through strategic collaboration. Keystone h…

Agricultural soils are a large land-based sink for atmospheric carbon with additional potential to contribute to the sequestration of atmospheric carbon, though questions still remain as to the magnitude and rate of this mitigation opportunity. This potential has spurred a desire to connect growers with carbon markets to realize the environmental a…

The Browns Canyon National Monument was designated for federal protection in 2015 and encompasses more than 21,000 acres of scenic and diverse natural resources along the upper Arkansas River in Colorado. It was the culmination of decades of advocacy from local residents to protect the pristine lands. However, federal designation was only the first…

Collaboration is a powerful concept that requires a methodical approach to be most effective. To streamline this approach and help other organizations foster collaboration, Keystone partnered with Dow to create a step-by-step guide called the Collaborative Action Toolkit that provides a roadmap for anyone to develop a more collaborative mindset and…

Federal and state governments are legally required to consult with Native American Tribes on issues impacting them, but city governments don't have the same mandate. In this episode, we highlight the work of the city of Boulder, Colorado, which has partnered with Keystone to develop and implement a city/Tribal consultation process that has opened a…

In the final episode of this three-part series, we how leaders in Northwest Colorado are working together on collaborative initiatives that have impact for their communities. We also highlight how these collaborative efforts, in partnership with nonprofit leaders like El Pomar Foundation and Keystone Policy Center, help these communities navigate t…

In this second episode of a three-part series, we highlight how rural communities are navigating the obstacles they face in accessing the influx of federal funding coming to Colorado in the wake of COVID-19. These rural communities are meeting the challenge by working together along with the assistance of nonprofit partners. Almost two decades ago,…

Federal and state lawmakers have dedicated billions of dollars in resources in recent years to address the impacts of COVID-19. But challenges in underfunded, understaffed regions of Colorado reduce the opportunities these communities have to apply for and access this one-time surge in funding. In this first episode of a three-part series, we highl…

The Keystone Policy Center recently released its second report analyzing public data to assess the impact the COVID-19 disruption had on Colorado education. The report, entitled Colorado’s Missing Year: Charter School Performance, explores recent enrollment and academic performance data to examine how charter schools fared relative to the state and…

What impact did the shift to virtual learning have on students during the COVID-19 pandemic? A report from the Keystone Policy Center titled Colorado's Missing Year analyzed test data to tackle that question, and some of the findings may surprise you. The report also spurs a greater conversation on student assessment, transparency, and what policym…

The economic and health devastation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic are widespread, but we’ve disproportionately heaped the burden of holding up the economy and preserving our way of life on certain groups of people—many of which we never see. In the second episode of this two-part series, we highlight the Farm Labor Practices Group, a diverse coal…

The economic and health devastation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic are widespread, but we’ve disproportionately heaped the burden of holding up the economy and preserving our way of life on certain groups of people—many of which we never see. In this first episode in a two-part series, we highlight the essential contributions of farm labor particu…

The Keynotes Podcast returns from its summer hiatus with a few updates on three projects profiled in the podcast that spurred state legislative action: the Education System Resiliency and Innovation Initiative, Next 100 Colorado, and funding the Colorado Water Plan. Please help us continue this podcast by making a financial donation to Keystone Pol…

The annual migration of monarch butterflies is one of the world’s great natural phenomena. Unfortunately, monarch populations are in an alarming decline. That's why the Keystone Policy Center brought together a diverse group of committed stakeholders, including scientists, conservationists, farmers, and the private sector, to find collaborative sol…

It's Pollinator Week! So, naturally, we decided to talk about the impact Keystone Policy Center is having in two projects that are focused on supporting healthy pollinator populations and habitat. In this first episode of this two part-series, we’re focus on a project Keystone leads to improve honey bee health. Honey bees support more than $20 bill…

In part 1 of our two-part series examining the inequality of access to our public parks and green spaces, we discussed the isolation that can be felt by members of marginalized communities from their experiences in outdoor spaces. We talked about the Next 100 Coalition forming in 2016 to set a vision of inclusion for the Next 100 years of conservat…

Outdoor spaces are often places of solace for many Americans, particularly during time of great stress, as evidenced by the COVID-19 pandemic. But like many things, there is an inequality for many Americans because not everybody has equal access to these outdoor and green spaces. And even when they do, they are often times made to feel like they ar…

Meeting the dietary of a global population would require doubling the current output of the fruits and vegetable production system. That would dramatically impact the environment, growers, and increase inequity. A report released this month examines these issues and argues that simply scaling up our current fruits and veggie production system could…

Tourism is an industry that is vital to the economy in every state, but more so in a state like Colorado. While the industry has suffered well-documented impact from COVID-19, it already had its own set of challenges even prior to the pandemic, including relying on a transient and often untrained workforce. To activate the full potential of Colorad…

Being successful at working collaboratively is a learned skill and valuable one at that. No matter which sector or what kind of work you're involved in, knowing how to effectively work collaboratively should be a priority of any organization. So, how and where can professionals learn this skill to effectively implement it in their work? Learn the s…

Even under the best of circumstances, there are so many demands on water and in the arid Western states, the demands are heightened. That is the case in Colorado, where an exploding population, increased demand, and climate change make its current statewide water trajectory unsustainable. That is why state leaders decided to develop a plan to meet …

Is it true that there can be bipartisan agreement on climate change policy? Can different sectors come together to recommend a comprehensive approach to decarbonization? In mid-2020, Keystone began discussing with the Great Plains Institute about collaborating on a formal dialogue that could develop policy proposals aimed at reducing or eliminating…

As state and local education leaders continue to focus on meeting the immediate needs of students during the abrupt shift to remote instruction due to the COVID 19 pandemic, Keystone Policy Center and the Public Education and Business Coalition gathered more than 80 educators, leaders, and stakeholders to begin a parallel effort looking at the futu…

The Education Leadership Council (ELC) sets a long-term vision for education for the state of Colorado. It is a distinctive entity from a legislative initiative that is uniquely positioned to run the marathon of educational transformation, not the short-term sprint that is often upended by more immediate legislative objectives. Please help us conti…

Like the other topics so far in this series, we examine an issue that has been intensified by the COIVD-19 pandemic: that being the collaboration, or sometimes lack thereof, among the sovereign governments at the tribal, state, and federal levels. Specifically, we why it is so crucial that governments work together, respecting each other’s rights a…

The Colorado Broadband Office designates a significant portion of the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation as an unserved area for internet service, which is defined as those areas that have download speeds of 5 megabits per second or fewer, or areas with no reported existing service at all. In a year that nearly every activity possible was moved online, t…

Mental health concerns for Americans have significantly increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Elevated levels of adverse mental health conditions, substance use, and suicidal ideation were reported by adults in the United States in June 2020. The prevalence of symptoms of anxiety disorder was approximately three times those reported in the second…

As COVID-19 infections began to rise in Colorado in the spring of 2020, the leadership of the Ute Mountain and Southern Ute Tribes instituted safety measures to protect its members—measures like curfews and limiting travel on and off the reservation. Those measures were effective at limiting the exposure of tribal members to the coronavirus, but it…