Overview

Discovering Tohono O’odham High School

Tohono O’odham High School is in the Tohono O’odham Indian Reservation in Pima County, Arizona, less than an hour from the Mexican border.

Student Organizations and Clubs

The Tohono O’odham Student Council represents the entire student body. Each student is eligible to run for a student council office, including president, vice-president, secretary and treasurer. All students are encouraged to vote in elections.  

Participants in the student council learn critical leadership skills and how to present their ideas and suggestions to their peers, supervisors and administrators.

Additional student clubs operate under the supervision of the student council.

Students form clubs based on any interest or subject. Participating in and leading a club teaches them many valuable skills, including budgeting, fundraising, organization, writing bylaws, teamwork and many others.

Some of TOHS’s current clubs include jewelry-making, aerospace, gardening, art, chess, weightlifting, volleyball and basketball.

Life Skills

Through our regular classes and after-school programs, students learn practical and essential skills that help them in everyday life.  

Skills include preparing for medical emergencies such as first aid and CPR training to knowing how to properly build and contain a fire.

Students have also learned how to prepare and use a Dutch oven, make a solar still to purify water, measure time and distance, read a map and know their directions, and much more.

Tohono O’odham High School also focuses on cultural and artistic skills that make life vibrant and enriching, like the TOHS jewelry-making class. Students learned how to bead and build cultural connections while improving brain activity, creativity, fine motor skills and problem-solving.

TOHS offers math games, outdoor skills and leadership, nature drawing and journaling, jewelry-making, remote control, art and culinary arts as electives to help students become well-rounded in their knowledge and abilities.

Assemblies and Presentations

Students attend assemblies and guest presentations on various topics throughout the academic year. Tohono O’odham tries to provide interactive experiences to ensure retention and make learning fun.

Students discover the importance of education, respect, teamwork and confidence as well as participate in team building exercises and substance abuse prevention programs.

Tohono O’odham High School also brings outside role models and presenters to tell the students how they have succeeded and to provide practical life advice. This includes everyone from Native sports stars to university representatives.

Student Trips

Whether purely for fun or part of a club or school organization, trips allow Tohono O’odham High School students to bond with their peers while learning how to organize life’s many moving parts.

The senior class can fundraise throughout the year for a graduation trip each May. Some previous destinations include Disneyland and the San Diego Zoo.

Some student organizations also travel for conferences and competitions. In 2023, the members of the TOHS Jobs for America's Graduates placed third in the national Team Knowledge Bowl at the JAG Career Development Conference in Orlando, Florida.