Who We Are
Tribal Education Departments National Assembly
TEDNA is a Native-led national nonprofit founded in 2003 to support educational sovereignty and self-determination for Tribal Nations across the United States.
Empowers Tribal Nations to reclaim and build control over their educational systems, advocating in policy discussions and supporting each tribe's right to define its own educational goals.
Provides specialized support, resources, and capacity-building to help establish, maintain, and expand Tribal Education Departments (TEDs) and Tribal Education Agencies (TEAs).
Partners with government bodies, educational networks, and grant opportunities to secure and distribute targeted resources for Native students, emphasizing college and career readiness.
Tribal Education Growth Management System
What is EVOLVE?
EVOLVE is TEDNA's Sovereignty Framework, guiding the Tribal Education Growth Management System (TEGMS) through six connected stages. Together, the stages advance through three growth strategies: Empowerment, Inclusivity, and Expansion.
Empowerment
Support meaningful collaboration among educators, students, families, and tribal stakeholders in shared decision-making that upholds sovereignty.
Affirm and integrate the inherent worth of tribal cultures, languages, and ways of knowing in teaching, leadership, and governance.
Inclusivity
Continuously evaluate and refine systems, practices, and policies to meet students' needs, aspirations, and readiness.
Empower Tribal Education Departments to guide implementation, accountability, and oversight in coordination with partners.
Expansion
Apply evidence-based tools to measure outcomes, track progress, and inform improvement.
Advance the visibility and strategic importance of tribal education through policy alignment, advocacy, and storytelling.
Self-Directed Learning
The EVOLVE Self-Study Course
Six scenarios, one for each stage of the EVOLVE Sovereignty Framework, built around decisions a Tribal Education Department director actually faces. Work through them at your own pace.
- 1Each stage opens with a real scenario, with four different, genuinely defensible ways to handle it.
- 2Pick the one closest to how you'd actually respond, then see how it compares to the other three, and what each trades off.
- 3Rate your own confidence in the choice. If you're unsure, you'll get a bit more context on the spot.
- 4Once you've worked through all six stages, enter your name and email to generate your certificate.
A partnership, not just a response
How TEDNA Partners With Your TED to Build Capacity
Not every barrier is easy to name on your own, and that's alright. This course and the AI² Assessment exist to help surface what's really going on, whether you already know the gap or you're still working it out. However it comes to light, through this course, the assessment, or a direct conversation with our team, TEDNA works with your TED to respond through what we call our Capacity Response: five different ways we can help, depending on what's actually needed. This is what Technical Assistance and Collaboration & Funding actually look like in practice.
Build the knowledge or skills your team needs: professional learning, coaching, AI literacy, governance learning. Used when the barrier is knowledge or skill.
Provide something practical you can act on right away: templates, guides, policy examples, planning and data tools. Used when the barrier is a lack of usable tools.
Build something that doesn't exist yet: a shared resource, toolkit, or training series. Used when the gap is common across TEDs and no adequate support exists.
Connect you to someone who already has what you need: another TED, a university, a federal resource, a technical assistance partner. Used when the capacity already exists elsewhere.
Take the need further than TEDNA alone can meet it: funding proposals, partnerships, advocacy. Used when the need exceeds one TED's capacity or requires real investment.
Scenario
How the four approaches compare
A quick check-in
How confident are you that this approach fits how your TED would actually handle this?
One more check-in
Right now, where does this leave your TED?
All Six Stages Complete
You've completed the EVOLVE Self-Study
Enter your name as you'd like it to appear, and your email for TEDNA's records, to generate your certificate.
Your certificate downloads directly from this page. Email is captured for TEDNA's records only, no backend is connected in this draft.