Susan H. Stafford

The dream catcher, a woven symbol of the Native American portal to the dream world, is a fitting logo for Ft. Washakie Charter High School. The school’s Wyoming E-Academy of Virtual Education (WeAVE) catches its students’ dreams of graduating from high school and turns them into reality.

One of only three charter high schools in Wyoming, Ft. Washakie Charter High School (FWCHS), located in Fremont County School District #21 (FCSD #21), is the only public online high school in the state, and the only one in the country operated by a Native American school district. FWCHS students hail from the Wind River Indian Reservation (which is jointly owned by the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapahoe nations), neighboring communities, and across the state. The charter school is an innovative solution to address a high student drop-out rate in an area where long commutes to the nearest high school, cultural differences, and family obligations all pose challenges to students' ability to complete their educations.