Chinle students attend AISES conference, explore STEM careers

Chinle High School Navajo students returned from San Antonio with more than conference badges. Chinle Unified says the annual AISES trip, led each year by computer science teacher Julian Parrish since 2019, is funded by an Arizona Science Center grant and has also relied on Johnson O’Malley support, making it one of the district’s clearest investments in a local STEM pipeline.

The district says students attended workshops, heard keynote speakers and connected with Indigenous professionals at the National American Indian Science and Engineering Society conference. AISES describes its national conference as a three-day event centered on educational, professional and workforce development in STEM, and the organization says its broader programs connect students to scholarships, internships and other career opportunities that can turn exposure into a degree or job.

That matters in Chinle, where Chinle Unified serves about 3,200 students across Chinle, Many Farms, Tsaile, Luckachukai, Wheatfields, Nazlini, Cottonwood and Tselani, and says 98% of its students are Navajo. The district’s Johnson O’Malley grant supports Navajo language and culture, STEM and career education, and Chinle says the program has earned three local awards and two national awards since 2015.

The countywide stakes are just as clear. Apache County is Arizona’s third-largest county by land area, with an estimated 64,445 residents on July 1, 2025. American Indian and Alaska Native residents made up 72.6% of the county, and 16.6% of adults age 25 and older had a bachelor’s degree or higher, a gap that makes every credible route into science, technology and engineering more than a school outing.