- Officials from across Utah celebrated the completed build-out of a high-speed, fiber connectivity network for Navajo Mountain High School.
- The completion marks a historic milestone of bringing high-speed internet to every public school in Utah.
- The connectivity aims to boost educational opportunities and community growth, officials say.
NAVAJO MOUNTAIN, San Juan County — For years, students and teachers at Navajo Mountain High School in Utah faced an educational barrier in the form of something most people likely take for granted: a good internet connection.
But that all changed last week when state, tribal, education and community leaders celebrated the completed build-out of a 200-mile high-speed, fiber connectivity network for the school, marking a historic milestone of bringing high-speed internet to every public school in Utah.
For the students and staff who call Navajo Mountain home, it makes a world of difference.
"It means a student here at Navajo Mountain High School can research a college application at the same speed as a student in Salt Lake City," Sonia Nez, executive director of the Navajo Nation Broadband Office, said in a statement.
"It means a teacher can bring video lessons, virtual labs, and online resources into the classroom without watching a screen freeze or video buffer. It means a kid who wants to be an engineer, a doctor, a coder, or a teacher can actually pursue that online right here in the great community of Navajo Mountain," Nez added.
The project to bring reliable internet access to the school was part of a larger, 10-year project to extend fiber infrastructure to communities throughout San Juan County, according to a release from the Utah Education and Telehealth Network.
The milestone also comes on the heels of more pushes to expand connectivity for Utah's most rural students.
During the state's 2026 legislative session, Rep. Tiara Auxier, R-Morgan, sponsored HB462, which aimed to make state grants available to rural school districts to provide internet connectivity on school buses with the rationale that it would give students who sometimes travel hundreds of miles for athletics and other school-sponsored activities the chance to do homework while on the road.
After advancing through the House and Senate, the bill was vetoed by Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, who said he was "very concerned about signaling to our students that we value more time spent on devices rather than more time interacting with one another face-to-face."
As for Navajo Mountain, Nez added that her office has secured further funding to expand broadband access to households throughout the Navajo Nation.
And beyond meeting the educational needs, Jeff Egly, associate director of IT at the Utah Education and Telehealth Network, hopes the connectivity can catalyze growth and opportunity for other communities in the area.
"That infrastructure, on its way out to Navajo Mountain, is also benefiting wireless towers, businesses, and the community along the way," he said. "As this kind of project comes through, it helps those communities and provides a springboard with infrastructure that makes other things possible," Egly said in a statement.
