The Johnson-O'Malley Program is authorized by the Johnson-O'Malley Act of 1934 and the implementing regulations are provided in Part 273 of Title 25 of the Code of Federal Regulations. As amended, this Act authorizes contracts for the education of eligible Indian students enrolled in public schools and previously private schools. This local program is operated under an educational plan, approved by the
Bureau of Indian Education (BIE), which contains educational objectives to address the needs of the eligible American Indian and Alaska Native students. Johnson O’Malley programs offered to American Indian and Alaska Native students vary and may include such programs as culture, language, academics, and dropout prevention.
Johnson-O’Malley funds under this program may not be used for capital expenditures. Eligible applicants are tribal organizations, Indian corporations, school districts, or States with eligible American Indian and Alaska Native children attending their schools or public school districts that have established Indian Education Committees to approve supplementary support programs that benefit American Indian and Alaska Native students. Eligible American Indian and Alaska Native students are enrolled members of a federally recognized tribe or at least one-fourth or more degree of Indian blood descendant of a member of a federally recognized Indian tribal government eligible for services from the Bureau. In addition, eligibility requires these children be between age 3 through grades 12 with priority given to children residing on or near an Indian reservation.
As stated in Title 25 CFR Part 32.3, BIE’s mission is to provide quality education opportunities from early childhood through life in accordance with a tribe’s needs for cultural and economic well-being, in keeping with the wide diversity of Indian tribes and Alaska Native villages as distinct cultural and governmental entities. Further, the BIE is to manifest consideration of the whole person by taking into account the spiritual, mental, physical, and cultural aspects of the individual within his or her family and tribal or village context.