Apple Expands Access to iPad and Mac Through Cherokee Nation & Oklahoma City Education Partnership

Apple has expanded its Community Education Initiative to support the revitalization of the Cherokee language through a partnership with the Cherokee Nation and Oklahoma City University (OCU). As part of this effort, the company is providing iPads and Macs to equip students and educators in Oklahoma.

The technology is being deployed at the Cherokee Immersion School in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and at the nearby Sequoyah High School. The Cherokee Immersion School, which serves students from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade, operates as a branch of the Durbin Feeling Language Center.

The initiative aims to address a critical gap in language fluency. According to data released May 28, 2026, there are fewer than 1,500 fluent speakers of the Cherokee language in a global population of more than 480,000 Cherokee people.

At the immersion school, students use iPads to integrate technology into their linguistic studies. This includes writing words and phrases within the Notes app and recording their own speech to fine-tune their pronunciation.

Assistant teacher Minnia Whitener works with students using these devices to facilitate the learning process. The goal of the staff is to create a new generation of speakers capable of preserving and sharing the language.

Erlinda “Daksi” Soap, a fifth grade teacher at the immersion school, describes the students as language warriors.

Our mission here at Cherokee Nation and the Durbin Feeling Language Center is to find our future Cherokee leaders, those who are willing to share the language and continue growing the language.

Erlinda “Daksi” Soap

By providing hardware to both the immersion school and Sequoyah High School, the partnership between Apple, the Cherokee Nation, and OCU focuses on bridging generational gaps and ensuring the language remains viable for future leaders.