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Quick Hits

Mirroring a national trend, continued enrollment declines in Albuquerque Public Schools will require steep budget cuts for the district, and that means staffing cuts of up to 5 percent.

Enrollment dropped by 5,500 students this school year, creating a $17 million hole in the district’s $1.65 billion budget. In total, the district has lost about 12,000 students over the past six years, from 85,000 in 2015-16 to 73,000 this year.

Superintendent Scott Elder told the Albuquerque Journal that the drop in enrollment, caused in part by the pandemic, and the resulting budget woes, are unprecedented in his time with the district, which began in 1991.

Elder said the budget hole will require staffing reductions of about 300 positions across the district.

Cuts will not affect salary increases approved earlier this year by the state legislature, which boost entry level salaries to $50,000, minimum salaries for Level 2 teachers to $60,000, and Level 3 salaries to at least $70,000. 

Mirroring a national trend, continued enrollment declines

News

Editor’s note: Yolanda Montoya-Cordova was appointed to the Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education in 2017, to fill a vacancy. She was elected to a four-year term in 2019, representing District 1, which encompasses parts of downtown and the South Valley . She was unanimously appointed board president by her board colleagues in January. She grew up in the South Valley and lives there currently. Both of her parents worked for APS, and she graduated from Rio Grande High School. For her day-job, Montoya-Cordova serves as deputy secretary of the state Department of Workforce Solutions. This interview, conducted March 16, has been edited for length and clarity.

New Mexico Education: Please tell us a bit about your background, and what made you want to serve on the APS board.

Montoya-Cordova: I’m a social worker by trade, so I’ve always been one who believes that you should be part of the solution and not just look from the outside in and complain about things. I represent the district where I grew up. I moved away from Albuquerque for a short time. When I came back, I moved back into this community, the South Valley, knowing it was always a difficult community. It has always been considered the community that was marginalized, struggling, challenged.

Both my parents went to Albuquerque High and made it through to at least 11th grade. When I was young they were both studying for their GEDs.They always had this place for us to study in the house. We came home from school and we sat at the dining room table and we studied with them. While they were doing their homework, we were doing ours as well. They just really pushed it on us. When I was 10, in fifth grade, my parents got their diplomas. I remember watching that. It has left an indelible mark on my heart.

Despite all those good things I remember growing up there, I also remember as a young kid being made to feel like the best option for me would be to go to college and leave that community. I did terribly on standardized tests, and probably would have been considered somebody who maybe should not have considered college. But I did and I pushed through that. I went to the University of New Mexico, and I remember just carrying with me this feeling that I’m from the South Valley and somehow it wasn’t a good feeling. When I got to college I needed remediation courses because of some of the pieces I missed in my education.

When I came back to New Mexico, I went to work for the Department of Health as the Director of School Health, so I had an indirect relationship with schools. We were overseeing at that time school nurses and school based health centers, school mental health, suicide prevention, and youth engagement activities around public health. And it was through that work that I became really invested in public education and the possibilities of what it could be.

NME: There are four new members on the APS board, and you are the newly-elected president. How do you navigate all of those challenges?

Montoya-Cordova: I know that as veteran board members three of us have an important role to play around orientation. When I came in as a new board member I really relied on the expertise and the knowledge of my fellow board members to help shepherd me through that process. I knew I would play a role in that process this time. I’m one of the veteran board members and so I have a sense of responsibility because I want us to be a high functioning board. 

Having been a member of other boards, I know the significance of functioning well as a body. If we’re not functional and we can’t work well together and we can’t communicate well with each other, that’s going to bleed into everything that we do. So there is a desire on my part to have a board that can work well together, that can have honest conversations, that can sit together, learn from one another, really compromise with each other and debate issues in a good way that helps us come to consensus and to center on the things that we want to do and need to do. 

On being selected for the presidency, that came as quite a surprise. I had been thinking all along that my job as deputy secretary is pretty demanding and carries a lot of responsibility. I wasn’t sure I could dedicate the time and energy that the board presidency deserves. If I was going to do it, I wanted to be able to come in and know that I could do it well. After a lot of soul searching, I did reach out to some board presidents from other school districts that I know pretty well, and said OK, I will commit to this.

But I made it very clear that I would do it on a transitional basis, for one year only, as we bring on our four new members and help around the orientation, keeping the balls in the air and guiding our ship. I told my colleagues that even if I was put forward for another year, I would decline. So I see my role as coming in and brokering between the veteran side and the new side and helping us to get through this first year of putting our processes in place.

NME: Much has been made about this new board, with a change in philosophical orientation and a potential for some tension or conflict. How do you view that?

Montoya-Cordova: I felt like that was what we were going to have when we initially started, because we didn’t know each other very well. But as I come to know the women on the board [all seven APS board members are women], and especially our new members, I see a lot of areas that we all have in common. And one piece that we all share in common is this fervor and passion around wanting to do what’s right for our students. We all believe in that. And what I really enjoy about the new members is those new eyes on issues.

I think it’s important for our constituents to see that we can work together, that we can solve problems, that we can politely disagree, and we can still come to center and say this is how we’re going to move forward and this is how we’re going to communicate it. Because if we can’t do that, then it just creates a lot of dissension amongst everyone. I’m not in disagreement at all with any of our new board members, I think our perspectives on some issues might be a little bit different, but I don’t think that they’re wildly different at all.

NME: What are your goals over the next year, when you’ll be the board president?

Montoya-Cordova: We definitely need to get our legs under us in terms of a post-pandemic perspective. I’m really hoping we don’t have another surge. We need to be ready for that if we do, but I’m praying like all get-out that we don’t, because I don’t want our schools to be disrupted anymore. That’s at the top of my list.

Second is making sure that we can sustain our teaching force. We need to truly listen to them and understand the struggles that they’ve been through these last couple of years as a workforce. And if we don’t pay attention to that it’s going to put us at greater risk. I would love to start the school year with no substitutes. I want APS to have a full-time teacher in every classroom. I want every kid to be healthy. If we can maintain health and safety and sustain our workforce, the education itself, the academics, are going to take care of themselves.

NME: What other challenges do you see? Declining enrollment is likely to have a significant impact on the district’s budget.

Montoya-Cordova: This is going to be my fifth or sixth budget round with the district. And I have not been through a budget process that has not included a deficit.The reality in public schools is that there is going to be a deficit. And so it’s this juggling act of how do we make it work with what we have? 

What I’ve learned is that the darn budget has always been a concern, and not an excuse, because what I have seen is that the district will rise above it, no matter what we can rise above that, get past the budget discussion. But it’s hard because we are making decisions about what we’re going to keep, what we’re not. And then there’s the shuffle of teachers because some schools lost enrollment, others have not. It’s very, very disruptive.

NME: What about academic challenges in the district?

Montoya-Cordova: It can be frustrating, in terms of what we do to measure academics. It always seems to elude us. There has not been a magic bullet anywhere. We know that there are disparities and gaps. We also know that the ways that we measure them are not always great. My own personal experience of doing badly on standardized tests is something I keep in mind. I see that still happening with some of our kids as well where their lived experience is not necessarily preparing them for tests or for college.

We miss a lot of what we really are doing well by just looking at these standardized tests and I think we need to do a better job of talking about what these tests are telling us but we also need to pay attention to those disparity gaps.

NME:  And what do you see the district doing well? What makes you proud of APS?

Montoya-Cordova: The program that always makes me this beam is our bilingual seal program where students have the opportunity to earn a seal on their diploma showing that they are bilingual. The program is incredible. And the talent that these students display as a result of that is phenomenal.

I’m particularly proud as well of the commitment of the staff, whether it’s at central office or at the schools. Every time I visit a school it’s palpable how committed they are to being part of that community. They really see themselves as leaders for the community and they really understand and can explain the significance of their role as that public school in that community. I just fall in love every time I go to a school and I hear that and see that.

I’m also extremely proud of the work that we’re doing around community schools. The fact that this has grown to 53 schools in the district is phenomenal. Those schools are really focusing on the importance of the school as an anchor for that community to create and to be a conduit for access to services and supports of various kinds. 

"I think it's important for our constituents

News

Despite its reputation as one the top public middle and high schools in the country, Albuquerque’s Cottonwood Classical Preparatory School has struggled since its 2008 opening to find a physical home to match its stellar academic record.

Over its 14 years, the public charter school has opened in a too-small space, expanded into a split campus, moved to a new, bigger but still inadequate space, and, most recently, begun expanding that space.

Every phase of its physical growth has proved time-consuming, expensive, and potentially distracting from Cottonwood Classical’s academic mission. When a current expansion project is completed early next year, the school will take a pause on what has seemed like perpetual expansion and construction. 

But even more will be needed eventually, said John Binnert, Cottonwood Classical’s executive director. That’s why he expresses great enthusiasm over a new law passed unanimously this year by the New Mexico state legislature that will make the financing of charter school facilities simpler, more straightforward, and, thanks to a new state low-interest revolving loan fund, more affordable.

“I’m excited and very appreciative of the legislators who have sponsored and carried and supported the bill,” Binnert said in a recent interview. “You want your own state to be proud and have confidence in and be supportive of good schools. It’s not that our state government didn’t want to do that. But this was important to really show charters in their state that they are supported.”

House Bill 43 includes several provisions that should provide immediate help to at least some of the state’s 98 charter schools. The new facilities law the bill creates will:

  • Create a $10 million Charter School Facility Revolving Fund. The fund won’t be used for construction but will be available for schools currently in lease purchase agreements to use for refinancing. Only charter schools that are established and have been renewed at least once are eligible to tap the fund.
  • Ensure that available public land and facilities not used by school districts will be offered to charter schools. 
  • Standardize what is currently a $700 per student lease assistance payment for charter schools. The amount of lease assistance charters currently receive is unpredictable because it is allocated based on the square footage of instructional space in schools, as measured by the Public School Capital Outlay Council.
  • Help charter schools get onto school district bond funding elections and distributions.

State Rep. Joy Garratt, a Bernalillo Democrat and the bill’s cosponsor, said established, high-quality charter schools deserve support. “If a charter school has proven itself it really deserves to have proper facilities,” Garratt said. “It was an equity and fairness issue that made me want to support this.”

Garratt said the bill’s accountability provisions are an important part of the package. To be eligible for the loan fund, a charter has to have gone through a renewal process at least once, and to have undergone two successful audits.

“It shows that this is a school that’s on track for success academically, financially, and administratively,” Garratt said. “I felt that a school that has gone through that process deserves greater assistance in either paying off their facilities, paying off the lease, or constructing a new facility.”

Charters struggle with facility costs, logistics

Cottonwood Classical provides a clear example of why this legislation has been sorely needed. The school originally opened in a small building behind the Unser Racing Museum that IndyCar racing legend Al Unser and his wife Susan made available to the new school.

“The school would not have been able to open if they had not stepped in,” Binnert said. “And it shouldn’t take that. If you have an approved charter, there should be another way in with facilities.” The new law’s mandate that unused school district land and buildings be offered to charter schools could be a big help in this regard.

Cottonwood Classical, which offers the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme, was an instant hit. Enrollment grew from 121 students to 372 in its first three years. It has carried a lengthy waiting list ever since, even as it has continued to increase the size of its student body.

It wasn’t long before Cottonwood Classical outgrew its space, and had to rent a second building down the street from the museum. It was close enough for students to walk between the two buildings, but it was not an ideal setup. And it was expensive to lease two separate buildings.

In 2012, a nonprofit Cottonwood Classical Foundation formed to help with fundraising, and located a potential new facility: a 47,000-square-foot building on a six-acre lot in the Journal Center business park. The foundation helped secure the facility through the issuance of bonds, a long, laborious process. The school relocated to that facility in 2013.

“And within two years, we had outgrown it,” Binnert said. The school, bursting at the seams with almost 750 students, purchased some additional land a couple of years ago, creating a 10-acre campus. During the pandemic, to help maintain social distancing, portable classrooms were installed on the undeveloped portion of the land. But that was only a temporary fix.

Cottonwood Classical developed a plan to build a 24,000-square-foot addition onto its existing building, which would increase student capacity to 960. Again though, it was a laborious, expensive process, requiring the services of “a brokerage in Chicago, a bank in Denver, and a public finance authority in Wisconsin,” Binnert said. The addition will allow the school to add a full gym, a cafeteria, and a library, as well as classroom space.

It has taken a tremendous amount of effort from many people, Binnert said: “All of this requires a group of volunteers, doing all of this work. And paying for attorneys to get a broker who then shops the school project around for someone who feels that investing in a school is worth it.”

Even after all of that work concluded successfully, the school needs to raise an additional $1.3 million through a capital campaign to fully fund the expansion.

From Binnert’s perspective, a couple of components of the new law will help other schools avoid some of the logistical headaches Cottonwood Classical and other New Mexico charter schools have faced with facilities over the years.

First, changing the lease assistance program from being based on an arcane square footage calculation to a straightforward $700 per pupil will inject some certainty into budgeting. “Having lease assistance tied to enrollment, like every other funding source we have, is huge, because it makes that funding stream more predictable.”

Because Binnert knows this latest expansion project won’t be the school’s last, future access to the revolving loan fund will be even more helpful down the road. Even before that, refinancing some debt through the fund would be helpful, he said.

Having such a fund available “just makes all the sense in the world, especially when you have established charter schools that have proven that they have a successful model,” Binnert said.

Bipartisanship was key to passage

Bill cosponsor State Rep, Cathrynn Brown, a Carlsbad Republican, said she supported the legislation because she helped launch the Jefferson Montessori Academy Public Charter School in Carlsbad 20 years ago, and remembers well the challenges posed by securing a facility.

“Having to use operating funds to pay for a facility is a distinct disadvantage, especially to a school just getting started,” she said.

Brown said she was “delighted” that the effort to get the bill passed was bipartisan. In the past, she said, some legislators who opposed charter schools grudgingly said “OK, we will let you have life, but we will not help you pay for a facility,” she said. Over the years, though, charter schools have proven themselves to be a valuable addition to the public education landscape.

“Some of the legislators who were so opposed are still serving. They became supporters because they’ve had a chance to meet constituents who have children in charter schools,” Brown said. “And some of those early charter school students have become adults and they have helped make the case for treating charters better than in the past.”

State Rep. Garratt, the other cosponsor, and a recently retired 28-year veteran teacher, said a lot of credit for the bill’s passage should go to charter advocates like Matt Pahl of the Public Charter Schools of New Mexico organization. The bill was amended several times in a collaborative effort with advocates to ensure its passage, Garratt said.

“Their openness to really solving the problem made a huge difference,” Garratt said. “Sometimes we come to educational issues with passionate differences on our educational philosophies. But when people really work together, you can solve problems. This bill is evidence of what true collaboration can produce.”

The time was right in 2022 to

Quick Hits

New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed four education-related bills into law during a ceremony Tuesday attended by, among others, Randi Weingarten, a national teachers union president.

The most high-profile bill the governor signed substantially raises the minimum pay for novice, experienced and master teachers. She also signed bills expanding teacher residency programs, allowing retirees to return to classrooms, and adding $100 million to the state teacher pension fund over the next three years.

Later in the day, away from cameras and without the presence of Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, Lujan Grisham also signed House Bill 43, which makes it easier for charter schools to obtain financing for facilities.

It’s notable that Lujan Grisham decided not to sign the charter school facilities bill at a public event. It garnered bipartisan support and passed unanimously in both the State House of Representatives and State Senate.

Also, recent polling commissioned by Public Charter Schools of New Mexico shows widespread, bipartisan support for charters among New Mexicans. The poll shows that of those surveyed, 75% support opening more charter public schools, including 76% of Democrats, 78% of Republicans, and 76% of others. 

Parents as voters are highly supportive of more charter schools, with 87% of parents with school aged children in support. Hispanic voters are highly supportive of charters, with 80% wanting to open more.

Photo courtesy of governor’s Twitter feed

New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed

News

Six education bills passed in both houses of the New Mexico State Legislature during its 30-day 2022 session, and will become law once signed by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. 

While the new laws, combined with the substantial increased public education budget, provide schools and districts with additional resources, the session did not produce legislation that directly addresses the enormous disruption the Covid-19 pandemic has caused for New Mexico’s students. Whether the 2022 session is remembered as a turning point or a missed opportunity, only time will tell.

Here is a quick recap of the session’s education bills.

Teachers/staffing

House Bill 13 (HB 13)

Sponsors:  Debra M. Sariñana, Joy Garratt, William Soules, Mimi Stewart, T. Ryan Lane

Teacher residency programs, which pair teachers-in-training with expert teachers and provide in-classroom training experiences, will expand, thanks to this bill. The bill also broadens eligibility for residency programs which will now be available to undergraduate students enrolled in schools of education. . The budget for residency programs will see a corresponding increase, from $1 million to $15.5 million. This move is seen as one strategy for addressing the growing teacher shortage crisis, and to increase diversity in the state’s teaching corps.

Senate Bill 1 (SB 1)

Sponsors: Mimi Stewart, Siah Correa Hemphill, Debra M. Sariñana

This bill, which raises the minimum salaries for all New Mexico level one, level two, and level three teachers, is designed to help make the state competitive with its neighbors in an era of growing teacher shortages. The new minimum salaries increase the base pay to at least $50,000 for level one teachers, $60,000 for level two teachers, and $70,000 for level three teachers.

House Bill 60 (HB 60)

Sponsor: Derrick J. Lente 

This bill requires salary parity for the 99 people in New Mexico who hold Native American Language and Culture Certificates. To expand opportunities for Native American students to receive a culturally and linguistically relevant education, the Native American language and culture certificate allows non-degreed individuals to teach in the language and culture of their tribes and pueblos at any grade level. But unlike the three tier salary system used to determine the compensation of licensed teachers, many school districts have differing approaches in determining the compensation of these certificate holders. Until now, many school districts have paid these certificate holders as educational assistants, which has lower pay levels than for licensed teachers. Under the new law, they will be paid as level one teachers (which will be at minimum $50,000 annually beginning next school year.).

Funding

House Bill 43 (HB 43) 

Sponsors: Joy Garratt, Meredith A. Dixon, Cathrynn N. Brown, Joshua Hernandez, Siah Correa Hemphill

This charter school facilities bill represents a big win for advocates of public school choice in New Mexico. It takes several steps to help ease the cost burden facilities typically impose on charter schools. Most notably, the bill creates a $10 million Charter School Facility Revolving Fund. The fund would not be used for construction but would be available for schools currently in lease purchase agreements to use for refinancing. Only charter schools that are established and have been renewed at least once would be eligible to tap the fund. The bill also standardizes the amount of funding provided to charter schools for facilities to a per student calculation, versus the previously inequitable per square foot allocation. 

House Bill 119 (HB 119)

Sponsor: G. Andres Romero 

This bill amends the Public School Capital Improvements Act state funding calculation to increase capital outlay funding for all school districts. It could potentially increase the state matching fund from $20.1 million to $31.1 million, an increase of $10.9 million, or 54 percent. The bill uses the Public School Capital Outlay Council phase two state match calculation to send additional dollars to school districts with low property tax bases. All school districts would receive more funding under HB119, with school districts with a lower state match receiving smaller increases than school districts with higher state matches pursuant to the Public School Capital Outlay Act.

Higher education

Senate Bill 140 (SB 140)

Sponsors: Elizabeth “Liz” Stefanics, Joy Garratt

The Opportunity Scholarship Program is a key component of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s 2022 education agenda. It would combine various existing state college scholarship programs, including the Lottery Scholarship, and expand availability to all residents of the state, regardless of age. The scholarships are available to all degree-seeking undergraduate students of any public state or tribal college in New Mexico who take between six and 18 hours during the fall and spring semesters and maintain a 2.5 grade point average. Students enrolled in certain credit-bearing certificate programs would also be eligible for the scholarship.

Other

House Bill 73 (HB 73)

Sponsors: Joy Garratt, Phelps Anderson, T. Ryan Lane

HB 73 creates a return-to-work program for retirees receiving pension benefits from the Educational Retirement Board (ERB). The program would allow a retired educational employee to return to work after a 90-day layout period but would limit that worker to 36 months of additional service.

To explain this year’s pay increases as

Commentary

Editor’s note: This article was written by Victor Zamora, a public school elementary teacher in Columbus, New Mexico. Victor is also a Teach Plus New Mexico fellow.

Every weekday morning and afternoon, I drive almost two hours through the desert of southern New Mexico from El Paso, Texas to teach at a public elementary school in the tiny border town of Columbus, New Mexico. 

Why make that drive, when I could choose to teach El Paso, where I live? Because teaching at Columbus Elementary School feels like coming home. That suits me well, but, more importantly, it’s exactly what my students need.

Over the years of my teaching career, I have developed a strong belief that students learn best when they can relate to their teacher on multiple levels. My own experiences as a young student also inform this belief.

I was born in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico and came to the U.S. in early elementary school. My teachers in El Paso were predominantly white. There was a huge cultural disconnect between most teachers and students from my background. For example, we were discouraged from speaking Spanish. 

That disconnect made it more difficult to adjust to a new culture, a new language, and a new environment. Looking back, I recognize what a disservice that was to us and to our families.

I began teaching in Columbus this school year. Coming to Columbus in some ways felt like coming home. One reason for this is that many of the students who attend Columbus Elementary School live in the tiny village of Palomas, Mexico. They are bused to school when they cross the port of entry into the U.S. each day to attend school.

I noticed immediately that most of the students in Columbus were raised the way I was raised. You respect your elders. You say please and thank you. These characteristics are a strong part of the Hispanic culture. More than good manners, these students represent hope and I am part of that equation. 

In Columbus, the school community is knitted in partnership between teachers, students, and parents. Parents and students alike demonstrate a tremendous amount of respect for teachers and is reciprocated to our families. And I believe this happens more naturally in Columbus in part because students have access to educators with similar cultures and backgrounds as they do.

I have come to realize how important this is. It makes an enormous difference to my students to have a teacher to whom they can truly relate. Everything makes a difference, from the way we look and dress to the intonation in our voices, to the culture, music, food, and in some cases religion that we share. Students of color need to see more people of color in a variety of positions, including education.

This year, I am a fellow with Teach Plus New Mexico, and my main area of focus, with a group of other fellows, is enhancing systems around recruitment and retention that will help diversify the teacher workforce so that teachers in New Mexico more closely mirror the student population. Research has indicated that all students benefit from a diverse educator workforce.

There needs to be more alternative pathways to becoming a teacher, so that more people from my background can be leading classrooms. If we can make that happen, we will begin to see student achievement increase significantly. 

Editor's note: This article was written by Victor

News

While the 7 percent salary increases for all educators and the boosted minimum salaries for teachers passed this month by the legislature represent good news for New Mexico public education, there’s more than a little confusion circulating about exactly how these two separate items interact.

Educators are asking if they will receive a 7 percent increase on top of their new minimum salary, or whether the higher minimum will be the only raise they see.

The simplest answer is: It depends. 

Without question, though, the raises mean that all teachers in New Mexico will now be paid well above the median individual income for New Mexicans. More on that in a moment.

To explain this year’s pay increases as simply and clearly as possible, it’s important to take a step back and explain how the two raises differ from one another.

The new minimum salaries increase the base pay to at least $50,000 for level one teachers, $60,000 for level two teachers, and $70,000 for level three teachers. These minimum salaries are set in statute, and take effect July 1.

The 7 percent raises for educators are included in the state budget for Fiscal Year 2022-23, which the legislature also passed during the just-concluded session. Neither the budget nor the law change has been signed by the governor, but there is little doubt that will happen.

Educators whose increase to the new salary for their level is 7 percent or more will not receive an additional raise from the 7 percent increases set in the budget. If the new minimum results in  a 5 percent raise, then the educator would also receive an additional 2 percent bump thanks to the budgeted increases.

In other words, most educators will see an increase to the new salary minimum, but not more than that.

The exceptions to this rule are teachers whose schools or districts are part of the K-5 Plus or Extended Learning Time programs. Bear with us; this is where it gets a bit complicated.

K-5 Plus (25 extra days of school) and Extended Learning Time Program (10 extra days) teachers get larger raises pro-rated to their additional days of work. K-5 Plus teachers will get at least $56,944, $68,333, and $79,722 for levels one, two and three. ELTP teachers will receive a minimum of $52,777, $63,333, and $73,888 for levels one to three.

But in a little-noticed additional sweetener, teachers in both programs also receive an additional 3 percent raise on top of the higher minimums and pro-rated additional pay for extra days.

While the legislature did not require districts or schools to participate in either program, lawmakers said they hope these additional salary incentives will encourage broader adoption.

It’s hard to argue after these raises that New Mexico public school teachers are underpaid.

The new salary minimums mean that even entry level public school teachers in New Mexico will be paid substantially more than the median income for the state. A level one minimum salary of $50,000 lands a novice teacher in the 66th percentile among New Mexico wage earners. A level 2 teacher, at $60,000, lands in the 74th percentile. And a level 3 teacher’s $70,000 salary puts her in the 81st percentile.

Are you a teacher with questions about how these increases will affect your pay? Email us at info@nmeducation.org  with the particulars – which we will keep confidential – and we will get you answers within a couple of days.

 

To explain this year’s pay increases as

News

School districts in New Mexico received an 11.8 percent, $402 million budget boost for the upcoming fiscal year during the just-concluded 2022 legislative session.

The $3.9 billion fiscal year 2023 education budget represents a 44 percent increase over five years ago, when spending on public education totaled $2.7 billion.

While new teacher salary minimums and across-the-board school personnel raises, with a $257 million price tag, garnered the most attention, initiatives ranging from early literacy to teacher residencies to community schools also received significant funding increases.

It’s worth noting as well that some programs that remain unproven or not fully implemented got budget bumps despite a lack of evidence of their efficacy.

The legislature’s generosity pleased Education Secretary Kurt Steinhaus. “New Mexico is remarkably lucky to have a Legislature that understands the incredible challenges our children face and steps up again and again to fund evidence-based programs to help them overcome those challenges and thrive,” Steinhaus said in a news release.

Here are some highlights of less-noticed items garnered from a New Mexico Education scan of the Fiscal Year 2023 public education budget.

Teachers in state extended learning time programs get bigger raises. While there has been widespread news coverage about the increase in teacher minimum salaries (at least $50,000 for level one, $60,000 for level two, and $70,000 for level 3), teachers in K-5 Plus (25 extra days of school) and Extended Learning Time Program (10 extra days) get larger raises commensurate with their longer school years. K-5 Plus teachers will get at least $56,944, $68,333, and $79,722 for levels one, two and three. ELTP teachers will receive a minimum of $52,777, $63,333, and $73,888 for levels one to three. The legislature did not require districts or schools to participate in either program, but lawmakers said they hope the salary incentives encourage broader adoption. 

More pay will be available for hard-to-staff positions. The state allocated $10 million for districts to use at their discretion to entice teachers with ”targeted pay increases” for hard-to-staff positions.

The Public Education Department got a big boost for its early literacy programs. During last school year, the PED launched a structured early literacy program that stressed training teachers in the science of reading. For next fiscal year, those efforts will get a big budget increase, from $1.7 million to $8 million.

Teacher residency programs will see a big expansion. Programs that pair teachers-in-training with expert teachers will expand, thanks to legislation that broadened eligibility. The budget for residency programs will see a corresponding increase, from $1 million to $15.5 million. This move is seen as one strategy for addressing the growing teacher shortage crisis, and to increase diversity in the state’s teaching corps.

Some other budget increases passed even though no clear evidence exists that these programs are yielding desired results.

The legislature allocated $15 million for at-risk interventions.The PED says it will use these funds for “academic and behavioral interventions,” but details are lacking.

Community schools also get a major funding infusion. Community schools offer “programs and services that fall within four broad evidence-based strategies: Integrated student supports, expanded and enriched learning time and opportunities, active family and community engagement, and collaborative leadership and practices.” Community schools got a 60 percent budget increase, from $5 million to $8 million, even though no studies to date have shown significant academic progress at the state’s 33 community schools.

Funding for teacher evaluations doubles. The legislature allocated $2 million to teacher evaluations compared to $1 million last year. The state hasn’t mandated evaluations during the Covid-19 pandemic. Nor is PED requiring evaluations this year.

State assessments got another year’s funding. While funding for state testing remained flat at $7.2 million, assessments have been paused for the past two years, so how, where, and whether this year and last year’s funds were spent is an open question. New Mexico now spends more on its state assessments than it did in the 2019 fiscal year, when it spent $6 million as part of the multi-state PARCC assessment consortium.  

More money for the troubled school transparency program. The legislature granted another $1 million on top of the original $3 million to build a robust school budget transparency website. The website was supposed to launch last Dec. 31. A “work in progress” version of the site went live in early January, but it is riddled with holes and missing key pieces of information on some districts, and virtually all information on other districts. 

School districts in New Mexico received an

Quick Hits

Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham lifted New Mexico’s mask mandate at 1 p.m. Thursday, which means public schools have the option for the first time in almost two years of allowing students and staff to attend schools maskless.

Masking policies can now be set by individual school school districts and charter schools.

Lujan Grisham made the announcement during her post-legislative press conference, though the news leaked out in advance of that event.

According to the new public health order, all “public and private educational institutions” serving children in grades PreK-12 “shall continue to adhere to the face covering requirements” outlined by the Public Education Department’s Covid-19 toolkit “until the school district, governing local education agency, or private educational institution elects otherwise.”

New Mexico Secretary of Education Kurt Steinhaus sent early word of the mandate lifting by email to Public Education Department staff, and charter school and district leaders across the state shortly before the Governor’s press conference.

In his email, Steinhaus cited three key data points the governor considered in her decision to end the mandate:

    • Since January 28, the number of hospitalized New Mexicans has dropped by 37%, down to 446 yesterday.  
    • New Mexico had been in crisis standards of care, indicating that the pandemic induced burden of disease had outstripped resources to provide care, since late October of last year.  There is a “high likelihood” the state will not need to renew that declaration again in the near future.
    • Three weeks ago, the state had available only about 30% of the treatments on hand needed to treat high risk New Mexicans with COVID-19. But a new monoclonal antibody treatment that has become available, as well as a growing supply of oral treatments. “We are now at the point where we again have the ability to provide treatment for all New Mexicans who require it.,” Steinhaus wrote.

In New Mexico and across the country, mask mandates in schools have become a political flashpoint, with some parents assailing school boards for not pushing to end the mandates, and other parents, and many teachers, urging that the mandates be kept in place.

 

Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham lifted New Mexico’s

Quick Hits

Public school teachers in New Mexico will soon be paid at least on a par with their peers in neighboring states after Senate Bill 1 was passed late Monday night by the House of Representatives on a unanimous vote.

The Senate passed the bill unanimously on Feb. 5. It passed through two committees in both chambers without receiving a single ‘no’ vote.

The bill now awaits the signature of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. It’s a centerpiece of her 2022 education agenda, so there is little to no doubt she will sign it. 

The salary hikes will make the minimum starting teacher salary in New Mexico $50,000 for teachers in the first three to five years of their career. Level 2, or “professional teachers” will  be paid at least $60,000, and Level 3 teachers, those holding a “master teacher” license, will earn a minimum of $70,000.

State minimum teacher salaries barely budged between 2003 and 2017, but have now been increased substantially twice since 2019. Meanwhile, student achievement has stagnated or declined, at least in part because of the impacts on learning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The $76 million needed to fund the raises this year is part of the state budget still being debated in the legislature. The legislative session ends Thursday at noon.

Public school teachers in New Mexico will