Bill extending school year awaits governor's signature

A bill that extends New Mexico’s school year made it to the finish line as the New Mexico Legislature concluded its 60-day 2023 session on Saturday.

It awaits signing by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.

Clovis Municipal Schools Superintendent Renee Russ said she does not anticipate “any significant impact to our school calendar for the 2023-2024 school year” as a result of the new legislation.

She said Clovis schools have “historically exceeded the minimum requirements by many hours,” and “we will likely only need to make minor changes to the daily schedule in order to reach the new threshold.”

School calendars, she said, will remain consistent with calendars from prior years with the exception of no early-release or extended-stay Wednesdays.

The school-year extension bill, which will take effect in the 2023-2024 school year, came as no surprise to Portales Municipal Schools Superintendent Johnnie Cain.

“We’ve been working on a plan for this for the last few months,” he said on Monday. “We didn’t know what to expect from the Legislature, and now we know.”

Cain said a committee that had been studying extended school years is going to reconvene “to come up with something” to present to the Portales community and the school board.

“We’ll have another planning session with the committee,” he said, “then host a community meeting” before a plan is assembled to present to the school board.

Cain said he expects a plan to be approved in April.

All of the state’s districts have options for how they want to implement the change.

If the governor signs off on it, the new bill would increase the minimum number of hours in a school year to 1,140 hours from 1,080 hours.

Kindergartners would be required to spend 550 hours in school, up from the 450 hours currently required.

The new bill also includes more teacher training hours as an option for some extended classroom hours.

State Sen. Stuart Ingle, whose Senate District 27 includes parts of Curry, Roosevelt, Chavez, De Baca and Lea counties, said he supported adding additional hours to the school year because, “It seems to me our kids have so many holidays, nearly a month off during a regular school year. Adding a few more days wouldn’t hurt.”

State Sen. Pat Woods, whose Senate District 7 includes parts of Curry Quay and Union counties, said he did not support the school year extension bill, because local superintendents “raised hell” about it to him.

“More school time doesn’t automatically make it better,” he said. “If a kid is not getting it, more bad is not good.”

Woods said a better alternative would have been a bill aimed at making parents accountable for their children’s attendance at school. Woods acknowledged, however, that “something has got to change” to get children caught up in education levels.

One clue, he said, may be found in smaller, rural schools with smaller classes. In smaller schools, he said, “the kids hold each other responsible” for learning and “you get better outcomes than in big schools. Population does matter.”

Woods added, “Some kids need individual attention.”

He said he also supports the idea of teacher coaches, who would be available to help teachers learn more about teaching in different areas.

Woods said he voted against a measure that would change the ratio of what teachers pay for benefits to what districts pay. The bill Woods opposed would allow districts to cover 80% of benefit costs for teachers earning less than $50,000 a year, but only 60% of benefit costs for teachers earning more than $70,000 annually.

If the state is trying to hire and keep more experienced teachers, he said, the ratio should be consistent throughout salary grades.

Woods said he was pleased to see passage of a bill that lowers high school graduation requirements.

“When I arrived at the Legislature, I was bound and determined to vote ‘no’ on that idea, but I voted ‘yes.’”

Woods said his son, a mathematics teacher, told him that the requirement of advanced algebra was demoralizing. A lot of students, Woods said, “never got Algebra 1. How could they get Algebra 2? That’s an incentive for kids not to come to class.”

The bill, House Bill 126, lists Algebra 2 as a requirement, but allows advanced algebra to be waived if a parent submits written permission. In that case, the bill requires that a “financial literacy course or department-approved work-based training or career and technical education course” can qualify.