Money for Kids in 2019

Santa Fe Public Schools saw an overall decline in student enrollment last year, and the district's numbers for next school year forecast the same.

But with a new governor and a slew of education bills in the Legislature that would introduce major changes to how New Mexico funds districts, the current horizon for school funding is anything but normal.

Superintendent Veronica Garcia told the district's board on Dec. 11 that there were 237 fewer students enrolled in SFPS this year than last, according to a headcount that took place on the 40th day of the school year. That could mean a $1.5 million drop in money from the state, if all other factors stayed the same (they won't). The state averages out headcounts from the 80th and 120th days to determine a district's funding for the following school year.

The per-student cash, called the state equalization guarantee distribution, represents over 90 percent of districts' operational revenue, and is calculated with a formula that takes into account enrollment numbers, revenue from a local property tax and other sources. It also considers the educational programs a district maintains, and a number of other factors such as a district's number of nationally certified teachers, the number of at-risk students served, and whether a district is growing.

Part of the decrease in SFPS enrollment this year, Garcia tells SFR in an interview, was due to an aggressive effort to weed out students from the city's overcrowded Southside schools, including the use of contractors to monitor parents' addresses and identify boundary-hoppers. Long-term declines at centrally located schools, such as Chaparral and Nava elementaries, continue to impact the district's overall enrollment numbers.  

"It's too early right now to really project what impact declining enrollment will have on our funding," Garcia maintains.

The reason: There is almost certainly going to be more money in the state's education coffers than any other time in recent memory.

In addition to a change in the top executive on Jan. 1, the state is preparing to meet a court-designated deadline to seriously boost investment in public schools, a response to a ruling that found New Mexico deprives vulnerable students of their right to an education. (Garcia was a witness for the plaintiff during the trial.)

Last Thursday, outgoing Education Secretary Christopher Ruszkowski recommended to the Legislative Finance Committee that the state increase its education budget by $400 million. This includes a $196 million for the state equalization guarantee fund.

Dominic Gabello, transition director for Governor-elect Michelle Lujan Grisham, told SFR in a written statement that Grisham would "dramatically increase investments in our public schools including pre-K and give our educators a raise," but offered no opinion on Ruszkowski's recommendation.

It's not clear whether $400 million is enough to cover a blueprint of changes put forth by reformers who were part of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the state. That coalition has not "costed out" its list of proposed reforms, according to Maria Archuleta, a spokeswoman for the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty.

However, in a meeting of the Legislative Education Study Committee, legislators endorsed several bills intended to make good on the state's order to bolster investment.

One of them would raise the amount of money that goes to districts through the state equalization guarantee and that is pegged to a district's population of "at-risk" students, are identified by proxy as students who qualify for free and reduced lunch. The change, which could end up costing $113.2 million on an unspecified timeline, would accelerate delayed investments decided in earlier legislative sessions.

Committee members also quickly agreed to endorse a bill that would set an age limit to students whose secondary schooling is funded by the state. In fiscal year 2018, New Mexico spent $6.2 million educating district students who were between the ages of 22 and 70; to make up for the change, legislators agreed to recommend $2 million more for the Higher Education Department for basic adult education.

A more spirited discussion ensued when legislators considered a new investment to expand the K-5 Plus enrichment program. Currently, many districts that participate in K-5 Plus, which targets students for extra literacy practice, treat it as a summer program; most committee members favored a bill to make the program an extension of the school year, and fund it permanently through the state equalization guarantee.

One potential wrinkle, raised by Rep. Dennis Roch (R-Logan), is that funding K-5 Plus from the state equalization guarantee could wind up redistributing funds from districts that don't qualify for K-5 Plus to those that do.

"A lot of counties and schools I represent don't even have the criteria or option to opt in [to K-5 Plus] and could potentially lose money," Roch said, adding that many of the districts he represents would not qualify for the K-5 Plus program because their students were not considered "high-risk" of falling behind their peers. Despite his concerns, the committee voted to endorse the bill.

Santa Fe Public Schools, which opts in to the K-5 Plus program, is the type of district the court ruling intended to help: Last year, more than 72 percent of SFPS students qualified for free and reduced lunch, and nearly a quarter speak English as a second language. If the district loses money because of declining enrollment, the court's decision should, in theory, ensure that the impact will be minimal for SFPS's neediest students.

"I don't really have a sense of what the [price tag] is," Garcia tells SFR, "but we need training for teachers who teach kids who are English language learners. We need early childhood education. We need to address the at-risk factors."