The PED is moving forward on a controversial 180-day rule, with some changes.

Mar. 7—After months of waiting, the New Mexico Public Education Department is moving forward with a controversial rule to require public schools to spend 180 days with students, the department announced Thursday.

The decision comes the day after Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham line-item vetoed a provision in the state budget bill that would have barred the PED from using public dollars to implement such a 180-day rule, thus laying the groundwork for the department to do so.

"We're doing this now because it's what's right for kids," Education Secretary Arsenio Romero told reporters. "We're doing everything in our power to turn around academic performance and make sure that our students are receiving an education that helps them unlock their full potential. This is one of many things that we're doing to make this happen."

The rule would take effect July 1, Romero said.

For months, the 180 instructional day minimum proposal has prompted a flood of criticism from around the state, including parents, educators, lawmakers and districts. In some cases, educators threatened to leave their jobs over the rule.

"Extra doesn't mean better, because we lose them after a certain amount of time in the classroom, we lose (students') focus," Maxwell Municipal Schools teacher Alexia McElhinney told the Journal on Wednesday, the day before the PED's announcement. "... I don't see any good coming out of this."

Despite the seemingly overwhelming number of people criticizing the rule, Romero said there was actually overwhelming support for the rule from teachers, describing it as a "win-win" for everybody.

"It provides additional learning time for students, but for our teachers, it provides additional compensation for them," he said. "This is more money that they can take home every single paycheck."

Romero said the department did update the rule based on feedback it received, including allowing schools to operate on four-day school week schedules — which many in rural areas were concerned about losing — and allowing schools to apply for waivers from the 180-day requirement. Early college high schools also are exempt from the 180-day requirement.

To be eligible for waivers, districts and schools must prove they are improving students' reading performance.

For example, if a district has proficiency levels below 45%, it must have seen gains by 15 percentage points over the past year; if it's between 45% and 65%, it must have grown by 10 percentage points; and if it's between 65% and 80%, it must have grown by 8 percentage points. A district above 80% proficiency automatically qualifies for the waiver.

There was some hesitation about the benchmarks.

"We need to make sure all those elements are within our realm of control," said Whitney Holland, American Federation of Teachers New Mexico president. "... My fear is ... 'Are we locking people in to have these extended calendars, because they can't overcome these guidelines?' "

Still, Holland said she appreciated that the PED "listened to and incorporated" the flood of comments and feedback it received.

The department's allowance for schools to operate on four-day school weeks coincides with the governor's striking of another provision in the state budget bill that would have prohibited the PED from approving the budgets of schools that did not operate on a four-day schedule in the 2021-2022 school year to do so next school year.

The PED's change to the rule somewhat assuaged Tanya Trujillo, a parent of two Jemez Valley Public Schools students.

As the rule was originally proposed — to also require schools to spend over half their time on five-day school weeks — Trujillo felt the PED was trying to "fit everybody in one box" and had concerns about losing four-day school weeks.

Such schedules, she told the Journal, help children like hers in rural areas and give them more time to learn specific subjects. So allowing schools to operate on four-day school weeks, she said, was a start.

"At least they made an exception," she said. "I wish they would have went with what the community really wanted, but something's better than nothing, I guess."

The PED has touted a 180-day requirement as a way to improve student outcomes.

The proposal also came after the department said last year that despite a law approved last legislative session setting a new, higher minimum number of instructional hours for schools, some districts were in fact spending less time with students.

In some cases, the department said that happened through a provision in House Bill 130 from the last legislative session allowing some of educators' professional work time — professional development, parent-teacher conferences, etc. — to count as instructional hours, even if those were not necessarily hours being spent with students.

Albuquerque Public Schools was one of the districts the PED said that, despite having more than 180 instructional days on paper, wasn't spending that many days with students.

Ahead of the PED's decision to move forward with the rule, APS in February approved an academic calendar for next school year that would have schools spending 184 days with students, which it partly accomplished by eliminating seven professional development days exclusively set aside for K-8 educators during the current school year.

Lujan Grisham applauded APS for its calendar during remarks to business leaders the week after the school board approved it.

"I'm really excited that the Albuquerque Public Schools, based on the new school calendar, appear to be embracing 180 days," she said. "And we got the resources to make sure that they are shored up as they lean into it."

Ahead of the board meeting in which the panel approved the calendar, district staff framed the proposal as an anticipatory move, noting the governor had made it clear she planned to move forward on the 180-day requirement.

"Albuquerque Public Schools anticipated this change and built the school year 2024-2025 calendar with the required 180 days instructional time," the district said in a written statement on Thursday.