Educators decry proposed academic calendar changes from state Public Education Department

New Mexico lawmakers earlier this year approved legislation to increase the minimum amount of hours students must spend in school, a move top education decision-makers for years have touted as a way to turn around the state’s lagging student achievement.

Despite that new requirement, the state Public Education Department says some districts and charter schools actually have cut the time their children spend in class.

So in an effort to uphold the initiative, the department has proposed an administrative rule to set a new minimum amount of days districts must spend with students. It’s a move that, in turn, has prompted a torrent of public opposition.

Amassing more than 460 written public comments as of Thursday, the proposal has drawn sharp criticism from educators, many of whom questioned whether adding more days to academic calendars actually would improve student outcomes — or just drive teachers out.

“They just think tacking on hours will help,” Judy Walker, a teacher-librarian at Nina Otero Community School in Santa Fe, told the Journal. “What’s going to happen is you’re going to have teachers that will leave — just get up and go.”

Earlier this year, lawmakers approved House Bill 130, which increased the minimum amount of instructional time students must spend in school to 1,140 hours, while allowing some professional work time — which can include parent-teacher conferences or professional development — during instructional hours.

Previously, first through sixth graders were required to go to school for at least 990 hours per year, and secondary students for 1,080.

Since the legislation’s passage, however, the PED says many school districts are actually spending less time with students this year, in some cases driven by the allowance of professional work hours in instructional hours. Overall, roughly 28% of charter schools and districts cut some hours from their academic calendars, and 46% cut days, according to a department document from late August.

So the rule change the PED has proposed would set a new minimum of at least 180 instructional days per school year outside of professional work time, which the department hopes will boost the amount of face-to-face time students actually receive.

“As we couple that with our proficiencies, we can see that there needs to be a change in how students have instructional time with teachers,” state Education Secretary Arsenio Romero told the Journal. “House Bill 130 … had very little effect, and so that’s what (the) rule is for, is to be able to help us implement the intended statute.”

As for doubts from some educators that more time in school will mean improved student outcomes, Romero replied, “I don’t understand how that would not be a good thing.”

“We need to do something dramatically different. And so when I hear the arguments or the debates like ‘We’re doing well, you should let us keep doing what we’re doing’ — that’s not quite accurate, because the data tells us another story,” he said.

The PED is holding a public hearing on the issue at 1:30 p.m. Dec. 18 at 300 Don Gaspar Avenue in Santa Fe. In the following weeks, Romero said the department will tweak and make a decision on approving the rule. If approved, it would go into effect for next school year.

Vacancies and absenteeism

Requiring 180-day school calendars has prompted concerns that people will leave their positions, deepening the state’s educator vacancy woes, which a New Mexico State University October snapshot report put at 1,471.

If the rule were approved, “I would seriously consider (retirement),” said Walker, who’s 61. “And I’m not the only one. … There’s a lot of people at those points.

“It’s another nail in the coffin for all the other BS we have to put up with,” she added.

Pointing out that 180-instructional day requirements are par for the course for much of the country, Romero said he would hope that teachers wouldn’t flee schools as a response.

“We need teachers to be there for students,” he said. “I don’t feel like this rule is so imposing at having 180 days. This is something that is thought of across the country as a typical school year.”

Some also have argued that simply mandating that students spend more time in class doesn’t solve the deeper challenge of keeping students in school.

“We’re putting the cart before the horse in many ways, because we have a real student engagement problem that ends up in chronically absent students,” said Mary Parr-Sánchez, National Education Association New Mexico president.

“We could set 500 billion days, if there were that many days in the calendar, for them to be at school,” she added. “But if they’re not coming even to the days that are currently set, how does mandating a set number … affect that huge problem?”

In the 2021-2022 school year, according to a study by The Associated Press and Stanford University educational economist Thomas Dee, New Mexico faced a more than 40% chronic absenteeism rate, which is defined as a student missing 10% or more of the school year.

That rate placed New Mexico in the top five of some 40 analyzed states.

Romero acknowledged that mandating more days doesn’t necessarily mean students will show up. Still, he said there isn’t enough time to tackle the state’s problems one by one, and that New Mexico must work to solve chronic absenteeism in tandem with increasing instructional time.

“What we can’t do is only focus on one thing at a time,” he said. “This is 100% a multipronged approach to be able to tackle the issues that we have here in New Mexico when it comes to proficiencies and outcomes for students.”

Four-day school weeks

Many also have criticized changes the rule would make to the calendars of school districts that have implemented four-day school weeks.

If approved, the rule would require that all public schools schedule more than 50% of their calendars as five-day school weeks.

Research findings on the academic benefits of four-day school weeks are mixed. Romero, for example, cited a study finding that while student achievement in districts on four-day school weeks did improve, it did so on a slower pace than if those districts had remained on a five-day schedule.

So although he acknowledged feedback from superintendents that four-day school weeks help recruit teachers, Romero reiterated that his job “is to make sure we provide the best outcomes for students” and that right now, “we’re not where we want to be.”

But many proponents of four-day school weeks say those schedules have benefits that can’t be overlooked if improving student achievement is the ultimate goal, especially for rural areas in which everyone is promised a long commute, or just districts facing educator recruitment and retention woes in general.

Kristen Griego works at Socorro Consolidated Schools, which largely operates on a four-day school-week schedule. She said that “if we had all the teachers we needed, maybe it would be better to have a five-day week. But at the end of the day, we don’t.”

“Having kids in school five days a week seems better than four days a week. The reality is that we’ve got the choice between four days with a teacher or five days with a substitute,” she said. “When you don’t have teachers in the classroom … it’s detrimental to their education.”

If her district switched to five days per week, Griego, who commutes about an hour every day to work, said she probably would look for another job.

Lordsburg High School teacher Anneliese Kvamme also pointed out she’s seen firsthand how four-day school weeks can help increase students’ ability to come to school. But if those schedules were taken away, she is concerned students would become less engaged with school.

“When we operated on a five-day school week, especially with all the travel and everything that my students have to do, by the time Friday would roll around, they were pretty fatigued and had a real lack of focus,” she said. “I would be concerned about students losing their momentum through the week.”