Funding for English learners in public schools at risk, New Mexico budget analyst warns – Austin Fisher, Source New Mexico
A public school budget expert told New Mexico lawmakers on Thursday that the federal government is likely to take away money meant for students who are learning English, but said a new state law will help compensate for the loss.
Legislative Education Study Committee Senior Fiscal Analyst Daniel Estupiñan said the federal funding for K-12 public education most at risk of being cut is meant for students who are English language learners and their teachers, called Title III, because the Trump administration has “mostly hollowed out” the Office of English Language Acquisition, which ensured states and schools properly spent Title III money, and has recommended terminating its funding source. The office had just one staffer remaining as of March 21, Chalkbeat reported.
“So many nonprofits, so many other states, are basically going into a panic,” Estupiñan told the committee. “They’re panicking about their public school funding formulas not being responsive enough to potentially support English learners, to potentially support low-income students and support professional development in basic programs.”
Overall, New Mexico will receive more than $633 million from the U.S. Department of Education for K-12 public education this year, according to estimates included in Estupiñan’s presentation to the committee.
The Trump administration’s preliminary budget proposal proposed keeping the same level of funding for low-income students and students with disabilities, while also cutting $4.5 billion in the various “formula awards” that go to public schools, according to Estupiñan’s presentation.
Estupiñan said the proposal calls for redesigning the federal funding scheme for K-12 schools, and changing to a block grant system in which states would receive one large pot of money without as many rules governing how to spend it.
How much money the federal government actually provides to schools will depend on the final budget passed by Congress.
If left untouched, New Mexico may receive $4.7 million in English language learning funds that can pay for teacher training, family engagement and instructional materials, Estupiñan said.
Estupiñan said the state could, however, navigate losing federal funding as a result of House Bill 63, which reduces the state’s reliance on federal data.
Instead, starting on July 1, New Mexico’s funding formula for English learners will use state income tax data, public benefits data and U.S. Census Bureau data.
“So we’re not completely independent from federal data, but we’re moving in the direction of basically data autonomy,” Estupiñan said.
That change will result in about $125 million flowing to districts and charter schools, and that money can be used to backfill a potential cut, he said.
HB63 also created the first guidance New Mexico has ever had for how money should be used to specifically support English learners, he said.
“So if we see the elimination of Title III funding, or we see some revocation of federal protections through rule or statute for English learners, we now have a good foundation in state statute to build on,” Estupiñan said.
Pueblo of Sandia, MRGCD reaches a deal to unblock Corrales Siphon repairs – Jesse Jones, nm.news
During the Corrales Village Council meeting May 27, Pueblo of Sandia Gov. Felix Chaves told the council the Pueblo of Sandia and the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District have reached a landmark agreement, clearing the way for construction to begin on the long-delayed Corrales siphon replacement project.
The two sides signed off on a term sheet that clears the way for repairs to the Corrales siphon after years of delays over land access. The non-binding deal outlines land access, addresses past trespass and sets up future cooperation. With the agreement in place, construction can begin while lawyers finish the final contract.
“Let me be clear, in no time did the Pueblo idly choose to wait, as this has been suggested by others,” Chaves said. “We did, however, insist on a process that clearly identified the issues and legal obligations that respected the Pueblo’s ability to fully evaluate the situation and find solutions.”
In a statement to the Corrales Comment, MRGCD Board of Directors Chairman John Kelly said, “We are encouraged by the recent discussions and progress made between the MRGCD and the Pueblo of Sandia regarding access for the construction of the Corrales Siphon. Additionally, our team is grateful for the cooperation we have received from the Pueblo’s leadership on the issue. While the formal agreement is still in progress, we are hopeful that we will be able to announce additional project details soon being finalized, we’re hopeful we’ll be able to share more project details soon."
After nearly a century of unauthorized use was uncovered, the Pueblo insisted on a legal process that respected their sovereignty while supporting the project’s urgent water needs.
According to Chaves, MRGCD knew the siphon was failing as early as 2016 — a fact reported by the Corrales Comment — but didn’t consult the Pueblo until after it had secured funding. In 2023, the district hired an engineering firm and asked for access to Pueblo land, but neither the Pueblo nor the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) could find any record of a legal right-of-way.
“The Pueblo was not able to encumber their trust lands without involvement with the BIA,” he said.
The BIA took nine months to confirm no right-of-way existed; this caused a significant delay for the MRGCD, which would need the right-of-way.
“They had been in trespass for nearly 100 years on tribal lands,” Chaves said. “It’s unfortunate that BIA took so long, but the Pueblo took measures to speed things along, fully aware of the impact of the siphon’s failure on the village of Corrales.
”Chaves said the Pueblo couldn’t authorize construction but allowed the process to move forward when MRGCD asked to do test borings along the river to check soil conditions.
With the agreement in place, Chaves said Sandia is working with BIA to let early siphon construction move forward while final paperwork gets finished. He said the Pueblo will coordinate with district crews to allow access and set up staging on tribal land.
Sandia is an agrarian community, Chaves said. And water is central to its culture, religion, livelihood and economy. He said the Pueblo has worked hard to protect its water while continuing to share with neighbors in Corrales and across the Middle Rio Grande Valley.
“I want you to know that it never occurred to us to withhold cooperation or stall the siphon replacement for any reason,” he said. “We acted in good faith to do what we could to expedite the solution while preserving important sovereign and legal interests associated with the use of our tribal lands.”
Chaves said the Pueblo raised concerns with New Mexico’s congressional delegation, including Rep. Melanie Stansbury, Sen. Ben Ray Luján and Sen. Martin Heinrich’s office, all of whom helped push BIA to act.
He said the Pueblo is now watching the federal budget fight in Washington and doesn’t know how agencies like BIA will be affected, but leaders will keep pushing to make sure their concerns are heard.
Chaves said as soon as the tribal council approved the agreement, he contacted Mayor James Fahey’s office to share the good news. The council had real concerns, especially around the trespass issue, and he said he respected how firmly they stood their ground.
“They’re my supervisors, and I answer to them,” he said. “I just wanted to let the Village of Corrales know — things are moving forward.”
Oil and gas have boomed in New Mexico. Its schools are contending with pollution's effects - By Ed Williams, Searchlight New Mexico and Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press
On a Tuesday in March, Billton Werito drove his son Amari toward his house in Counselor, New Mexico, navigating the bumpy dirt road that winds through a maze of natural gas pipelines, wellheads and water tanks. Amari should have been in school, but a bout of nausea and a dull headache kept him from class.
"It happens a lot," Amari explained from the backseat, glancing up from his Nintendo Switch. The symptoms usually show up when the sixth grader smells an odor of "rotten egg with propane" that rises from nearby natural gas wells and wafts over Lybrook Elementary School, where he and some 70 other Navajo students attend class. His little brother often misses school for the same reason.
"They just keep getting sick," Amari's father, Billton, said. "I have to take them out of class because of the headaches. Especially the younger one, he's been throwing up and won't eat." The symptoms are putting the kids at risk of falling further behind in school.
Lybrook sits in the heart of New Mexico's San Juan Basin, a major oil and gas deposit that, along with the Permian Basin in the state's southeast, is supplying natural gas that meets much of the nation's electricity demand.
The gas pulled from tens of thousands of wells in New Mexico has reaped huge benefits for the entire country. Natural gas has become a go-to fuel for power plants from coast to coast, sometimes replacing dirtier coal-fired plants and, by extension, improving air quality. Locally, oil and gas companies employ thousands of workers, often in areas with few other opportunities, all while boosting the state's budget with billions in royalty payments.
But those benefits may come at a cost for thousands of students in New Mexico whose schools sit near oil and gas pipelines, wellheads and flare stacks. An Associated Press analysis of state and federal data found 694 oil and gas wells with new or active permits within a mile of a school in the state. This means around 29,500 students in 74 schools and preschools potentially face exposure to noxious emissions, since extraction from the ground can release unhealthy fumes.
A measurable effect on students
At Lybrook, where Amari just finished sixth grade, fewer than 6% of students are proficient at math, and only a fifth meet state standards for science and reading proficiency.
Other factors could help explain students' poor achievement. Poverty rates are higher in some areas with high levels of gas development, and students at rural schools overall tend to face challenges that can adversely affect academic performance. AP's analysis found two-thirds of the schools within a mile of an oil or gas well are low-income, and the population is around 24% Native American and 45% Hispanic.
But research has found student learning is directly harmed by air pollution from fossil fuels — even when socioeconomic factors are taken into account.
The risks go far beyond New Mexico. An AP analysis of data from the Global Oil and Gas Extraction Tracker found over 1,000 public schools across 13 states that are within five miles of a major oil or gas field. Major fields are collections of wells that produce the highest amount of energy in a state.
"This kind of air pollution has a real, measurable effect on students," said Mike Gilraine, an economics professor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, who studies connections between air quality and student performance.
In 2024, Gilraine co-wrote a study showing student test scores were closely associated with air contamination. Each measured increase in PM2.5, a type of pollution created from the burning of fossil fuels, was associated with a significant decline in student test scores, Gilraine found. Conversely, researchers have documented that reductions in air pollution have led to higher test scores and fewer absences.
"To me, the surprise was certainly the magnitude of the effects" of air pollution on students, Gilraine said. "It's hard to find a similar factor that would have such an impact on schools nationwide."
America's shift to natural gas has resulted in substantial increases in student achievement nationwide, Gilraine's research shows, as it has displaced dirtier coal and led to cleaner air on the whole. But there has been little data on air quality across New Mexico, even as it has become one of the most productive states in the nation for natural gas. State regulators have installed only 20 permanent air monitors, most in areas without oil or gas production.
Independent researchers have extensively studied the air quality near schools in at least two locations in the state, however. One is Lybrook, which sits within a mile of 17 active oil and gas wells.
In 2024, scientists affiliated with Princeton and Northern Arizona universities conducted an air-monitoring study at the school, finding that levels of pollutants — including benzene, a cancer-causing byproduct of natural gas production that is particularly harmful to children — were spiking during school hours, to nearly double the levels known to cause chronic or acute health effects.
That research followed a 2021 health impact assessment conducted with support from several local nonprofits and foundations, which analyzed the effects of the area's oil and gas development on residents.
The findings were startling: More than 90% of people surveyed suffered from sinus problems. Nosebleeds, shortness of breath and nausea were widespread. The report attributed the symptoms to the high levels of pollutants that researchers found — including, near Lybrook, hydrogen sulfide, a compound that gives off the sulfur smell that Amari Werito associated with his headaches.
Those studies helped confirm what many community members already knew, said Daniel Tso, a community leader who served on the committee that oversaw the 2021 health impact assessment.
"The children and the grandchildren need a safe homeland," Tso said during an interview in March, standing outside a cluster of gas wells within a mile of Lybrook Elementary.
"You smell that?" he said, nodding towards a nearby wellhead, which smelled like propane. "That's what the kids at the school are breathing in. I've had people visiting this area from New York. They spend five minutes here and say, 'Hey, I got a headache.' And the kids are what, six hours a day at the school breathing this?"
Lybrook school officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Despite risks, oil and gas can pump money into schools
Researchers have identified similar air quality problems in New Mexico's southeast.
In 2023, a team of scientists from a coalition of universities conducted a detailed, yearlong study of the air in Loving, a small town in the Permian Basin. Local air quality, researchers found, was worse than in downtown Los Angeles, and the tested air contained the fifth-highest level of measured ozone contamination in the U.S.
The source of the ozone — a pollutant that's especially hazardous to children — was the area's network of gas wells and related infrastructure. Some of that infrastructure sits within a half-mile of a campus that houses Loving's elementary, middle and high schools.
A small group of residents has spoken out about the area's air quality, saying it has caused respiratory problems and other health issues. But for most locals, any concerns about pollution are outweighed by the industry's economic benefits.
Representatives of the oil and gas industry have claimed the air quality studies themselves are not trustworthy.
"There needs to be a robust study to actually answer these questions," said Andrea Felix, vice president of regulatory affairs for the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association (NMOGA). Felix said other sources of emissions, such as cars and trucks, are likely a larger source of air quality problems near wells.
"Companies follow the best available science" for well placement and emissions controls, Felix said, and also contribute huge amounts of money to the state's education budget. In the most recent fiscal year, oil and gas revenue supported $1.7 billion in K-12 spending in New Mexico, according to a NMOGA report.
Officials with Loving Municipal Schools are also skeptical of the alarm over the wells. Loving Superintendent Lee White said the school district used funds from the oil and gas industry to pay for a new wing at the elementary school, a science lab for students, turf on the sports field and training and professional development for teachers. He said the industry's contributions to state coffers can't be ignored.
"Are we willing to give that up because people say our air is not clean?" he said during an interview. "It's just as clean as anywhere else."
As White spoke, a drill rig worked a couple of miles east of Loving's elementary school while parents poured into the gymnasium to watch kindergartners collect their diplomas. White touted the district's success, saying the elementary school scores above state averages for reading, math and science proficiency, while Loving's high school students far outpace the state average for college and career readiness.
But environmental groups, attorneys and residents continue to push for limits on drilling near schools.
Those efforts saw a boost in 2023, when New Mexico State Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard issued an executive order prohibiting new oil and gas leases on state-owned land within a mile of schools.
Industry representatives decried the move, saying it added potentially insurmountable costs and barriers to drilling operators. However, AP's analysis found that relatively few wells would be impacted even if the rule applied to all of New Mexico; only around 1% of oil and gas wells in the state are within a mile of a school.
In the years since, residents of areas where exploration is heavy have lobbied for legislation prohibiting gas operations within a mile of schools, regardless of land status. That bill died in committee during the most recent session of the New Mexico legislature.
Advocates have also sued the state over an alleged lack of pollution controls. That lawsuit is currently pending in state court.
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AP journalist Sharon Lurye contributed to this report from New Orleans.
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NM Democratic Party official resigns, citing exclusionary actions by new leaders - Dany Boyd, Albuquerque Journal
A top Democratic Party of New Mexico official has resigned from her post just one month after being elected, citing what she described as exclusionary actions by new party leaders.
State Party Treasurer Julie Rochman of Albuquerque, who submitted her resignation Wednesday, also expressed concern that none of the Democratic Party’s new leaders are Hispanic in a state with the nation’s highest percentage of Hispanic residents.
In an interview, Rochman said she and other candidates for state Democratic Party offices spoke about party unity during the run-up to the April 26 state central committee meeting in Albuquerque, when new officials were elected.
But upon being elected treasurer, she said she was not informed about weekly staff meetings and other party business by new Democratic Party Chairwoman Sara Attleson and Vice Chairman Cam Crawford.
“They’ve made it clear they don’t speak to me,” Rochman told the Journal.
In her resignation letter to state Democratic Party members, Rochman also said she was instructed to sign a nondisclosure agreement that would have prevented her from criticizing party officials even after leaving her elected position.
Rochman declined to sign the agreement, describing it as a “gag order for the rest of my life” and likening it to something President Donald Trump might instruct people to sign.
In a response, Attleson said that Rochman ran for party treasurer as part of a slate of candidates who, in other races, finished in second place.
Despite that dynamic, the recently elected party chairwoman said the state Democratic Party was hopeful the differences could be smoothed over.
“Contrary to her letter, we welcomed Julie to be a part of the movement we’re building,” Attleson said in her statement. “Unfortunately, shortly after the election, she decided this team wasn’t an ideal fit for her.”
“We respect her decision and wish her all the best in future endeavors and Democratic activism,” she added.
Regarding the diversity claims, Attleson pointed out several members of the state’s all-Democratic congressional delegation are Hispanic, as is Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.
She also said Crawford, the state party’s new vice chairman, is African American and party chairwoman Brenda Hoskie of McKinley County is a member of the Navajo Nation.
New Mexico has turned reliably blue in recent election cycles, as Democrats currently hold all statewide offices and comfortable majorities in both legislative chambers.
But the Democratic Party’s national approval rating has sagged in recent months, and Trump picked up a larger vote share last year in 29 of the state’s 33 counties than he did in the 2020 election, though he ultimately lost in New Mexico in both elections.
Rochman, who moved to New Mexico from Florida in 2019 in part due to the political climate, said she plans to remain involved in local politics going forward, citing her position as a ward chair in Bernalillo County.
She also encouraged state Democratic Party leaders to appoint a Hispanic New Mexican from a rural part of the state to fill her post.
The decision on filling the vacancy is expected to be made by the remaining party elected officers in the coming days.