SENATE MEMORIAL 142

53rd legislature - STATE OF NEW MEXICO - first session, 2017

INTRODUCED BY

Mimi Stewart and John Pinto

A MEMORIAL

REQUESTING THE LEGISLATIVE EDUCATION STUDY COMMITTEE TO STUDY THE PROVISIONS OF LAW GOVERNING THE RURAL ISOLATION UNITS PROVIDED THROUGH THE PUBLIC SCHOOL FUNDING FORMULA.

     WHEREAS, the Gallup-McKinley county school district is one of the largest of New Mexico's school districts, sprawling across the Navajo Nation for over four thousand nine hundred fifty-seven square miles; and

     WHEREAS, the school district is the sixth-largest school district in terms of students, and eighty-two percent of its students are Native American; and

     WHEREAS, its unique geography presents the school district with the challenge of educating students in a large number of rural, isolated schools; and

     WHEREAS, between 1976 and 2011, the Gallup-McKinley county school district received rural isolation units in the size adjustment program unit calculation of the public school funding formula, also known as the "sparsity factor"; and

     WHEREAS, the sparsity factor provided additional program units for the school district based on the number of approved regular senior high schools not eligible for senior high school size adjustment program units; and

     WHEREAS, the number of approved senior high schools in the school district not eligible for senior high school size adjustment program units decreased from four in the 2009-2010 school year to two in the 2011-2012 school year, making the school district ineligible for rural isolation units;

     NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE SENATE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO that the legislative education study committee be requested to study the law and the funding formula calculations for rural isolation units and the need for changes to the public school funding formula calculation for rural isolation units; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the committee report its findings to the second session of the fifty-third legislature; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be transmitted to the chair and director of the legislative education study committee and to the Gallup-McKinley county school district.