HOUSE BILL 224

54th legislature - STATE OF NEW MEXICO - second session, 2020

INTRODUCED BY

G. Andrés Romero

 

 

 

 

 

AN ACT

MAKING AN APPROPRIATION FOR A STATEWIDE LITERACY PROGRAM FOR CHILDREN AND ADULTS.

 

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO:

     SECTION 1. APPROPRIATION.--

          A. Four million dollars ($4,000,000) is appropriated from the general fund to the public education department for expenditure in fiscal year 2021 for regional education cooperatives to provide or contract for a statewide literacy program for children and adults and for literacy professional development for their members and other school districts or charter schools. Any unexpended or unencumbered balance remaining at the end of fiscal year 2021 shall revert to the general fund.

          B. Participating cooperatives shall assign one cooperative to provide coordination, financial accounting and disbursement of funding received from the public education department.

          C. The program shall:

                (1) use a wide variety of strategies to improve literacy for approximately thirty-five thousand low-income school-age students and approximately six hundred thousand children and adults overall; and

                (2) include:

                     (a) reading material that is culturally and linguistically responsive and relevant and age-appropriate for children, students and adults being taught to read or tutored to improve their reading;

                     (b) working directly and indirectly with low-income pre-kindergarten children and kindergarten through twelfth grade students, including after-school literacy tutoring and providing a variety of fiction and informational read-aloud texts to practice oral language and reading fluency skills at school and at home;

                     (c) providing early childhood cultural literacy services for children and their families;

                     (d) teaching parents, extended families and communities the importance of supporting emergent literacy and learning in very young children, including strategies, books and English language learner and cultural instructional materials for parents and for caregivers who conduct at-home visits to families to encourage early learning at home;

                     (e) providing embedded literacy professional development and mentoring to tutors, teachers, parents and community organizations that support learning;

                     (f) book distributions to communities and schools through community and school literacy events and through little free libraries located in every community in which the program is conducted to provide free books for readers of all ages;

                     (g) community reading events, including interactive discussions, instruction on reading components, fun reading activities and cultural read-along events for family and community members to read with children; and

                     (h) providing classroom sets of books with instructional materials tied to the common core principles for kindergarten through third grade, fourth through sixth grade and seventh through twelfth grade teachers to supplement classroom materials.

          D. The regional education cooperatives shall report on the literacy program for children and adults to the public education department, the governor and the legislature by January 15, 2021, which report shall include a quantitative assessment of programmatic success.

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