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F I S C A L I M P A C T R E P O R T

SPONSOR Arnold-Jones

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

01/28/08

HB 351

SHORT TITLE Bernalillo County Educational Services

SB

ANALYST Escudero

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY08

FY09

$225.0

Recurring

General Fund

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

Public Education Department (PED)

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

House Bill 351 appropriates $255.0 to the Local Government Division of the Department of

Finance and Administration for expenditure in fiscal year 2009 to contract for the provision of an

array of educational programs in Bernalillo County, including college entrance examination

preparation, after-school tutoring, summer educational enrichment opportunities and adult

computer literacy.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

The appropriation of $225.0 contained in this bill is a recurring or expense to the general fund.

Any unexpended or unencumbered balance remaining at the end of 2009 shall revert to the

general fund.

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

According to PED, this bill appropriates funds that will provide financial support for students to take

college entrance exams such as the SAT and ACT; provide after-school tutoring to students who are falling

short of academic proficiency or keeping students on grade-level; provide summer educational enrichment

opportunities for students who are ahead of grade-level and/or gifted and talented; and provide adults with

House Bill 351 – Page

2

computer knowledge, thereby tying parents to their child’s education and school in order to address

parental involvement.

After-School Tutoring and Educational Enrichment

Regarding after-school tutoring, Title I provides the following: Low-income families can enroll their

child in supplemental educational services if their child attends a Title I school that has been designated

by the state to be in need of improvement for more than one year. The term “supplemental educational

services" refers to free extra academic help, such as tutoring or remedial help, that is provided to students

in subjects such as reading, language arts and math. This extra help can be provided before or after school,

on weekends, or in the summer.

•

Further, the Legislature in 2007 appropriated $94.9 to UNM for ENLACE Albuquerque, a

partnership of postsecondary education institutions, public schools and community organizations

designed to focus united attention and resources on producing more Latino/Hispanic graduates

from high school and college.

•

To strengthen the K-16 education "pipeline," the ENLACE partnership has three key targets:

increasing retention rates of students in high school and college, family and community education

and the numbers of Hispanic teachers to serve as role models for students.

•

The UNM partnership primarily targets students at middle and high schools in three clusters of

schools with the highest Latino enrollment (69 percent) in APS. The high schools are

Albuquerque, Valley and West Mesa. At the postsecondary level, ENLACE targets Hispanic

students at Community College of New Mexico and UNM.

ENLACE Albuquerque uses several strategies, including increased student mentoring and summer

academic skills preparation programs for middle-grade students. A high school mentoring program is

planned to be expanded so that six Latino university students will work with 60 youngsters offering

customized literacy and reading instruction. The summer prep program will be a "bridge" to high school

for incoming ninth graders. Not only will the program de-mystify high school, but it will offer early

college awareness with weekly trips to UNM or CCM computer labs.

Further, 17 ENLACE family centers within APS are funded through the Family and Youth Resource

Act (FYRA), which received a legislative appropriation in 2007 of $1,500.0. The purpose the FYRA

program is to provide an intermediary for students and their families at public schools so that they can

access social and health care services. The goal is to forge mutual long-term relationships with public

and private agencies and community-based, civic and corporate organizations so that certain non-

academic needs of students and their families are met and students are helped to attain high academic

achievement.

Gifted Services

In the public schools, whether or not a student needs gifted services is a determination that is made by the

IEP team after the student has been evaluated and met the established criteria. For those students who do

demonstrate need, they most often have not been challenged by the curriculum that is offered at their

grade level. The services that are determined to be needed can be delivered in the classroom with

appropriate supports and services, in a pull-out program, in another classroom for specific subjects or in a

self-contained classroom setting. It is a determination of the IEP team what services are needed, where

they will be delivered, and by whom. Some of the most common ways to serve gifted students are

through pull-out programs that address academic strengths, enrichment, acceleration, grade-skipping,

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3

mentorship and dual enrollment. gifted students are funded first as a regular education student and then

additional funds are provided depending on the level of service that is required to meet their identified

needs.

Parental Involvement

Regarding parental involvement, APS representatives sit on the PED’s Family/Parent Advisory

Council. Once a month, PED meets with the Council, which includes representatives from as

many as 30 different statewide parent engagement organizations and parents, to form stronger

partnerships among stakeholders. The meetings are aimed at collaboration and networking. The

work with this group is extremely important because the participants are advocates for parental

involvement and are regarded as New Mexico’s experts in the field. The work produced from

these meetings will be used to guide policy and the future parental involvement activities of the

PED, which could potentially affect the entire state. The Executive’s public school support

request for FY 09 includes $1,000.0 for parental training and involvement.

It should be noted that parent involvement is an integral part of the Title I program.

PERFORMANCE IMPLICATIONS

SB 351 aligns to the PED’s strategic plan for 2005-2010. The priority areas of the plan are:

•

student achievement

•

academic standards and assessments

•

teacher quality

•

parent partnerships.

PME/mt