A district court judge late Friday issued a temporary restraining order preventing the New Mexico Public Education Department from enforcing a rule that mandates at least 180 days of instruction for all schools in the state.
For now, four-day-a-week schools are allowed to convene for 155 days next year, the current standard.
The New Mexico School Superintendents Association, along with dozens of school districts and charter schools, sued the PED in advance of the planned July 1 implementation of the mandate. The basis of the lawsuit was that the department failed to adequately consider the rule’s impact on rural schools and on those that operate on a four-day school week.
In his order, Judge Dustin K. Hunter, from the 5th Judicial District, stated the plaintiffs showed they could face irreparable harm, are likely to prevail on the merits of the case and his granting of the order would not damage the public interest.
The suit was filed in the 9th Judicial District, but the judges there voluntarily recused themselves, citing “bias or personal knowledge of the facts or a party to this matter.”
Hunter also ordered a May 13 hearing on the matter in Roswell.
Charter school planned compressed calendar
ABQ Charter Academy — which has students attending class four days every week — is among the schools that were unhappy with the PED rule.
Before the suit was filed, Executive Director Erik Bose told City Desk ABQ it would compress the school’s calendar, resulting in just a six-week break between the end of this school year and the start of the next.
Bose said the planned calendar for next school year would have students in class 45 out of 52 weeks, with one week off for Thanksgiving and two weeks for Christmas.
He said school families and staff remained committed to the four-day school week and chose to include fewer breaks in the calendar to maintain that schedule. However, Bose said, he was concerned about the potential for students to get burned out on so much class time, leading to lower levels of engagement.
Bose said the PED conducted hearings on the proposed rule and ignored public comments that were overwhelmingly against the change. He said the state Legislature also didn’t support the mandate, as evidenced by its actions in 2023, when it voted to require more hours of instruction, but didn’t require more school days.
House Bill 130, signed by New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham last year, specifies that 155 days of instruction would be required for schools on a four-day week.
Bose said he thought the PED moved too soon in adding instructional days, as there was no data available on whether last year’s changes had yielded improvements. He said the mandate came right after ABQ Charter Academy had finally adopted an optimal academic calendar.
“Our community was extremely happy with the schedule for this year,” Bose said before the ruling. “We actually thought we got it right this time.”
Bose could not be reached for comment by press time to discuss whether ABQ Charter Academy would move to change its new 2024-25 calendar, which had already been approved by the school’s governing council.