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Legislators lay out education priorities ahead of upcoming session

Esteban Candelaria Esteban Candelaria Esteban Candelaria Staff Writer

Published December 14, 2023 - 6:09 p.m. Modified January 18, 2025 - 2:00 a.m.

The Legislative Education Study Committee on Thursday laid out several draft bills for consideration as the Roundhouse gears up for the 30-day session beginning in January.

One of the most eye-catching draft bills the LESC endorsed would again increase the minimum salaries of educational assistants, and provide a 2½-fold minimum pay bump for all public school employees in general.

According to some of the legislation the bill would amend, all public school employees are guaranteed a minimum wage of $6 per hour, though there is no set minimum salary. The bill, if passed, would bump that up to $15 per hour, and establish a $30,000 minimum salary for full-time employees.

“What this does is a two-pronged approach to increasing salary for school personnel, adults in our schools who are paid the least,” LESC Director Gwen Perea Warniment said.

Under the bill, educational assistants also would be again bumped from $25,000 minimum salaries to $30,000.

Last legislative session, lawmakers improved a more than twofold minimum salary increase for educational assistants, from $12,000 to $25,000.

While a good first step, some educational assistants argued at the time, that even $25,000 was still low.

“You could make more money working at McDonald’s flipping burgers than you could going into a classroom and doing this job,” educational assistant Cyndi Garcia told the Journal at the time. “But this is a great start … in recognizing how valuable we are.”

'Glue that holds our schools together': Advocates push to raise educational assistants' pay

If a separate committee recommendation to increase public school employees’ salaries by 6% goes through, increasing the minimum salaries of all full-time personnel would cost the state another $24.7 million, LESC staff estimated.

Another draft bill the LESC endorsed would require training for school board members that is not currently mandated by the state.

New school board members would have to complete at least 10 hours of mandatory training covering a range of topics, including budget responsibilities, laws affecting school boards and student achievement, during their first year on the job. Present school board members would have to complete five hours of mandatory training on the same or similar topics, under the draft.

Still, there were some initial doubts that without more teeth, such a bill wouldn’t actually hold school board members accountable.

“Passing a law that doesn’t have an enforcement mechanism, I don’t think is going to have much effect on the recalcitrant members that aren’t going to meetings now,” said LESC Vice-Chair Sen. William Soules, D-Las Cruces.

The draft bill does call for the amount of time board members spend in training to be posted to New Mexico Vistas, the state’s education information system, but that’s the primary enforcement mechanism in it, Perea Warniment said.

Soules, who eventually voted to endorse the bill, added he likely would propose an amendment in committee to give the bill more teeth.

In all, the LESC endorsed five draft education bills to be considered during the upcoming session. Here are the remaining three, in brief:

One bill would create a pilot program that distributes between $250 and $750 for each student in a district that successfully earns a credential in a specific industry that shows their competence in that field of work.
Another would lay the groundwork for preparation programs for aspiring school administrators like principals and assistant principals, as well as an institute to develop their skills. Under the draft bill, the minimum salaries of principals and assistant principals also be increased to the minimums of Level 3 teachers of at least $70,000. That is then multiplied by a factor that takes into account their additional responsibilities, based on whether they work in an elementary, middle or high school.
The third would tweak legislation passed during the last session, clarifying how school districts would be eligible for waivers from local dollars they would need to spend on brick-and-mortar projects the state also is investing in.