With in-person learning banned by state officials until mid-January and plans for hybrid learning scrapped for the vast majority of students earlier this year, the inability to access remote classes has been a challenge for many rural and low-income students, particularly Native American children living on tribal lands.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were hopeful children could return to in-person learning in early fall, but that didn\u2019t happen,\u201d said Maria Archuleta with the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty, which has been involved in the case. \u201cAccess to technology was essential before the pandemic and will be when the pandemic is over. Right now, it is absolutely necessary. Beyond critical. Kids simply can\u2019t do without it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Education officials across the state\u2019s 89 school districts have purchased tens of thousands of laptops and worked with the governor and the Public Education Department to provide Wi-Fi hotspots in many areas during the pandemic.<\/p>\n
In response to the motion, the Public Education Department highlighted state efforts to support increased internet access during the pandemic.<\/p>\n
Spokeswoman Judy Robinson pointed to the north central Pe\u00f1asco school district mentioned in the motion, saying it has gone from having 50 families without internet access in August to just two.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have made this progress just recently. It has been an effort that has taken eight months,\u201d Pe\u00f1asco schools Superintendent Lisa Hamilton said.<\/p>\n
But thousands of children are still offline, and an untold number have limited internet connectivity that doesn\u2019t allow them to upload or download video. Some students have relied on their parent\u2019s cellphone hotspots, which can run out of data or can\u2019t be left at home when the parent goes to work.<\/p>\n
While some school districts have tested connection speeds at student homes, the state hasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
In a motion filed Tuesday, lawyers have asked state District Judge Matthew Wilson to order the state to connect more children to online learning by immediately identifying students who lack laptops or tablets and providing internet vouchers for at-risk households.<\/p>\n
About 9% of New Mexico students don\u2019t live on the broadband grid, Archuleta said.<\/p>\n
The motion also seeks to force the state to provide Wi-Fi hotspots immediately while it works to lay fiber optic cable to reach students\u2019 homes.<\/p>\n
Separate lawsuits over the adequacy of New Mexico\u2019s education system were originally filed against then-Gov. Susana Martinez in 2014 and went to trial in 2017. The center\u2019s lawyers work as part of the team litigating the case, which merged the long-standing concerns of Native Americans, English language learners, the emotionally and physically disabled and low-income students.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit has driven lawmaker\u2019s conversations about education funding and the state\u2019s policies.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the last two years, the PED, with leadership from Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and partnership with the Legislature, raised teacher salaries to recruit and retain more teachers, increased funding for serving at-risk students and funded an expansion of programs that added days to the school year. Each of those actions directly addressed the needs of the student groups \u2013 Native American students, English learners, students with disabilities and economically disadvantaged students \u2013 named in the Martinez\/Yazzie lawsuit,\u201d Education Secretary Ryan Stewart wrote Sunday in an op-ed in the Albuquerque Journal<\/em>.<\/p>\n He also called for the end to state control over federal funding allocated to tribal areas and military bases, \u201cimpact aid\u201d meant to fund education in communities that can\u2019t levy local taxes.<\/p>\n The lawsuit also is supported by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.<\/p>\n The center estimates that about 80% of New Mexico\u2019s children are represented by the lawsuit.<\/p>\n The right to an \u201cadequate\u201d education is guaranteed in New Mexico\u2019s constitution. But the state hasn\u2019t met that standard, according to the courts. The plaintiffs marked a key victory in 2018 when a judge ruled the state\u2019s education system was in violation of the constitution.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, Wilson rejected Lujan Grisham\u2019s request to dismiss the lawsuit, saying the state hadn\u2019t complied with the court\u2019s order to fix the education system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" in-person learning banned by state officials until mid-January and plans for hybrid learning scrapped for the vast majority of students earlier this year, the inability to access remote classes has been a challenge for many rural and low-income students, particularly Native American children living on tribal lands. \u201cWe were hopeful children could return to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[815],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-49864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-associated-press-new-mexico"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49864\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49864"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=49864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}