Support House Bill 147

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“A loss of Small School Adjustment means Aldo Leopold Charter School in Silver City will lose nearly 50% of its budget. Almost half the teaching staff would need to be eliminated.  Of fifteen full-time teaching positions, the school anticipates losing six positions.  The result will be unemployment for our talented teachers and increased class sizes for students.  Silver City has shown declining student population over the last several years and it is unlikely Silver School District would be able to employ those teachers.”
 
Please contact our representatives and other influential representatives in the state. Capital phone number: (505) 986-4233

Senator:
Gabriel Ramos gabriel.ramos@nmlegis.gov

Representatives:
Rudy Martinez rodolpho.martinez@nmlegis.gov
Rebecca Dow rebecca.dow@nmlegis.gov
Candie Sweetser candie.sweetser@nmlegis.gov

Javier Martinez dropped House Bill 147 last week.  The bill is an attempt to salvage small school size adjustment for certain schools.  You can find the bill here: https://www.nmlegis.gov/Sessions/20%20Regular/bills/house/HB0147.pdf. 
Rep. Martinez ran this bill because he knew its negative impact on charters in his district.  

​What the bill does:
Two things:

1. The bill raises the threshold for the size of districts that receive full small school size adjustment from 2,000 students to 4,000 students.  This would allow communities like Taos and Silver City to continue to obtain small school size adjustment as they had previously.  4,000 students is the same threshold that allows districts to receive small district size adjustment.  There is a recognition in this policy that districts under 4,000 students are small.  We think that is a good starting point 

 

1. Second, the bill freezes the step down in small school size adjustment for qualifying schools located in districts larger than 4,000 students.  It proposes that one more incremental step down in small school size is taken – schools will receive 60% of what they had received before.  This means that it will not have an impact this year’s budget plans for the PED and LFC.  Only their future budgets will change to accommodate this bill.

 
What you should do:

• Contact your legislator to let them know how important small school size is to your school and that you want them to support this bill.  Tell them what you would lose in terms of personnel and program.  For example, rather than saying your school would lose $600,000, let the legislator know that you would lose six classroom teachers and a counselor (or whichever staff you would lose).  Let them know how that will impact students (bigger class sizes and fewer services to kids).

 
What’s Next:

• We’ll keep you up to date on where this bill is and where it is headed.  More specific asks will be headed your way as well.
• Use the talking points on the flyer below.  Please share!