New Mexico

Dr. Ryan Stewart had served only 7 months in his appointed position as the Secretary of Education before the Governor announced all K-12 public schools would close the following Monday to mitigate the risks of COVID-19 community spread.

In early August 2020, Secretary Ryan Stewart advised LEAs that school reentry guidelines would lean on data across key indicators for safe in-person schooling. This was made possible by data-sharing and benchmarking from New Mexico’s Public Health officials.

Educators and students were looking forward to spring break when the pandemic forced New Mexico schools to close in early 2020. At the state level, then-newly appointed Secretary of Education Ryan Stewart faced his first test of leadership: ensuring that all of New Mexico’s districts would have the resources they needed to quickly adapt. Some of the educators we spoke with reflected on their school district’s rush to get devices to students and ensure that they had Internet access, and the fast pace at which they needed to move in response to a swiftly developing crisis.

The New Mexico Public Education Department, led by Dr. Stewart, moved quickly in their immediate pandemic response with two “guiding principles” in mind: mitigating the risks of community spread of the coronavirus and maximizing in-person instructional opportunities where it was safe to do so. At the ground level, educators’ primary concerns were even more fundamental: Some teachers we interviewed reported difficulty locating all of their students after schools closed. And in the early days of the pandemic, schools were unable to provide the kinds of supports via remote instruction that they had provided in-person. Schools formed "wellness teams" to keep tabs on students they believed were most in need, checking in on their well-being and delivering interventions where they could.

State leaders like Dr. Stewart acknowledged that student circumstances like access to technology, broadband infrastructure, and individual learning needs made remote learning more difficult for many students, and vowed to dedicate resources toward restoring some kind of in-person learning where possible and safe. One educator said that he thought his children’s district, like others, was caught off-guard in the transition to teaching and learning online. Another shared that while their early response to the pandemic wasn’t perfect, their district was doing the best they could.

Given worldwide supply line disruptions and massive demand, several districts reported challenges with sourcing hundreds or even thousands of Chromebooks, iPads, and other devices in spring 2020. The educators we spoke with shared that even when devices were available to students, they were only half of the equation: to participate in remote instruction, students also needed a stable Internet connection, something that Dr. Stewart cited as a particular challenge in a state with a large geographic size and a low population density.

Internet access generally requires a fixed address and an adult to maintain an account, or the ability to access community-based networks. Educators noted that this tended to surface inequities that went deeper than simple access to devices. In several states, including New Mexico, we spoke with district administrators that tried to solve this problem by issuing hotspot Internet devices. But hotspots aren’t a perfect substitute for wired Internet or Wi-Fi, especially when multiple students were conducting high-bandwidth activities, like participating in class via videoconference or streaming recorded lessons.

At the beginning of the 2020-21 school year, community COVID-19 transmission rates in New Mexico and nationwide meant that in-person instruction in New Mexico remained out of reach. With updated guidance from the New Mexico Public Education Department, educators began the new 2020-21 school year with remote learning still in place.

Teachers we spoke with reported that while some of their students fared well during virtual or hybrid instruction, overall engagement with virtual learning in their classrooms gradually waned over time. As school districts began to develop plans to address interrupted instruction, some educators shared that they hope to incorporate more time for students and teachers to build relationships.

At both the state and local levels, leaders grappled with the realities of an uncertain and unique school year. Even if they believed that in-person learning generally worked better for more students, many students would likely remain remote for the foreseeable future.

With the 2020-21 school year under way, several teachers we spoke with said they continued to work with families to boost their students’ engagement and participation. Some teachers, and New Mexico Secretary of Education Ryan Stewart, pointed to the ability to learn and adapt to all-new platforms and the virtual environment as a success in and of itself.

The pandemic’s effects on students and families extended beyond school closure—for some people, it also meant a loss of access to a sense of community and belonging outside of school. In New Mexico, Native American reservation closures meant visitors were not permitted to travel to the reservation and that cultural activities were cancelled. In an interview, Dr. Stewart noted that the Navajo Nation had been acutely affected by the pandemic, not only in terms of transmission and case rates, but also in terms of student disconnection from school.

In New Mexico, some districts were able to provide in-person instruction, at least for elementary grades, throughout the 2020-21 school year. In January 2021, in an effort to mitigate a potential surge in COVID-19 cases, Cabinet Secretary Ryan Stewart announced a delay to in-person learning in the new year for all districts, extending winter break through January 18.

For many districts that were not open at this time, it wasn’t until May—amid the arrival of effective COVID-19 vaccines—that many students were first able to return to school. Reopening, even if only in a hybrid model, brought relief for many students and teachers alike. But after so much time away, there was a considerable amount of transition and adjustment required, and many students were "burned out" after a long pandemic year.

Many educators we spoke with described immediately beginning to work on planning an "unusual" summer filled with expanded activities, but others said they were looking to use the summer to recharge and regroup after the past year and a half.

By the summer months, districts turned their focus to reengaging students who had stopped attending classes in the district: one New Mexico superintendent said that as many as 900 students in their district had left to attend school in neighboring states, enrolled in smaller charter schools, or begun homeschooling activities. Some New Mexico school districts saw an enrollment increase for their summer activities, while other districts planned to go a different route, building in additional time by adding ten instructional days to the beginning of the next school year.

Multiple educators said that for them, a key component of the recovery would be addressing knowledge gaps for students that had experienced obstacles to virtual learning over the past year and a half. At the state level, Secretary Stewart described plans to support districts with a “road map” for accelerated learning, including professional development and new tutoring programs.

Educators highlighted the importance of social and emotional supports and said they felt that the strength of the interpersonal relationships they had built would go a long way toward helping to bridge those gaps.

With New Mexico due to receive nearly $1 billion in ARP funding, educators we interviewed hoped their schools would be able to avoid cutbacks and add staff supports for students where appropriate. Secretary Stewart described a nascent “teaching fellows” program that aimed to bring in new staff that would do just that, bringing adults from the community to directly support students and classroom teachers.

Teachers and superintendents noted that their districts were interested in purchasing newer learning management systems and online platforms for students and teachers to use in hybrid learning or in the event of another emergency.

One superintendent said that their district was thinking about how to use the funds to create long-term impact beyond the initial recovery process. Educators in other districts worried that the ARP funds would not be used to their full potential in their districts if they did not have an effective plan in place to use them.