Hendrix: Socorro would lose half its educators in rule change

David Hicks

The PED’s public hearing drew in over a hundred educators, parents and students from around the state who spoke in opposition to the mandatory 180 days of school forcing districts into five-day weeks.

Although the hearing was scheduled for one hour, it took just over four hours to allow for all comments.

With more than 2,723 written comments submitted before the hearing, Denise Terrazas, director of policy and legislative affairs, who acted as the hearing officer, said the panel in attendance was only there to listen to comments and not to respond.
The PED panel included the assistant secretary of education, business operation specialist, policy analysts and others.

Only one person was missing, Arsenio Romero.

“It’s a little disheartening that the Secretary of Education has not even given us the common courtesy to be here to listen to us,” David Hicks, Socorro School Board President, said during his public comment.

“This is a big deal. This is going to have a larger impact on our school system than COVID did. You guys really need to consider that we’re still trying to recover from COVID,” Hicks said.

He shared that when Socorro had five-day weeks the graduation rate was 64 percent and as a four-day school it is up to an 85 percent graduation rate.

“We had every single one of our schools on your PED needs improvement list for the last 15 years. You know how many we have on it now? Zero. So don’t tell me it’s not working,” Hicks said, drawing applause from the audience.

“We have great relationships with New Mexico Tech on our Friday programs. We feed our kids on Friday. We do programs with New Mexico Tech, guess what? Those will all be gone. You guys just gave me $250,000 For my CTE program- toss it out the window because all those programs are gone on Fridays.”

Ron Hendrix

Socorro Schools Superintendent Ron Hendrix said the issue was decided already with the legislature with HB 130 earlier this year.

“They specifically chose against mandating days. Here we are facing it again. I can’t help but wonder why we’re facing that when it’s already been decided,” Hendrix said. “All I can see is that it’s coming from the top down from a group of people who decided they know better than what’s happening than the people that are down in the trenches actually doing the work.”

He said that Socorro Schools did a survey last week that reveled only 50 percent of teachers said they would stay working in the district, 34 percent said they would leave the profession entirely; 8 percent said they would leave and go to another state; 8 percent said they would leave the district and teach in a different district because they could make the same money without the extra drive.

“If you do this, you’re going to force us into having to find teachers that aren’t there,” Hendrix said.

Dr. Glenn Haven

Dr. Glen Haven, superintendent of Magdalena Municipal Schools, shared during his public comment that Magdalena has been a four- day school for 40 years.

“Since I’ve been in New Mexico, I realized that there are different personalities of different schools throughout the state,” Haven said. “Each one has its own personality, our personality, we’re ranching and cattle country. What’s our mantra? We work hard, from sunrise to sunset, seven days. We also care about all living things, two legged and four- legged – that’s Magdalena. If you take away and force us to go to five days, we’re going to start losing interest in our programs that we have worked really hard to establish since I’ve been there. FFA program has grown. We now have a 4H program. It is growing. So, we have students who are interested in their own culture.”

“They just went through a traumatic experience several years ago, and you want them to go to school more,” Haven said. “We need to address the social emotional learning abilities.”

The PED was grilled with concerns from educators who brought up the mental health of teachers and students. Some asked if the PED was considering the Yazzie/ Martinez ruling and low-income access. Frustration over taking away local control was a common complaint along with the challenges of staff retention and recruitment. The logic of the PED applying a one size fits all approach was questioned.

Like Hendrix, many expressed surprise, given the new calendar proposal came on the heels of HB 130 that was signed into a bill this spring, requiring hours instead of days. Even five-day school educators joined in the opposition.

“We said our piece, we’ll see if it’s done anything, I kind of feel like it’s fallen on deaf ears,” said Hendrix after the hearing. “The secretary of education wasn’t here to listen, they don’t care. So, they put someone else in here to listen.”