PED should learn from shaky rollout of extended school year

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s effort this year to incentivize an expanded school year by offering districts supportive funding has been in a hurry from the get-go.

True, this administration is all about bold strokes and quick action, which supporters love. But an Oct. 22 Journal story reporting Albuquerque Public Schools was only able to use about one-third of funding available to it from the state once again raised questions about whether the Public Education Department could have done more on the front end to prep school districts for these programs before opening up the funding floodgates.

As Journal reporter Shelby Perea wrote, APS was eligible to use about $19 million in state funding to implement two programs: $8.9 million for K-5 Plus, which adds 25 days to the school year on the front end, and another $10 million for Extended Learning Time, which tacks on 10 days. Both programs have logistical implementation challenges. In the end, only 52 APS schools got K-5 Plus students off the ground, while 14 APS schools got Extended Learning Time programs either partially or fully implemented. That meant that APS essentially forfeited about $12 million from PED that it might have been eligible to receive.

It’s no ding on APS. These programs don’t come together overnight; they take planning and coordination. Participating schools had to figure out a game plan, solicit teacher buyin, update parents and do the logistical work needed to get the facilities and a curriculum ready early. As APS officials noted, K-5 Plus was particularly challenging because of rigid participation requirements designed to deliver results. And yet, educators in APS and in dozens of other districts across New Mexico only had a few months to plan and implement the programs.

Viewed in that light, those schools in APS and around the state that got programs up and running in the time allotted deserve major kudos. It surely wasn’t an easy task, and data available indicates these types of programs done right can lead to major gains for students. As for the other eligible schools that ultimately didn’t set extended school year programs up — can you really blame them?

Of course, there’s no crystal ball here, but now they have sufficient lead time to get their programs in order. Meanwhile, incentivizing an extended school year is a major priority for Lujan Grisham, so much so that problems with the rollout apparently contributed to the July firing of her first PED secretary.

But a reform this important is worth doing right, and it did seem PED was asking school districts to sprint to catch a fast-rolling bus. Extending the school year will be a multiyear effort, and it’s clear both K-5 Plus and Extended Learning Time will be works in progress that require more than simply throwing taxpayer money at them.

Speaking to educators at a Friday conference, PED Secretary-designate Ryan Stewart indicated ramping up participation in these programs across the state is a challenge. And as legislators made clear during Tuesday’s Legislative Finance Committee meeting, Santa Fe is giving it a high priority.

Hopefully Stewart can harness the data gathered and lessons learned to smooth things out for 2020-21.