◆ Funding training for school police.

how we can better run our own kids’ education,” Carroll said, urging a vote in favor of HB 138. “Just give us the tools.”

The bill would provide $500,000 for the Navajo Nation; $250,000 each for the Mescalero Apache Nation and Jicarilla Apache Nation; and $150,000 each for the state’s 19 pueblos to develop and staff culturally and linguistically relevant after-school and summer programs at tribal libraries.

Rep. Derrick Lente, D-Sandia Pueblo, who sponsored the bill, said there is now only one state-certified library on tribal land in New Mexico, a facility on the Navajo Nation.

“In each of our respected tribal nations and communities, we have what we like to consider a tribal library, but in many cases it’s not a robust library that you might find in the middle of Santa Fe, Las Cruces or Albuquerque,” Lente said. “In many cases, it’s a closet in some rundown portion of a tribal community building without heating, without air conditioning, without internet infrastructure.

“It may just be a chair and desk somewhere to say, ‘OK, we have this subscription of books and sometimes we get new ones; use them.’ ”

His bill would help improve such facilities.

Rep. Rebecca Dow, R-Truth or Consequences, applauded Lente and HB 138 for attempting to return control of education of Native American students to their tribal communities.

“We spent a lot of time removing children from their homes, building facilities and institutionalizing them, and then we spent decades apologizing for it,” Dow said.

After hearing from tribal leaders how rural landscapes force many Native children to endure an hourlong bus ride to the nearest public school, Dow said it seemed the state was making a similar mistake.

“You’re saying we want something different,” she told Lente. “What I’m hearing from the tribes and Pueblo communities is about family and community involvement by us and for us. Instead, we’re trying to do this onesize-fits-all, statewide approach, and it’s extremely frustrating.”

The committee also unanimously endorsed HB 59, which would boost funding for at-risk students by altering the state’s per-student funding formula to assign a higher value to such kids.

While funding for low-income kids and children learning English more than doubled to $253 million in the current fiscal year from around $124 million in fiscal year 2019, superintendents across the state have said they were forced to spend most of that increase on mandatory salary hikes rather than new staff or programs.

“It’s another thing to keep in our long-term memory,” said Rep. G. Andrés Romero, a teacher at Atrisco Heritage Academy in Albuquerque and chairman of the House Education Committee.

“Keep our commitment in putting money in at-risk [students] while also tracking that money to make sure it’s going to programs that target those students,” he said.