NMPED News:
SANTA FE — The individuals who maintain the heartbeat of New Mexico’s publicly funded community schools received a special honor this week: Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham issued a proclamation naming the week of Sept. 20-24 Community School Coordinators Appreciation Week.
“Community school coordinators are essential to building successful community schools and creating, strengthening and maintaining partnerships between community schools and their communities,” the proclamation states.
Community schools are existing schools that implement specific strategies to provide students with whatever they need to be academically successful by leveraging community resources. In New Mexico, the community school strategy is intended to improve the conditions for learning, which should lead to increased attendance and graduation rates, among other outcomes.
Every community school is unique because each reflects its own needs, assets and priorities. Nevertheless, all community schools in New Mexico should have a full-time community school coordinator whose job includes integrating families and community partners into school decisions in order to create a shared vision of student and school success.
“Community school coordinators facilitate and provide leadership for the collaborative process and development of a continuum of supports and opportunities for children, families and others within a school’s community that allow all students to learn and the community to thrive,” the proclamation states.
Of New Mexico’s 33 state or federally funded community schools last year, 26 were traditional public schools, four were local charters and three were state charters.
The 11,048 students they served fit these demographic profiles:
- 88 percent were economically disadvantaged
- 71 percent identified as Hispanic
- 22 percent received English learner services
- 18 percent received special education services
- 10 percent identified as American Indian
Each community school identifies its own needs and capacities, which may include on-campus health and dental clinics, after-school programming, deep engagement with families and community organizations, and collaborative leadership and practices.
These strategies are effective in any school but are especially designed to meet the educational needs of low-achieving students in high-poverty schools. The community school model aligns with New Mexico’s response to the Yazzie-Martinez consolidated lawsuit over education equity.
New Mexico has issued 109 grants since April 2019, when Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed into law the New Mexico Community Schools Act. This year, the Public Education Department issued 50 grants totaling $6.6 million to schools across New Mexico to plan for or to implement the community school strategy in the 2021-2022 school year.
Funding for these grants comes from $10.3 million appropriated by the Legislature and $3.7 million from the federal government for school improvement.
