New Mexico Mandates 180-Day School Year

Cloudcroft Municipal Schools Face Significant Changes and Challenges

Cloudcroft Municipal Schools may see some big changes thanks to a new state rule requiring schools to meet for 180 instructional days instead of the previously mandated 1140 instructional hours.

Currently, Cloudcroft Municipal Schools adhere to a 150-day calendar and mostly four-day school weeks. That’s now likely to change, meaning there would be an increase in five-day school weeks, with an additional 30 days added to the calendar.

Requiring a 180-day calendar with five-day school weeks will not only affect the school budget with expected costs, like increasing teachers’ salaries—the 30-day instructional day increase will also drive up transportation and bus routes, utilities, food, and more expenses. Projected cost increases are to the tune of $1.3 million, a 20% increase, according to the Cloudcroft Schools Business Office.

Cloudcroft Schools Superintendent Tana Daugherty said that the four-day school week not only aids a rural school budget but also helps with a rural bus schedule. Cloudcroft Schools bus routes serve areas up to an hour away (like Piñon and Timberon), meaning some students must be awake and ready around 6:00 AM. This also implies bus drivers and staff would potentially have 30 extra days of work beginning at or before 5:00 AM. Daugherty stresses that the four-day workweek immensely helps our rural district's teacher recruitment and retention rates. “Cloudcroft Schools maintain excellent graduation rates, attendance, and student performance,” says Daugherty, so the instructional days should be a “local school board decision.”

The new rule became effective on March 14th and has significant implications for many school districts across the state. However, it does allow for one slim exemption: schools that attain a 10% improvement solely in the English Language Arts (ELA) portion of standardized tests (the NMSSA for 3rd-8th grade, the SAT for 11th graders) will be allowed to operate on their former four-day school weeks, with the results of these tests posting mid-summer, after calendars and budgets are due. In response to the possible exemption, the Cloudcroft School Board Calendar Committee worked to create two calendars, the “one we desire, and one for the new rule.”

“[The exemption] is nearly unattainable and limited to the ELA,” says Daugherty. “More time is not better—better is better! We need to improve instruction and cut class sizes down for more one-on-one instructional time. Research shows us that this increases student outcomes and performance. As a state, if we keep doing more of the same thing, it won’t improve. The same practices, for more days, will not improve instruction.”

The Cloudcroft School Board has authorized Superintendent Tana Daugherty to join litigation alongside at least 55 other New Mexico school districts. These districts plan to file appeals with state courts, challenging the new rule based on the 2022-2023 NM House legislation that passed the 1140-hour instructional time into law. They argue that this legislation should supersede any new regulations.

As for the next few weeks leading up to the state’s standardized testing, Daugherty says, “In the meantime, we’re going to work hard the next three weeks. We want the [standardized testing] preparation for every student to be fun and engaging, without pressure. How awful…what an unnecessary pressure to put on the kids and teachers. So, without announcing all that, we are practicing tests. We are talking about the importance of good sleep and nutrition. We will make testing a celebration atmosphere—not of pressure, but of support.”