Letter to the New Mexico Public Education Department — Reasonable Level of Tolerance (April 28, 2023)

Summary

A letter dated April 28, 2023, from the Department of Education Office of Elementary and Secondary Education to Secretary of Education Romero of the New Mexico Public Education Department, responding to its written plan for a reasonable level of tolerance under State maintenance of equity requirements. It reports 94 very small LEAs and 29 exceptionally small LEAs and a proposed tolerance of up to a 17 percent decline for the very small group. It states that omitting LEAs is not allowable but that the Department will tolerate up to a 29 percent decline for exceptionally small LEAs. The Department states it determined the approach reasonable.

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Full text

                           UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
                                OFFICE OF ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION




                                                    April 28, 2023

The Honorable Arsenio Romero
Secretary of Education
New Mexico Public Education Department
300 Don Gaspar Street
Santa Fe, NM 87501-2786

Dear Secretary Romero:

The U.S. Department of Education (Department) received your written plan for a reasonable
level of tolerance when calculating whether the New Mexico Public Education Department
(NMPED) has met State maintenance of equity requirements under the American Rescue Plan
Act of 2021 (ARP Act). This written plan applies only to a subset of New Mexico’s local
educational agencies (LEAs).

The ARP Act State maintenance of equity requirements help ensure that State funding supports
LEAs with high concentrations of poverty and the students who have been subject to
longstanding opportunity gaps in our education system and experienced the greatest impact from
the COVID-19 pandemic. These requirements are vital for ensuring that States maintain funding
to address the impact of the pandemic on students’ education, and for protecting students in high-
need and highest-poverty LEAs from disproportionate cuts if reductions in State effort do occur.

The Department determined that it is consistent with the State maintenance of equity
requirements to allow a State educational agency (SEA) to calculate whether it has maintained
funding equity with respect to its very small high-need and highest-poverty LEAs within a
reasonable “tolerance level.” The Department’s determination is based on the possibility of
significant volatility in the calculated per-pupil funding amounts for very small LEAs caused by
small changes in student enrollment, which may be unrelated to whether an SEA has achieved
the intent of the requirements. (See Frequently Asked Questions, American Rescue Plan
Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Program, Maintenance of Equity
Requirements, July 26, 2022, Question 21(a).)

NMPED considers LEAs with a membership of 150 to 599 students to be very small, and LEAs
with fewer than 150 students to be exceptionally small. Under these proposed thresholds, New
Mexico has 94 very small LEAs and 29 exceptionally small LEAs. According to information
provided by NMPED, New Mexico’s State Equalization Guarantee considers several factors
when determining per-pupil funding including teacher qualifications and weights for student
need. NMPED asserts that calculated per-pupil funding amounts for these very small and
exceptionally small LEAs are significantly affected by small changes in students’ educational
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   The Department of Education’s mission is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by
                               fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access
needs and fluctuations in staff specialty and years of service. This makes the per-pupil funding
amounts in New Mexico’s very small and exceptionally small LEAs an imperfect indicator of
whether the SEA has achieved the intent of maintaining equity in funding across LEAs.

Accordingly, NMPED proposes two tolerance levels:
   1. For its 94 very small LEAs, NMPED proposes to implement a tolerance of up to a 17
      percent decline in per-pupil funding. Applying this tolerance would impact six LEAs that
      served 0.5 percent of New Mexico’s students in FY 2022.
   2. NMPED proposed to omit its 29 exceptionally small LEAs from the maintenance of
      equity analysis. As there are no exceptions to the State-level maintenance of equity
      requirements, omitting LEAs is not allowable. However, the Department will tolerate
      NMPED’s subsequent request to implement a tolerance of up to a 29 percent decline in
      per-pupil funding in exceptionally small LEAs. Applying this tolerance would impact
      eight LEAs that served 0.3 percent of New Mexico’s students in FY 2022.

After reviewing NMPED’s tolerance proposal and accompanying data, the unique circumstances
in the State, and our further State-specific analysis, we have determined that this approach
includes a reasonable level of tolerance when calculating whether New Mexico has maintained
equity for very and exceptionally small LEAs.

We appreciate your diligence in developing this proposal. If you have any questions, please
contact your program officer at: NewMexico.OESE@ed.gov.

                                                   Sincerely,
aura Jimenez
L                                                  Laura Jimenez

                                                   Laura Jimenez
                                                   Director, Office of State and Grantee Relations


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