Education Bills Sponsored by Senator Ivey-Soto

Click on the bill number and title to be taken to the bill on the New Mexico Legislature website.


This bill would have made significant technical changes to the funding, evaluation and reauthorization of Charter Schools.

This bill would have provided for all school district report cards to be published on each school district’s website.

This proposed Constitutional Amendment would have required funding to attach to any new administrative requirements placed on our schools.

This bill would have required the minimum salary for full-time, unlicensed school personnel could be no less than $18,928.00 per year. This impacts school secretaries, custodians, and bus drivers, among others. The current minimum salary for full-time, unlicensed school personnel is $8,576.75, which is below the New Mexico minimum wage.

This bill would have raised the minimum salary to be paid educational assistants, school secretaries, cafeteria workers and bus drivers from $6.00 an hour to $15.00 an hour, still resulting in a minimum annual wage of just $17,550 as compensation to care for and educate our children.

This bill would have required that no school personnel may be hired without first having a background check on file before being initially hired, and would have required all existing school personnel working without a background check to undergo have one on file before their contract could be renewed.

This bill would have required school districts to notify by text message a parent of a student who has an unexcused absence before the student is declared habitually truant.

This bill would have required each student to apply for college, an apprenticeship, employment, an internship, or the military prior to graduating from high school.

This bill would have required that a charter school using public money to lease a facility from a non-profit entity shall require that upon satisfaction of the note, ownership of the school would revert to the public charter school.

This bill -- passed by the Legislature and vetoed by the Governor -- would have allowed efficiency in public auditing by permitting a component unit to select its own qualified auditor. In the last fiscal year, this bill could have saved taxpayers almost $1 Million Dollars.

This bill -- which is now law -- allows New Mexico to select its own high school equivalency test without being tied to a multinational conglomerate.

This bill -- which is now law -- allows all New Mexico high school students regardless of what school they attend to take college classes and get high school and college credits simultaneously.

This proposed constitutional amendment would have required any new rule or regulation imposed by the state on schools to be accompanied by funding for implementation or lose the force of law.

This constitutional amendment -- approved by a majority of the people in the 2014 General Election as Constitutional Amendment 1 -- will permit school elections to be held with other local, non-partisan elections. The historical restriction on timing of school elections dates back to statehood, 1912, when women were only permitted to vote on school matters.