In July of 2018, Judge Sarah Singleton ruled that New Mexico was in violation of its own constitutional commitment to provide an equitable education to all its children. That case, brought on behalf of the Martínez and Yazzie families, argued that the State of New Mexico had failed to provide an equitable education to students of color and students with special needs, in particular. To remedy this violation, the state was required to spend the money necessary to meet the needs of students and communities historically underserved by the state. The Public Education Department (PED), as part of its response to the court decision, mandated that each district/charter school create an equity council to evaluate the current state of the district/charter as it pertains to equity, create a framework for how students will be equitably served and advise school boards/governance councils on policy changes/additions that would allow equitable access and outcomes for students. The link below provides a fuller description of the case and the PED’s response, including a description of equity councils:
https://webnew.ped.state.nm.
Alma d’arte’s Equity Council has entered into a collaboration with several charter schools in Las Cruces including: New Americas, Las Montañas, Academia Dolores Huerta, Raices del Saber and Explore Academy. Through this collaboration we hope to learn from each other’s experiences in developing our equity councils in order to build the best equity councils we can for our schools. We also seek to pool our schools’ resources to ensure that our equity work is founded on a deep commitment to a just education for all our students at all our schools now and into the future.
If you are interested in working with Alma d’arte’s equity council, please contact Ramon Padilla at 575-541-0145, extension 115
Equity Council Members for Alma d’arte Charter High School
Administration
Kayla Martinez
Staff
Patrick Hernandez
Ramón Padilla (Lead)
Zeta Shearill
Governance Members
Cynthia Wise
Students
Teresa Morales
Max Wilson
Alex Smith
Madison Smith
Savannah Whitman
Parents
Jeanne Brown
Community Members