SANTA FE — Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed Senate Bill 159, creating a nearly $1 billion trust fund and a scholarship program fund to ensure tuition-free college in New Mexico for decades to come, on March 5.

“By creating this fund, New Mexico is keeping our original promise of tuition-free college for residents and cementing our status as the nation’s leader for college equity and access,” Lujan Grisham said. “Our monumental investments from early childhood education to college and career are already making a life-changing difference for tens of thousands of New Mexicans and setting the example for every other state.”

With the establishment of the Early Childhood Trust...

SANTA FE — The New Mexico Public Education Department is moving forward with plans to ensure that all schools in the state operate on a minimum of 180 instructional days beginning with the 2024-2025 school year.  Revisions reflect feedback received during the public comment period that best supports students, families, educators, and communities. The final rule will include:

 Four-day school week calendarsExemptions for early college high schoolsExemptions for school districts and charter schools with growth in reading and language arts

 

Minimum daily attendance for high school students: High school students will be required to attend at least 3.5 instructional hours (not class...

Rural hospitals got some much-needed assistance from the state Legislature this year, in the form of bills that will help with short- and long-term funding. But that may have cost local governments: there’s only so much money to go around, so other local priorities got less than they hoped for or may have to wait another year.

“All the money we got was for the hospital, basically,” McKinley County Manager Anthony Dimas said. “Our number one priority was to save our hospital, so that’s what they gave us.”

Most of the funding designated in the session will become available July 1 with the start of the 2025 fiscal year.

 

ABOUT THE BILLS

Passage of Senate Bill 17, the...

A man has died after being struck by a train in the area of Third Street and U.S. Hwy. 66 March 14.




Metro Dispatch received the call around 1:45 pm.




When Gallup Police officers arrived at the scene they met with multiple witnesses who said that the man had tried to climb over one of the train’s couplings, which is what holds the train’s cars together, while the train was stopped.




But when the train began to move again, the man was caught underneath the locomotive.






He was pronounced dead at the scene.




In an interview with the Sun Gallup Police Chief Erin Toadlena-Pablo said that the man had no identification on him at the time of the incident. An autopsy...