04-04-2025
Bill passed to create tribal immersion language schools
Jeanette DeDiosKUNM
Native American students make up 11 percent of public school enrollment in New Mexico. Yet there are not enough resources for them to learn their Native languages. A bill passed in the recent legislative session will create new schools under a state-tribal compact to address those gaps.
New Mexico has 23 sovereign tribes and among those tribes eight languages are spoken, but only seven are taught in school districts.
Senate Bill 13 will create a five-year pilot program with five schools prioritizing distinct Native languages of Tiwa, Tewa, Towa, Keres, Apache, Zuni, and Diné.
Bill co-sponsor Sen. Benny Shendo Jr. (D-Jemez Pueblo) said that many Native parents and grandparents have been conditioned to believe the only way to succeed was to speak English.
'But that's not true,' he said. 'I was born and raised speaking my language. It wasn't much later that I began to learn English. So how can that be when those of us that were fluent Native speakers are able to be successful in college and all the stuff that we're doing today?'
He said a lot of Native students are struggling because they don't feel that they belong.
'And if we can really reground them in who they are, then I think it gives them that confidence for them to be able to go out and compete in the world in a way that they should be competing, not with anxiety about, who am I? Where do I belong?'' he said.
Native American students have historically reported lower achievement and graduation rates than their peers. The New Mexico Indian Education Act stresses the importance of maintaining Native languages and culture. But programs providing these opportunities are currently limited within public schools.
In 2018, a ruling in the Yazzie/Martinez lawsuit determined the state had failed to provide a sufficient education to Native American students as well as those learning English, living with disabilities or from families with low incomes.
The Legislative Education Study Committee's analysis of the new legislation suggested it could offer the state an opportunity to respond to the lawsuit through targeted funding, creation of cultural learning environments and putting more teachers in classrooms with backgrounds similar to their students.
The bill does not contain an appropriation, but will provide operational and capital outlay funding for immersion schools.
