NEW MEXICO

State to provide free meals for all students

ALBUQUERQUE – Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on March 27 signed legislation to provide free school meals to all students regardless of family income, as New Mexico and several other states look to fill the gap left by lapsed federal pandemic-era benefit programs and address the strain to family budgets caused by food prices.

The bill cleared the Legislature during the recent 60-day session, with lawmakers setting aside more than $22 million in the state budget to help pay for the program. Additional money will be used to improve school kitchens so healthier meals can be prepared.

About 67% – or 309,000 New Mexico students – are eligible to receive free and reduced-price lunches through the National School Lunch Program, according to the New Mexico Public Education Department.

Signing of the legislation could impact nearly 70,000 students who normally would have had to pay for school meals, with department officials expecting a 5% to 10% increase in participation in districts that operate national school lunch programs.

Legislative analysts have estimated that providing meals at no costs to students at participating schools could total between $27 million and $40 million in recurring funding from the state’s general fund.

The new law aims to boost the amount of food that comes from local growers through farm-to-table grants. Currently, about 168 farmers, ranchers and food businesses sell locally produced products to schools in 19 of the state’s 33 counties.

Supporters also hope the new law will lead to less food waste by requiring kindergarten through sixth grade students to have more time to sit down and eat, and by collecting unused food for use by food pantries, students and other charitable organizations.

Police agency returns to village after 3 years

QUESTA – Residents of a small northern New Mexico community will soon see police officers patrolling the streets in vehicles marked with the village’s name for the first time in three years.

The Questa Police Department is scheduled to reopen April 1 with four police officers led by the village’s new police chief, Ronald Montez Jr. The Taos News was the first to report the police department’s expected return.

Home to about 1,700 residents, Questa is about a 30-minute drive north of the popular tourist destination of Taos and serves as the gateway for the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument.

Questa has been without a police department since 2020, when then-police Chief Nicolas Lamendola and all three of the village’s officers resigned for still-unknown reasons.

To fill the gap, the Taos County Sheriff’s Office has been providing police services to the village under a contract that ends next month. Residents have said sheriff’s deputies were sometimes slow to respond.

Questa Mayor John Anthony Ortega began rebuilding the village’s police force soon after he was sworn in last April, fulfilling a promise he had made on the campaign trail.

UTAH

Social media law means kids need approval from parents

SALT LAKE CITY – Children and teens in Utah would lose access to social media apps such as TikTok if they don’t have parental consent and face other restrictions under a first-in-the-nation law designed to shield young people from the addictive platforms.

Two laws signed by Republican Gov. Spencer Cox on March 23 prohibit kids under 18 from using social media between the hours of 10:30 p.m. and 6:30 a.m., require age verification for anyone who wants to use social media in the state and open the door to lawsuits on behalf of children claiming social media harmed them. Collectively, they seek to prevent children from being lured to apps by addictive features and from having ads promoted to them.

The companies are expected to sue before the laws take effect in March 2024.

The crusade against social media in Utah’s Republican-supermajority Legislature is the latest reflection of how politicians’ perceptions of technology companies has changed, including among typically pro-business Republicans.

The new laws also require that parents be given access to their child’s accounts. They outline rules for people who want to sue over harms they claim the apps cause. If implemented, lawsuits against social media companies involving kids under 16 will shift the burden of proof and require social media companies show their products weren’t harmful – not the other way around.

Social media companies could have to design new features to comply with parts of the laws that prohibit promoting ads to minors and showing them in search results. Tech companies like TikTok, Snapchat and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, make most of their money by targeting advertising to their users.

Tech industry lobbyists decried the laws as unconstitutional, saying they infringe on people’s right to exercise the First Amendment online.

WYOMING

State bans transgender youth from girls’ sports teams

CHEYENNE – Wyoming has become the 19th state to ban transgender athletes from playing on girls or women’s sports teams after the Republican governor opted not to veto the legislation.

Gov. Mark Gordon allowed the bill to become law without his signature on March 17, saying he supports and agrees with the overall goal of fairness in competitive female sports. But he also said in a decision letter that the ban “is overly draconian, is discriminatory without attention to individual circumstances or mitigating factors, and pays little attention to fundamental principles of equality.”

The law, which takes effect July 1, will prohibit “students of the male sex from competing on a team designated for students of the female sex.” It’s among dozens of Republican proposals pushing back against transgender rights in statehouses across the U.S., including measures to ban gender-affirming care for minors, restrict drag shows, and prevent transgender people from using restrooms, locker rooms and other facilities associated with their gender identities.

Antonio Serrano, advocacy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Wyoming, said the latest development was shameful because it codifies discrimination.

The ACLU statement said the new law is unconstitutional and violates the Civil Rights Act, but the group has not indicated if it plans to file a lawsuit. Meanwhile, Sara Burlingame, director of Wyoming Equality, the state’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organization, told the Casper Star-Tribune that a lawsuit is planned.

The law applies to public school students in grades 7 through 12 who participate in interscholastic sports. Gordon noted in his decision letter that there are only four known transgender students competing in school athletics in the state.

?ARIZONA

New hotline sees few calls about race-based lessons

PHOENIX – Only a handful of complaints out of hundreds of calls to a new state hotline for reporting race-based lessons have warranted investigation, Arizona’s top education official said on March 17.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne told radio station KTAR News that the Arizona Department of Education found half a dozen complaints to be credible. The majority have been prank calls, he said, but vowed that won’t dissuade officials.

The Arizona Empower Hotline has been in operation since March 7. It was set up specifically for allegations of teachers teaching so-called critical race theory or any lessons that evoke race and ethnicity. State education officials say the hotline so far has received 2,000 emails and 600 calls and voicemails.

There has been a social media campaign to flood the tip line with either prank calls or messages praising teachers.

Many education groups have accused Horne of politicizing their jobs. A group of teachers marched in protest to Horne’s office on March 15.

The Arizona Education Association recently went on Twitter and called on Horne to eliminate the hotline.