Rio Rancho
Explore Academy Grew 612% in a Decade. Then 2026 Happened.
Explore Academy opened in 2014 with a narrow pitch: a high school in Albuquerque where students pick short themed seminars instead of following a fixed course sequence. It enrolled 199 students in the...
One in Six New Mexico Students Is an English Learner
New Mexico lost 36,778 students between 2019 and 2026, an 11% decline that touched nearly every district in the state. English learner enrollment moved in the opposite direction. The state counted 53,...
Fewer Than One in Five
New Mexico has never been a majority-white state. But it has now crossed a threshold that would have seemed improbable even a decade ago: white students represent just 19.6% of public school enrollmen...
Six Years After COVID, 93 Districts Still Haven't Recovered
The pandemic was supposed to be a temporary shock. Albuquerque lost 6,684 students between 2019 and 2021, an extraordinary loss for any two-year period. But the five years since have been worse: APS s...
One in Five NM Students Now in Special Ed
New Mexico added 7,779 students to its special education rolls since 2019. In the same period, overall enrollment fell by 36,778. The result: one in five students in the state now receives special edu...
Native American Students Fall Below 10% of NM Enrollment
New Mexico is one of three states where Native American children make up at least 10% of public school enrollment. Or it was. In 2025-26, Native American students slipped to 9.9% of enrollment, the fi...