State Profile

New Mexico

Putting Practice into Writing: Legislation, Policy, and Regulation

• The School-to-Work (STW) plan is strongly connected to New Mexico’s Goals 2000 initiative.

• The Education Plan for Student Success, Standards for Excellence, includes career readiness standards with benchmarks for ALL students.

• Career readiness pathway is one of three pathways to earning a high school diploma developed by the New Mexico Department of Education in 1998.

• The Job Mentorship Tax Credit encourages small and medium size businesses to employ students enrolled in STW programs in the summer.

• Strong parent advocacy was instrumental in establishing a task force that holds systems accountable across agencies for access to postsecondary education by students with disabilities.

• The Baldrige performance framework at state and local levels is instrumental in improving the quality of programs.

• The New Mexico Systems Change Initiative, CIRCLE, implemented interagency agreements statewide.

Winning Combinations: State and Local Leadership and Partnerships

• Excellent relationship and collaboration exist between the Department of Education and the STW Office, and consequently, a strong message that STW is for ALL students is infused in programs and policies.

• The guiding principle for leadership and collaboration is staying focused on what is best for ALL kids.

• State STW Partnerships include Departments of Economic Development, Education, Employment and Department of Labor.

• Good connections are in place between Workforce Investment Act (WIA) and STW personnel at state level.

• The Workforce Investment Council involves members from the 17 regional partnerships at regular meetings and facilitates grassroots planning.

Connecting the Dots: Alignment of Resources and Programs

• STW provided resources to help fund summer institutes for general and special education teachers, administrators, transition specialists, and STW coordinators.

• STW RFPs are reviewed jointly by STW and Transition Systems Change staff for inclusion of ALL students.

• New Mexico STW web site is jointly sponsored with the New Mexico Economic Development Department.

• The NM Special Education Office provided seed funding for pilot sites to implement an entrepreneur curriculum.

Leading by Example: Activities From Individual Local Partnerships

• The focus of partnership activities is on building systems instead of special programs for ALL students.

• Portfolio development for ALL students includes career readiness benchmarks.

• Interagency agreements with agencies contribute to a seamless transition/STW system.

• Career Days activities include ALL students.

• The local partnership has submitted a joint grant to WIA to develop a transportation system that will improve access to employment for youth with disabilities.

• All successes are local!

Successes and Challenges

• Success – Strong participation of community colleges in rolling out STW is a success factor.

• Success – Passionate population that works with one another to extend limited resources contributes to success.

• Success – Leadership players remained stable from development of STW grant to implementation.

• Success – The 17 partnerships collect information about students and disseminate to locals - each partnership has an accountability system.
  

• Success – Strong business involvement and leadership are success factors.

• Challenge – Involving students in planning is a challenge.

• Challenge – Identifying needs at the local level and targeting appropriate information to them is a challenge at the state level.

• Challenge – All partnerships are not at optimal level for including students with disabilities in STW activities.

• Challenge – Issues of cooperative education certification, labor laws, transition requirements and work-based learning are challenges for IEP teams.

• Challenge – Assessment of career readiness standards and meaningful portfolio development are challenges.

What’s Next?: Sustainability

• The Statewide Transition Coordinating Council was established to sustain Transition Systems Change efforts and is funded by many agencies.

• STW provides a foundation for WIA activities and both Department of Labor and STW are important representatives of WIA on the Statewide Transition Coordinating Council.

• The Education Plan for Student Success at the local level will help sustain improved outcomes for all students.

• Data driven systems exist at local levels and will provide continuous feedback for program improvement and sustainability.

• Mandated statewide implementation of Career Readiness with Benchmarks from the NM Standards for Excellence will help sustain these efforts.

New Mexico School-to-Work, Vonell Hewitt, Director, Office of the Governor, State Capitol Building, Room 400, Santa Fe, NM 87503, 505-827-3078, e-mail: huittv@gov.state.nm.us

Website: www.edd.state.nm.us/STW/

Individuals Interviewed for Profile: Carole Brito, Transition Coordinator, New Mexico State Department of Education, Gary Cozzens, Rural Partnership

May, 2000