New Mexico Appleseed

Family economic stability New Mexico Appleseed studies global development initiatives and, when appropriate, brings them to New Mexico. The provision of cash to families without sufficient access to money to pay for basic needs is called a "cash transfer." New Mexico did the first in the state cash transfers during covid-19 with spectacular results.

Hunger universal free school meals --- New Mexico Appleseed has worked for fifteen years with state agencies to create a robust plan to provide free meals for every New Mexico child. In 2019, Appleseed passed legislation eliminating reduced-price copays, making 12,000 students eligible for free school meals. This legislative session, in partnership with the governor's office through the executive budget recommendation, Appleseed helped pass universal free school meal that allows 70,000 additional students statewide to receive breakfast and lunch for free. This 30 million investment will have a profound, long-lasting impact on combating childhood hunger while simultaneously improving academic performance and family economic stability. Breakfast after the bell --- in 2011, New Mexico Appleseed was the first in the nation to legislate and mandate breakfast after the bell for low income schools. This required eligible schools to set aside time for children to eat breakfast after the bell rang. This program rapidly expanded breakfast to low income children at the beginning of the day, ensuring they began the day with a healthy meal. In 2019, New Mexico Appleseed expanded that work to cover all high-poverty schools k- 12. Appleseed is working with the New Mexico public education department (ped) and the governor's office as a watchdog to help school districts that are out of compliance with the law. Full compliance will result in an additional estimated 12,000 meals per day for hungry kids. Medicaid direct certification demonstration project --- Appleseed successfully advocated for and worked closely with the ped and the governor's office to apply for the usda pilot program that allows the state to use medicaid data to expand the number of children who are directly certified for free school meals. This brings in federal dollars and feeds more children. In december 2022, New Mexico was approved for the 2023-2024 school year demonstration project, allowing an additional 30,000 low-income students to eat free automatically. Summer meal expansion --- the governor's office and early childhood education & care department (ececd) asked New Mexico Appleseed to lead in giving out 1,500,000 in summer meal expansion grants that they had difficulty distributing. New Mexico Appleseed has taken the lead in contacting eligible school districts and nonprofits in transforming their program to expand summer meal service to more children in rural areas. This includes more money for transportation, renovation, hiring of New employees, and transforming their menus and access to healthier foods. Districts are using funds to expand outside their district and incorporate more areas needing summer meal service. New Mexico Appleseed does this with donor and grant dollars and does not take state funds for this work. Federal advocacy work: summer meal waivers New Mexico Appleseed helped advocate federally for the keep kids fed act to help provide and extend much-needed waivers that provided free summer meals. New Mexico Appleseed worked with all school districts to inform them of their rights and helped provide guidance on providing meals to all students. Because this legislative win came after summer started, New Mexico Appleseed worked with school districts and nonprofits to make the switch midsummer and creatively use waivers to cover the summer meal expenses. Community eligibility provision (cep) --- New Mexico Appleseed successfully advocated for 36,000 students in las cruces public schools and gallup public schools for years to encourage the districts to utilize the community eligibility provision (cep) to feed all district students for free. As people lost their jobs during the pandemic, eligibility changed for these school districts. New Mexico Appleseed worked and encouraged them to rerun their numbers for the 2022-2023 school year to provide free meals to all their students.

Homelessness Appleseed partnered with the nm public education department after observing state charter schools were struggling to identify students eligible for mckinney-vento, the federal law governing homelessness in the educational context. About twenty state charters, year after year, reported zero students identified as ped. Appleseed was provided a list of twenty priority charter schools in partnership with state agencies for the targeted outreach. All had identified zero, or close to zero, mckinney- vento students in recent school years. Appleseed developed a plan to 1.) Identify the schools that wanted to participate in the mini-grant program. 2.) Make contact with the mckinney- vento liaison and execute a grant agreement outlining the uses of the funds and obligations of the grantee. 3.) Work with rec-9 to ensure the funds were expeditiously released to schools. 4.) Identify immediate needs of the school district and be available throughout the spring and summer for questions and assist with preparation for the 2022-2023 school year. 5.) Convene four community practices in august, september, october, and november of 2022. 6.) Provide on-going technical assistance during the 2022-2023 school year. A total of thirteen schools from across New Mexico accepted the mini-grant award: amy biehl charter high school, estancia valley classical academy, explore academy- albuquerque, explore academy- las cruces, gilbert sena high school, middle college high school, New Mexico connections academy, raices del saber xinachtly community school, red river valley charter school, roots and wings community, solare collegiate charter school, south valley preparatory school, and taos integrated school of the arts. The mini-grant program increased the identification of students experiencing homelessness. Schools went from zero students to at least eight schools, each identifying approximately fifty-four students as of the 40-day count (actual numbers may be higher because some schools had issues migrating their data to the state reporting system.) The number identified will also increase as the school year progresses. Schools used their funds in many ways to identify and support students, such as paying staff a stipend to outreach to families, developing a multimedia outreach campaign, and providing concrete support to students that enabled them to attend school. This model may be expanded to other charters and districts identifying zero students. Mckinney vento incentive program (mvip) in july 2022, the New Mexico Appleseed announced the completion of a successful conditional cash transfer (cct) pilot for inadequately housed high school students living in or around cuba and west las vegas, New Mexico. With the success of the cct pilot, Appleseed has been working on a historic piece of legislation called the mckinney-vento incentive program (mvip) to assist youth experiencing homelessness. Research has shown that inadequate housing in children leads to poor educational and health outcomes. Mvip is designed to support the real-time academic, social-emotional, and financial needs of inadequately housed students and uses the proven impact of cash transfers to address poverty. Mvip would provide a 500 monthly cash transfer to high school students experiencing homelessness until they graduate each year and fifty New students enter. Students would have bank accounts for unbanked families or arraign for other forms of payment such as visa gift cards or other electronic systems. On-site coordinators would be paid to oversee all aspects of the program, including implantation, data reporting, and acting liaison between program managers and school districts. Weekly group or individual tutoring from teachers or paraprofessionals would be available to help with supervising academics. Responsible agencies would receive funds from the legislature and develop a request for proposals (rfp) for program managers and evaluators tasked to implement stability and improve educational outcomes for participating students. In the program's first two years, high-quality evaluators would develop a robust evaluation plan incorporating qualitative and quantitative data while working with program managers and school districts to implement and analyze data for final reports to assigned agencies and legislature. When students cannot meet their basic needs regularly, it can be next to impossible to make school a priority. Offering families and students a monthly stipend reduces the financial stress on the family. Our past pilots showed that monetary incentives can increase engagement in school, tutoring, and emotional support offerings and improve social-emotional well-being. Since then, we have been working to expand this program in legislation and the state budget. This lengthy process requires a significant shift in how legislators see the provision of cash as a tool to leverage their existing educational investments. Fee waiver for ids accessing ids for unaccompanied youth can be a complex and sensitive process as these individuals may need the typical documentation or family support that many others have. Unaccompanied youth are often minors who are not in the physical custody of a parent or legal guardian and may be experiencing homelessness or other challenging circumstances. Appleseed provided legal and outreach assistance to the education for children and youth experiencing homelessness state advisory committee and representative raymundo lara of dona ana county in passing house bill 389 - removing the fee requirement for issuance of an identification card to homeless individual. New Mexico law at nmac 24- 14- 28(a)(7) permits unaccompanied youth to request their birth certificate from vital records without requiring a signature from an adult while waiving the 10 fee. If the youth lacks two proofs of New Mexico residency, the youth and the mckinney-vento liaison or another school employee may help the youth complete the affidavit of New Mexico residency. The New Mexico motor vehicle department (mvd) is retraining staff on the rules. A valid id is often required to access a wide range of services and benefits, including healthcare, education, housing, and employment. Without identification, unaccompanied youth may face barriers to accessing these essential services. Unaccompanied youth missing guardianship and limited support networks can now access free identification documents. State funding increase increasing state funding for mckinney-vento state programs can be crucial in addressing homelessness and providing support for students and families. Mckinney-vento programs are designed to provide assistance to students in accessing and succeeding in school, as well as offering life-changing services. New Mexico Appleseed has been advocating for increased funding for mckinney-vento programs, which has taken time and persistence. This year, the education for homeless children and youth (ehcy) program - the primary piece of federal legislation related to the education of children and youth experiencing homelessness, received 967,448.00 this year and 870,876.00 last year. Appleseed is also working to help advocate for additional state funding for the student success & wellness bureau, which houses the mckinney-vento department.

Evidence-based policymaking how is it that New Mexico spends billions of dollars on the symptoms of poverty and yet we see no significant changes to our children's outcomes? A major reason is that we do not use data to identify who needs help, what kind of help they need, and whether any of that help is effective. New Mexico Appleseed brought a solution to the state that may have the most impact of anything we have done yet: the family success lab, which links data across agencies and families to paint a whole picture of risk factors, and protective factors and provides an opportunity for a real program evaluation the family success lab at the New Mexico department of health if the risk factor for failing third-grade reading is that your dad was in prison, we don't know that. If a protective factor for staying out of child welfare is that you live with your grandmother, we don't know that either. These are critical data stories and breadcrumbs that we must follow so that we can have positive outcomes for our families. Prior to New Mexico Appleseed's intervention, New Mexico state agencies had siloed data and services, so those data stories and breadcrumbs have been hidden until now. New Mexico Appleseed conceived, designed, and successfully advocated for the family success lab at the New Mexico department of health. The impact of this is that the state didn't know who got services, what services were affected and didn't have an unduplicated count of individuals in multiple agencies, and wasn't able to see the risk factors across generations. The family success lab at the department of health allows the state to do just that. As it grows, it will be a critical tool for the state and the legislature to know how best to deploy resources. Partnering with state agencies to create a research agenda: New Mexico Appleseed is spearheading advocacy efforts to support the growth of the family success lab, including the establishment of a research agenda for all the social services agencies as they build on their data-sharing efforts and craft the family success lab's research plan over the next few years. The first order of business will likely be to create an unduplicated count of individuals across agencies and then create families and data across systems and generations. Secured funding for the family success lab: in the 2022 legislative session, New Mexico Appleseed tirelessly advocated with legislators and drafted budget language to successfully secure 330,000 in recurring funding. In the next year's budget, the early childhood department and the human services department have shared with us that they are directing millions of dollars toward the family success lab.