New Mexico School Boards Association
| New Mexico School Boards Association | |
 | |
| Basic facts | |
| Location: | Santa Fe, New Mexico |
| Type: | 501(c)(3) |
| Top official: | Pauline Jaramillo, President |
| Year founded: | 1958 |
| Website: | Official website |
The New Mexico School Boards Association (NMSBA) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization representing school boards in New Mexico. As of September 2025, the organization's website described its purpose as "serving New Mexico’s 450 elected school board members and their diverse and unique communities for over 60 years, NMSBA serves as the primary information source on public education and successfully advocates for, and unifies our voices to provide a quality public education for all New Mexico children."[1]
Background
A group of school board members and teachers founded the New Mexico School Boards Association in 1958.[2] As of September 2025, the organization had the following vision:[1]
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The New Mexico School Boards Association aspires to be recognized as the premier source of development and support for local boards of education in New Mexico. The NMSBA will be known as the leading advocate for local boards in their role of insuring that all students will graduate from New Mexico high schools prepared for a quality life and committed to improving society.[3] |
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As of the same date, the organization's mission statement was:[1]
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The New Mexico School Boards Association is the member organization for all of New Mexico’s school boards to support their efforts in providing a quality education for all students of New Mexico. The NMSBA serves its members through:
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Leadership
As of September 2025, the following individuals sat on the New Mexico School Boards Association's executive board:[4]
- Pauline Jaramillo, president
- Marvyn Jaramillo, president-elect
- Terry O'Brain, vice president
- Arlean Murillo, secretary-treasurer
- Christine Ludi, past president
Work and activities
Lobbying activities
The New Mexico School Boards Association conducts lobbying efforts at the state and federal levels to promote policies it says will advance its mission. The organization's legislative priorities for the 2025 session were:[5]
NMSBA’s top priorities are focused on keeping our students and staff safe, providing the best education possible for students, increasing achievement, and implementing quality learning programs based on best practices.
Local Decision Making
- Local Control: NMSBA supports the local decision-making authority of school boards and opposes legislation and executive action that restricts the ability of locally elected school boards and superintendents to respond to the varied and ever-changing needs of their districts, students and communities. NMSBA calls on the New Mexico Legislature to support legislation affirming and expanding the authority of locally elected school boards to independently develop and adopt educational policies and rules that reflect the educational needs of the students and communities they serve.
- School Flexibility: NMSBA recognizes that school planning decisions should not be a “one size fits all” proposition and supports legislation and flexibility to allow local school boards to make decisions about school calendars, length of school week, re-entry, and instruction based upon relevant scientific evidence and community needs.
Adequate Funding
- Educator Recruitment, Retention, Preparation and Compensation: NMSBA supports legislative action that keeps all school personnel employed and vacancies filled; invests in substantial increased salaries for all school personnel to remain regionally competitive; provides a competitive benefits package including a decrease in employee health care costs; provides educator housing assistance; ensures the education retirement system is financially sound; and reinstates full meeting per diem for school board members.
- Core Education Mission: NMSBA supports sufficient, stable and recurring funding, resources and the flexibility required to open the doors, meet any new mandates and fully staff the constitutionally mandated core education program to meet the unique needs of all districts - large, medium and small including full funding for student transportation expenses. Special attention should go to addressing the possibility of reductions in federal funding, and timely award of initial, final and carryover funds and processing requests for reimbursement by the NMPED.
- School District Operating Reserves: NMSBA requests that school district reserves be preserved and protected without penalty as they are critical to keeping the doors open between revenue inflows, are utilized for locally established priorities, and provide resources to address unfunded health and safety concerns.
- Student and Staff Safety: NMSBA supports legislation to provide direct aid with the flexibility necessary for school districts to meet the critical and ever-changing school safety, cybersecurity, social emotional health and housing needs of our students and staff.
- Extended Learning Programs: NMSBA supports legislation to continue extended learning programs along with flexibility in the K-12 Plus Program to help increase student participation and adjust to family schedules; and provide sufficient funding to update all related curriculum materials.
- Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Curriculum: NMSBA supports legislation that will continue to fund culturally and linguistically responsive training, curriculum and materials. We also support reporting and accountability to ensure students are provided these opportunities and engage in the work necessary to create change in our schools to address educational disparities as required by the Martinez and Yazzie court order.
- Capital Outlay: NMSBA supports the continued reduction of local matching requirements and easing match waiver provisions for standards based and systems projects; removal of matching requirements for school safety, Pre-K and Career Technical Education facilities and programs and AC/HAVC replacements and upgrades.
Governance
- NMSBA supports passage of a Joint Memorial asking voters to approve a constitutional amendment to re-establish a State Board of Education as an independent body with the authority to appoint a State Superintendent of Education with funding and oversight for a robust and accountable education system for all students, educators and communities.
Notable endorsements
This section displays endorsements this organization made in elections within Ballotpedia's coverage scope. Know of one we missed? Click here to let us know.
Finances
The following is a breakdown of the New Mexico School Boards Association's revenues and expenses from 2002 to 2023. The information comes from ProPublica.
| Year | Revenue | Expenses |
|---|---|---|
| 2002 | $0.4 million | $0.4 million |
| 2003 | $0.5 million | $0.5 million |
| 2004 | $0.4 million | $0.5 million |
| 2005 | $0.4 million | $0.4 million |
| 2006 | $0.5 million | $0.5 million |
| 2007 | $0.6 million | $0.6 million |
| 2008 | $0.6 million | $0.6 million |
| 2009 | $0.6 million | $0.5 million |
| 2010 | $0.7 million | $0.6 million |
| 2011 | $0.7 million | $0.6 million |
| 2012 | $0.7 million | $0.6 million |
| 2013 | $0.7 million | $0.7 million |
| 2014 | $0.8 million | $0.7 million |
| 2015 | $0.8 million | $0.7 million |
| 2016 | $0.8 million | $0.8 million |
| 2017 | $0.8 million | $0.8 million |
| 2018 | $0.8 million | $0.8 million |
| 2019 | $0.9 million | $0.8 million |
| 2020 | $0.8 million | $0.8 million |
| 2021 | $0.7 million | $0.6 million |
| 2022 | $0.9 million | $0.9 million |
| 2023 | $1.0 million | $1.0 million |
See also
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 New Mexico School Boards Association, "Vision & Mission," accessed September 22, 2025
- ↑ New Mexico School Boards Association, "Home page," accessed September 22, 2025
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ New Mexico School Boards Association, "Board of Directors," accessed September 22, 2025
- ↑ New Mexico School Boards Association, "New Mexico School Boards Association 2025 Legislative Priorities," accessed September 22, 2025
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