A school district or charter school that has a full-time distance learning program or offers distance learning courses or other computer-based courses of study shall provide accompanying instructional materials or other materials in an electronic format usable by a person with a disability or compatible with the person's assistive technology.

History: Laws 2003, ch. 162, § 2; recompiled by Laws 2007, ch. 292, § 11 and Laws 2007, ch. 293, § 11; 2026, ch. 8, § 11.

ANNOTATIONS

Recompilations. — Laws 2007, ch. 292, § 11 and Laws 2007, ch. 293, § 11 recompiled former 22-13-27 NMSA 1978 into the Statewide Cyber Academy Act [Distance Learning Act] as 22-30-7 NMSA 1978, effective June 15, 2007.

Laws 2026, ch. 8, § 5 renamed the Statewide Cyber Academy Act to the Distance Learning Act.

The 2026 amendment, effective July 1, 2026, clarified the requirements of school districts and charter schools regarding distance learning and students with disabilities; after the section heading, deleted "Public schools that offer distance learning and computer-based courses of study shall provide accompanying electronic formats that are usable by a person with a disability using assistive technology, and those formats shall be based on the American standard code for information interchange, hypertext markup language and extensible markup language" and added the remainder of the section.

Temporary provisions. — Laws 2026, ch. 8, § 13 effective February 25, 2026, provided:

A. For the purposes of the Public School Finance Act [Chapter 22, Article 8 NMSA 1978] in fiscal year 2026, a school district with MEM over eight thousand whose MEM on the first reporting date of fiscal year 2026 is at least ten percent lower than the school district's MEM on the first reporting date of fiscal year 2025 shall calculate the total number of program units to which the school district is entitled by averaging the school district's MEM on the first reporting date of fiscal year 2025 and the school district's MEM on the first reporting date of fiscal year 2026.

B. For the purposes of the Public School Finance Act in fiscal years 2026 and 2027, a school district is not eligible for enrollment growth program units pursuant to Section 22-8-23.1 NMSA 1978 for students enrolled in a full-time distance learning program.

C. For fiscal year 2027, a school district or charter school shall not reorganize to create a school district, school or school program that has a majority of students enrolled in a full-time distance learning program.

D. The legislative education study committee, in collaboration with the legislative finance committee and the public education department, shall conduct a comprehensive study on virtual instruction in the state. The study shall evaluate the status of full-time distance learning programs or similar programs and assess the outcomes of students enrolled in the programs, with particular focus on those students who are in kindergarten through fifth grade, the cost of operating the programs and potential legislative action regarding full-time distance learning programs. On or before November 1, 2026, the legislative education study committee shall submit a final report on the comprehensive study to the governor, the public education department and the legislative finance committee.

E. As used in this section, "full-time distance learning program" means a public school instructional program in which students receive virtual instruction and are not required to attend school at a school building.