Two rural New Mexico school districts — Chama Valley Independent Schools in Rio Arriba County and Santa Rosa Consolidated Schools in Guadalupe County — will assume operational control of the Destinations Career Academy of New Mexico, a statewide online public school powered by Stride, Inc., beginning in fall 2025.
The academy, which first opened in 2020 under Gallup–McKinley County Schools, reports in an August 4, 2025, release that more than 3,000 students have already enrolled for the 2025–26 school year, a sharp increase from its early days.
Until now, NMDCA has been managed within a single district’s structure while serving students across the state.
The new arrangement expands its reach and changes how it will be governed. Instead of answering to one local school board or operating as an independent virtual charter, the academy will be jointly overseen by two districts, each with its own elected board.
That governance shift is more than a bureaucratic detail; it determines who reviews the budget, hires teachers, sets policies, and evaluates student performance.
Understanding why this change matters requires looking at New Mexico’s track record with virtual education. In most states, full-time online schools operate under a charter model, where authorizers — either state agencies or districts — are expected to hold them accountable for academic results and fiscal transparency.
In New Mexico, however, those rules are far weaker. A review by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools’ “Model Law” database gives the state 0 out of 12 points for full-time virtual charter provisions and just 2 out of 8 points for transparency when contracting with outside providers.
That means oversight has often depended more on the authorizing district’s own practices than on any clear statewide standard.
By placing NMDCA under two districts, the program’s supporters believe they are strengthening that oversight. District boards will have direct authority over spending and staffing, and local administrators will be in a position to track attendance, course completion, and test performance in real time.
For families, the change means that accountability will rest with officials they can meet in person, rather than with a remote authorizer or a largely autonomous online school.
This local control is significant in rural New Mexico, where educational options can be limited. In the 2019–20 school year, 60 of the state’s 89 districts enrolled fewer than 1,800 students. That small scale often makes it impossible to offer a wide range of classes, especially advanced placement courses, specialized career-technical training, or dual-credit programs with colleges.
The academy’s statewide model allows students in communities separated by hundreds of miles to enroll in the same classes, regardless of whether their home district can provide them. Planned career pathways include Business Management & Administration, Health Science, and Information Technology (IT), along with college-credit courses through New Mexico higher education institutions.
The model also addresses a chronic staffing challenge. As of September 9, 2024, New Mexico had 737 vacant teaching positions and 1,259 educator vacancies overall, according to a report from New Mexico State University’s Southwest Outreach Academic Research Center.
In smaller districts, those shortages can mean entire subjects go untaught. With NMDCA, licensed New Mexico teachers can serve students anywhere in the state, making it easier to fill gaps in specialized areas such as advanced science, foreign languages, or technical training.
But technology infrastructure will determine how accessible the program truly is. Roughly 16 percent of the state’s 873,797 serviceable locations remain without adequate broadband, according to the New Mexico Governor’s Office. While the state has secured $675 million in federal Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment funds, most construction will not begin until after 2025 approvals.
In a March 27, 2025, release, the state broadband office reported that 18 entities filed 66 applications for this funding. Until those projects are built, students in unserved areas may struggle to connect reliably to daily classes.
Even with expanded course offerings and the promise of better oversight, the program’s success will hinge on measurable outcomes. A 2017 evaluation by the Legislative Education Study Committee found that virtual charter schools in New Mexico — including those run by K12 Inc., Stride’s predecessor — often trailed traditional schools in graduation rates and invested a smaller share of their budgets in instructional staff.
Nationally, online schools have produced mixed academic results, prompting education advocates to call for transparent reporting on attendance, engagement, and learning gains. Under state rules, NMDCA students are required to participate in district and state assessments; testing logistics are arranged by the school, which typically includes designated in-person sites.
When the academy launches under its new governance in fall 2025, it will face two tests at once: whether it can expand opportunity for students in far-flung corners of the state, and whether it can document that those students are thriving academically.
Success will depend not only on technology and curriculum, but on whether the districts publish clear, accessible data on attendance, course completion, test performance, graduation rates, and post-graduation outcomes.
For a state still grappling with how to regulate full-time virtual schooling, the results could shape the future of online education well beyond New Mexico.
