Third Grader Titus Van Wyk attends a virtual math class at the New Mexico Destinations Career Academy from his family’s kitchen table on Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026. Virtual schools have been a flashpoint this legislative session, as legislators debate tightening regulation for the first time in nearly two decades. Jim Weber/The New Mexican
By ANDRÉ SALKIN
The Santa Fe New Mexican
GLORIETA — The van Wyk kids’ virtual avatars scuttled across a wintry digital landscape, weaving among those of nearly 100 other cyber students from around the state—some shown in virtual wheelchairs—during a break between their online classes.
“Where are you?” asked 9-year-old Titus van Wyk, scanning the computer screen for his sister’s avatar.
“I’m by the games,” said Selah, 11, seated across the dinner table that doubles as a classroom for the three van Wyk children, who all attend the entirely online New Mexico Destinations Career Academy.
The kids described virtual school as a way to build flexibility into their days—leaving time to bike with neighborhood friends or explore the forested hills surrounding their gated Glorieta community. “If I went to school, I wouldn’t be able to,” Selah said.
Debate over virtual education in New Mexico became one of the Legislature’s most contentious education fights this year—fueled by a more than $35 million funding anomaly that was set to hurt public school districts statewide. Lawmakers also cited concerns about a lack of oversight of online schools and the role of a national, for-profit company that runs the van Wyks’ virtual school.
Virtual learning students and their families note they come from widely varied backgrounds: far-flung rural communities with limited school options, students who have experienced bullying or social challenges; families with medically fragile members—and those simply dissatisfied with traditional public schools. They urged lawmakers not to enact legislation that ultimately would end online learning.
“I’m protecting my kids and allowing them to be kids for as long as I possibly can,” Jacques van Wyk, the father of Selah and Titus, told lawmakers last week, citing his family’s Christian faith and the presence of cellphones and drugs in schools as “the things that public school culture unfortunately has to offer.”
Jacques van Wyk, who lauded his kids’ virtual school and the passion of its teachers, was one of hundreds of parents from New Mexico Destinations Career Academy and other virtual schools who packed the Roundhouse this session as lawmakers took their first pass at regulating fully virtual education since 2007—an attempt many parents decried as an attempt to kill a valuable option.
State education officials estimate “at least” 8,977 students are enrolled in fully online schools statewide—a figure drawn from a survey of virtual learners conducted this year. Officials caution the number is imprecise, a central problem lawmakers say they are trying to fix: The state lacks reliable data on who virtual students are, where they attend school and how much those programs cost.
Addressing an ’emergency’
House Bill 253, which was repeatedly amended to soften the regulatory blow on virtual schools statewide, serves three overlapping purposes: averting an immediate statewide funding crisis, imposing new reporting and accountability requirements on virtual schools and directing state analysts to conduct a multiyear “comprehensive study” of online education.
It was spurred by a more than $35 million gap in the school funding formula tied to virtual enrollment shifts—a flaw that, left unaddressed, would have forced districts statewide to absorb a roughly $40 million hit.
Under the state’s per-student funding formula, districts are largely paid based on prior-year enrollment. When Gallup-McKinley County Schools abruptly canceled its contract last spring with Stride K12, a national cyber school operator, the district continued receiving monthly payments for roughly 3,000 virtual students it no longer served.
At the same time, the Chama Valley and Santa Rosa school districts reported those same students in their 40-day enrollment counts—inflating enrollment nearly fourfold for Santa Rosa and fivefold for Chama, and putting the state on the hook to issue about $41 million to both districts Jan. 31, meaning taxpayers would pay for the same 3,000 students twice.
Lawmakers intervened at the last minute with Senate Bill 19, which allowed the Public Education Department to delay the payment through the end of the legislative session when the governor signed it Jan. 31.
HB 253, aimed at solving the problem, hit a snag late Wednesday. While it had passed the House with overwhelming support, it passed the Senate 26-15—failing to secure the two-thirds majority needed to enact an emergency clause.
The Senate later amended the bill, and the new version passed unanimously, which would allow the emergency clause to take effect. It then needed a vote of concurrence in the House. Lawmakers were scrambling Wednesday night to get it across the finish line, hours before the session was set to end.
“I appreciate that it passes,” said Sen. Bill Soules, D-Doña Ana, one of the bill’s sponsors, after the initial Senate vote. But without the emergency clause, he added, “our schools will suffer some funding declines, I suspect.”
Sen. George Muñoz, D-Gallup, too, warned colleagues that if the emergency clause was excluded, “your students are gonna get cut.”
Education officials did not return requests for comment Wednesday on what the loss of the emergency clause could mean for statewide school funding.
They previously had warned inaction by lawmakers would cost districts statewide, estimating a district the size of Albuquerque could face losses of around $5 million.
‘Very sensational’
Roughly $38 million of the $41 million in delayed funds would have gone to Stride K12 through its contracts with the Chama and Santa Rosa school districts—a figure that gave lawmakers pause.
Stride spokesperson Brooke Gabbert did not dispute the company’s cut, but said in a phone interview Wednesday that mischaracterizes how virtual education funding works.
“It’s misleading to say that we just took that money when it’s really going right back into the student—the services we’re providing,” Gabbert said.
“We’re a company,” she added. “Like any other vendor a district partners with, we’re getting paid for services. But when lawmakers say we’re pocketing all of that money—that’s very sensational.”
HB 253 increases reporting requirements for virtual schools, empowers the Public Education Department to evaluate them, and imposes a one-year pause on new fully virtual programs while the state study proceeds.
The version that reached the Senate floor Wednesday already had removed many provisions virtual school advocates said would be damaging, such as one that would drastically limit the virtual enrollment of small districts.
‘Ill-informed’
Republicans still argued the bill was overreaching.
“This is ill-informed,” said Sen. Nicole Tobiassen, R-Albuquerque, criticizing lawmakers for regulating virtual education without knowing how many students are enrolled statewide. She warned the bill could “destroy and uproot families.”
She introduced an amendment on the Senate floor Wednesday, which would have scaled back the bill to remove the pause on new programs and the Public Education Department’s power to withhold funding from districts it deemed in violation of state law. The amendment failed on a vote of 18–20, drawing some Democratic support.
Tobiassen noted, though, the requirements to report virtual learners to the state and an immediate fix to the statewide financial emergency were both merited in the bill.
“This was an issue caused by one school district, but it also brought a lot of light to online learning,” Muñoz said, pushing back on calls to strip back the bill.
Earlier versions of the bill would have halted payments to Gallup-McKinley County Schools tied to the 3,000 virtual students it lost, a move the district told lawmakers would have cost it around $41 million, forcing it to cut services and potentially cut staff.
Lawmakers softened the loss to roughly $28 million after Gallup district officials told the state they are anticipating a payout to Stride K12 in a legal dispute, Muñoz said.
“They think their damages could be up to a hundred million dollars,” he said, “but they don’t know.”
Rising investigations
Muñoz, chair of Senate Finance Committee, has urged state agencies to take action against virtual education companies like Stride K12. He argued the Gallup funding anomaly exposed broader oversight gaps and pointed to successful lawsuits over such issues in other states, like California.
The Public Education Department also has pressed for scrutiny. In a letter provided to The New Mexican by the Office of the State Auditor, Public Education Secretary Mariana Padilla questioned whether Stride’s move might have violated state law.
“It is increasingly questionable whether Chama Valley and Santa Rosa procured K12 or whether K12 solicited these districts to operate replacement schools for GMCS,” Padilla wrote.
State Auditor Joseph Maestas wrote in an email Wednesday his agency is nearing the end of its own review.
“Our special investigations team is wrapping up its review of money and contract issues tied to Stride K12 and these schools,” Maestas wrote. “When we’re finished, we’ll share our findings with the Public Education Department, which is conducting its own separate review.”
Blaine Moffatt, director of the New Mexico Department of Justice’s Government Counsel and Accountability Bureau, told Muñoz ahead of a closed-door briefing by Attorney General Raúl Torrez on “The Virtual Education Dilemma” the agency had received communications from both the education agency and auditor’s office urging an investigation, and that possible investigations or litigation were under review.
“We’re gonna subpoena the school district,” Muñoz said, “so that the attorney general can begin to look at this outrageous robbery of the state of New Mexico for online students.”