NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – When it comes to students showing up for school, New Mexico is getting a failing grade. “Attendance is important. In reality, I could have you here for eight hours and not get through all my questions,” said Rep. Brian Baca, a Republican representing Valencia County.

A new report shows the number of students chronically absent, meaning they missed more than 10% of school, more than doubled from 2019-2023, outpacing the national average. Data shows in 2023, 40% of New Mexico students were chronically absent which shakes out to 124,000 students. “I wasn’t surprised. because I have been hearing this from the people working in the schools. They’re very concerned,” said Ellen Bernstein, President of the Albuquerque Teachers Federation. Researchers said chronic absenteeism impacts a student’s learning and likelihood to graduate.

According to the report, district staff say illness, lack of interest, and parental decisions like vacations or letting students stay home are the top reasons why students skip school. The report also said the state’s chronic absenteeism is underreported noting some districts use electronic methods while others use the old-school paper method. It also noted that not all teachers take attendance every day.

The report suggests that the New Mexico Public Education Department should publish rules on taking attendance and give guidelines on how to intervene. It also said legislators should amend the Attendance for Success Act, passed in 2019, to allow districts to require extra instructional time for excessively absent students. However, Bernstein noted that fixing issues outside the classroom to improve child welfare could lead to a more lasting solution.

NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – Foster teens sleeping overnight in office buildings: it’s a problem the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department (CYFD) has promised to fix, as it struggles to find foster families. Now, the department is opening up what it calls a solution. KRQE News 13 spoke with CYFD about those plans and others who feel its not enough.

“It’s been a long year for me since I came onboard a year ago, in really trying to restructure the agency,” said Teresa Casados, cabinet secretary for CYFD. One of the problems CYFD has dealt with as the state faces a lack of foster families surrounds kids and teens staying overnight in their offices—where conflicts between workers and foster children have escalated to the point of 9-1-1 calls.

The situation—highlighted in a KRQE Investigates report—has been hard to fix according to Casados, who says the agency has had little luck signing up new foster parents.

“From the 124 events that I think we’ve had, we had 19 people that actually engaged with us after those events,” Casados said. Despite low interest, the department’s been working to get kids out of CYFD’s offices in a different way: a new multipurpose home for boys aged 12 and up in Albuquerque.

“It’s a CYFD facility that we have. It used to be the Girl’s Reintegration Center, and we’ve made some upgrades to that location. AMI Kids is operating that for us,” Casados said.

The facility has four bedrooms with three beds to a room, a classroom, and an outdoor recreation area. Staff includes a chef, a nurse, and therapists onsite. Casados says they have partnerships with a charter school and a local community college to do online school and have a tutor onsite. They also have a partnership with Workforce Solutions.

“It’s really about normalcy for those kids and providing them the environment that will prepare them for you know, life. Some of these are older youth. They’re 15, 16, 17 years old,” Casados said.

“We’re still continuing to look for placement, but if they end up going into Fostering Connections or transitional living for youth, we want to make sure they’re prepared and have the skills to be successful,” Casados said.

So far, five kids are living there. The facility has the capacity for 12, and Casados hopes to have the rest of the boys living in the offices transition to the center by month’s end.

However, some advocates aren’t thrilled with the venture, saying the state has other obligations it still needs to meet. Jesse Clifton, an attorney with Disability Rights New Mexico, says CYFD has already settled a lawsuit in 2020 that highlighted the overuse of congregate care.

“The allegations of that lawsuit in general terms alleged that children who have been subject to abuse and neglect and had been brought into the custody of the state of New Mexico were further subjected to more abuse and neglect as opposed to updating the resources and supports they needed to thrive,” Clifton said.

“The lawsuit aimed at total system reform, and the lawsuit was brought in 2018 and it settled in 2020 with the state agreeing that the child welfare system in New Mexico was in need of pretty total reform,” Clifton said, “Those have overwhelmingly been disappointing progress reports as there’s much of the settlement that has yet to be satisfied and many of the deadlines have passed.”

He says prior to the lawsuit, children were inappropriately housed in group care: “Everyone has always agreed, I mean from the time of the settlement agreement to the corrective action plan which was as recent as last year—children belong in family homes. That’s the goal.”

Clifton says the new center doesn’t align with that goal. “That term multi-service home, multipurpose home, is a little bit of a misnomer because for all of its amenities is not a family home. It’s still congregate care and so we just have to keep those realities in mind,” Clifton said, “While this is movement of some kind, it’s not the movement that was agreed to and it’s not again the solution. This is more of a band-aid than a solution.”

Casados says the goal here is ending the office stays: “I think this is the better of those two situations, but our goal really is to make sure we can get those kids into permanent placement in a family-like setting…You know locations like this, you know multiservice homes are not ideal and there will be some people that don’t think this is the best course of action for us to take. We just want to make sure we’re meeting the needs of the kids.”

CYFD is also working to create a similar home for girls in Albuquerque who are currently staying in their offices.

CYFD emphasizes: they are looking for people to become foster parents to help with this issue. “Any help that we can get in encouraging individuals across the state to become foster families or even to give it a try if they want to be a respite family and try that slowly, we’d love to have a conversation with them about that,” Casados said.

For more information on becoming a foster parent, head to CYFD’s website here.

Another classic American restaurant is shuttering – due to the crippling costs of food, bills and labor since the pandemic.

After surviving for 62 years, Mr Powdrell’s Barbeque will shut for good at the end of the month.

First, it will have a big farewell party for all its customers in Albuquerque on the Fourth of July. They will enjoy the outlet’s famous BBQ sauce and slow-cooking method invented in 1870 and handed down through generations of the family.

Joe Powdrell got teary eyed as he reminisced about the restaurant’s incredible journey – from his parent’s opening it the 1960s – and told stories of his favorite customers.

‘It’s been a good experience of life,’ Joe, now the boss Mr. Powdrell’s Barbeque, said as he spoke to the Albuquerque Journal.

Joe Powdrell spoke to KOB4 TV station about the closure of the final location on Forth Street – and said rising costs after Covid hit the business

‘It has had a whole bunch of trials, a few tribulations, but after all of that, it is still a very triumphant and a very victorious experience and we’re still able to see that,’ added Powdrell, who ran the location on Forth Street with his wife Rita.

His parents Catherine and Pete Powdrell began the forerunner to the iconic restaurant in 1962. 

They had arrived in New Mexico four years earlier from west Texas, which the family said was less-integrated. 

Catherine pssed in 2004 and Pete in 2007. They had 11 children.

But the roots of the restaurant can be traced back to much further to 1870. 

Isaac Britt – Pete Powdrell’s grandfather and Joe’s great-grandfather – came up with the barbecue sauce recipe and the slow-cooking method in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

 Pete inherited the recipe and took it first to Texas and then Albuquerque.

‘The times were very segregated and it had limited horizons for us,’ Joe Powdrell told KOB4 as he spoke of his parents moving the family from Texas in 1958.

‘Dad, mom, young parents, a bunch of kids, we had family in New Mexico here, as early as the 1930s beckoning us to come here. So we came, cranked up our barbeque thing.’

The restaurant moved to its current location – Shalit House built in 1936 – on 5209 Forth Street in June 1984. The building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

It is not the first time Mr Powdrell’s has shut a location. Their other restaurant on Route 66 at 11301 Central was shuttered in October 2023 after struggling to recover from problems caused by the pandemic. It had been on that site for more than 50 years.

‘Covid examined all of what we needed to know. The rise and change in society, the rise in prices. That’s been challenging, not only to us but to other businesses. It’s challenging business, period,’ Joe said to KOB4.

Joe Powdrell talking to customers at the much-loved Mr Powdrell’s in Albuquerque. It will shut on June 29

Mr Powdrell’s Barbeque is  favorite in New Mexico but rising costs means it is being shuttered

It has had its fair share of famous customers too – and Powdrell has a picture of Spike Lee on the wall.

‘You know, Spike Lee,’ he told KOB4 said as he pointed to the photo

‘If you know Spike, you know the motion picture industry. Danny Glover is another one. Yolanda King, Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter. Malcolm X’s daughter. I mean, they were here at the same time.’

Mr Powdrell’s Barbeque in Albuquerque might be having a farewell party on July 4 – but it might not be the end.

After that,  the location might still be around – as an event space. Powdrell said he has done weddings before, as well as working with a car company to show off cars parked out front.

And he plans to have the sauce bottled and sold in stores.