District says it also wants past Amira recordings deleted and will offer paper-based reading assessments on parent request

Damien Willis, Organ Mountain News

LAS CRUCES - Las Cruces Public Schools says it has disabled retention of student voice recordings from a state-required reading assessment after parents raised concerns about student data, and the district is asking that any recordings from previous assessments be deleted.

The district will brief the Board of Education on the changes Tuesday as part of an update on the Amira reading assessment, which is used to measure oral reading fluency by recording students as they read aloud.

LCPS also says parents may request that their children take a paper-based assessment instead.

According to materials prepared for Tuesday’s meeting, the district has taken three steps in response to parent data concerns: disabling voice-recording retention for the 2026-27 school year, asking the New Mexico Public Education Department to work with the vendor to delete any existing recordings of LCPS students from previous assessments and making a paper option available on request.

The packet does not detail the specific concerns parents raised or say whether recordings of LCPS students from previous assessments remain stored on the platform.

How Amira works

For the 2026-27 school year, all LCPS students in kindergarten through second grade are required to take the Amira interim assessment at the beginning, middle and end of the school year.

Students who are not proficient on the Amira Indicators of Student Improvement and Progress assessment must also be monitored monthly to track their academic progress.

Amira measures oral reading fluency by having students read connected text aloud. According to the district, the assessment evaluates aspects of reading including accuracy, rate and fluency.

Recordings can allow teachers to review a student’s reading performance and identify patterns involving pacing, expression, self-correction and skills the student has or has not yet mastered.

LCPS says student information collected through Amira remains subject to federal and state privacy protections, including the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and, where applicable, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, as well as New Mexico privacy requirements and contractual data-security requirements established by the Public Education Department.

District responds to parent concerns

The district’s meeting materials distinguish between using students’ voices to administer the reading assessment and retaining recordings afterward.

LCPS says voice-recording retention has been disabled for 2026-27 assessments. The district has also asked NMPED to work with the assessment vendor to delete “all voice recordings of LCPS students from the platform.”

The materials do not identify the vendor, specify how long recordings may previously have been retained or indicate whether the district has received confirmation that any existing recordings have been deleted.

Parents who do not want their child assessed using the digital format may request a paper-based assessment, according to the district.

Deputy Superintendent Wendi Miller-Tomlinson is scheduled to present the Amira update during the Board of Education’s regular meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Dr. Karen M. Trujillo Administration Complex, 505 S. Main St.

Damien Willis is founder and editor of Organ Mountain News. If you have a personal story to share or a lead we should follow up on, reach out at OrganMountainNews@gmail.com or connect with him on X at @damienwillis.