Governor and PED Withheld Records From Court Re Criticism of State’s Handling of Yazzie Martinez Case

Public Education Department’s Filing With Court Missing All Pueblo Council of Governors Resolution Criticizing PED and Related Letter From Governor Lujan Grisham.

On Monday, November 3, 2025, the State of New Mexico’s Public Education Department filed an important Court ordered Status Report on the development of a remedial plan to the Court regarding the longstanding lawsuit known as Yazzie Martinez.

(The filing was the latest action in addressing the State of New Mexico’s responsibility in ongoing lawsuits of two groups of Plaintiffs filed in 2014, which were combined into a single action, alternately titled Yazzie/Martinez and Martinez/Yazzie, for which a 2018 landmark court ruling found “the state failed to meet its constitutional obligation to provide a uniform and sufficient education for all students, particularly Native American students, English learners, students with disabilities, and students experiencing poverty.”

In early October the Public Education Department (PED) released a draft of its proposed remedial plan which received significant criticism from the Plaintiffs for its continued failure to meet the needs of the students identified by the Court as being under-served.

Monday’s filing included an updated version of the PED’s plan (identified as Exhibit B in the filing documents).

(A copy of the PED Status Report To Court filing, can be found at the end of this article.)

It also included a letter from a single member of the 19 All Pueblo Council of Governors.

That letter is identified as Exhibit A in the filing, and is dated November 3, 2029, the day PED was required by the Court to file a report and its plan to address the needs of students failed by the state.

A reading of the letter provides a version of claims by the Lujan Grisham administration which Plaintiffs have strongly rejected as a legitimate and adequate response by the state to the requirements of the Court’s findings in the lawsuit.

What PED did not include in the filing were two other documents that are illustrative of the Plaintiffs’ frustration with an administration they feel has stubbornly dragged its collective feet for seven years in meeting the needs of more than two hundred thousand students – Native American students, English learners, students with disabilities, and students experiencing poverty.

One of the documents missing in the recent PED filing with the Court, is a Resolution of the All Pueblo Council of Governors (APCG), dated October 23, 2025, and sent to PED and Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, and that sources described to The Candle as highly critical of the the October version of the PED.

Since the release of the October draft plan as reported by several reporters such as Bella Davis at NM In Depth and Esteban Candelaria of the Santa Fe New Mexican, PED and the Lujan Grisham administration have been criticized by stakeholders for not adequately addressing the needs of the students identified in the litigation.

The other document that PED did not include in its filing, is a letter dated October 24, 2025, from Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham to the members of the All Pueblo Council of Governors – a day after the Resolution’s passage by the All Pueblo Council of Governors, that The Candle was told passed by a vote of at least 16 with one abstention.

The Candle has requested a copy of APCG Resolution, and also requested a copy of the letter from Governor Lujan Grisham, who is currently out of state in Rio de Janeiro attending an international climate meeting. Her office provided an electronic copy of the letter, and which is published below.

(The Candle also expects to update this article and publish the APCG Resolution.)

Governor Lujan Grisham’s letter appears to be a response to the criticisms of the APCG Resolution and explained by stakeholders.

(This reporting will be updated later today. And an analysis of Governor Lujan Grisham’s letter, the APCG concerns, and those of other stakeholders is in development.)

October 24, 2025, Letter from New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham to All Pueblo Council of Governors.

Background Regarding Yazzie Martinez

Since 2019, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s administration, through its Public Education Department, has had the responsibility of addressing the Court’s findings.

For almost seven years, the PED response to the Court’s findings has been the source of great frustration to Plaintiffs – including a much criticized and failed effort by Lujan Grisham in March 2020, to have the suit dismissed.

In June of 2020, First Judicial District Judge Matthew Wilson ruled that the state was not in compliance with needed reforms to protect students harmed by the state policies and rejected Lujan Grisham’s request, and ordered the matter to move ahead.

Plaintiffs have argued since then that PED continues to fail in meeting the needs identified by the Court’s 2018 decision.

The Candle Has Prepared a Multipart Series of Articles to be Released Beginning Late This Week.

New Mexico Public Education Department Filing of November 3, 2025, Defendants Status Report To Court.