Gallup-McKinley district ends Stride/K12 dispute, adds tutoring deal

Gallup-McKinley County Schools closed the book on its long-running fight with Stride, Inc. and K12 by reinstating a modified contract, ending suspension and debarment proceedings, and adding a new tutoring deal for district students.

The district said it had satisfactorily resolved the dispute on March 2 and dismissed all complaints it filed with prejudice. As part of that settlement, GMCS voided Stride/K12’s suspension, terminated active debarment proceedings against K12, and withdrew four prior press releases dated May 16, May 23, Aug. 22 and Sept. 10, 2025, retracting the statements made in them.

The new arrangement also gives the district a limited academic service it can point to after months of public conflict. K12 will provide up to 500 hours of tutoring, while GMCS committed to a mandatory minimum purchase of 50 hours. The modified contract runs through June 30, 2026, making the agreement a short-term reset rather than a long-term renewal.

For McKinley County, the significance goes beyond one vendor contract. The Stride/K12 dispute became one of the region’s most closely watched education fights because it touched virtual learning, student services, district authority and how publicly funded school programs are overseen when relationships break down. The settlement shifts that debate from open confrontation back to daily operations, at least for now.

The broader stakes were already visible after GMCS ended its contract with Stride in 2025, which displaced about 3,000 online students and pushed families into other programs. New Mexico Public Education Department Secretary Mariana Padilla later said there was a $35 million shortfall tied to the funding issue, and lawmakers in Santa Fe passed emergency legislation in 2026 to begin the process of recouping possible overpayments linked to GMCS’s virtual enrollment.

Stride said in August 2025 that more than 3,000 students were enrolled for the 2025-26 school year in Destinations Career Academy of New Mexico, the online school it operated with Chama Valley Independent Schools and Santa Rosa Consolidated Schools. That made the Gallup-McKinley dispute part of a larger state-level argument over whether districts were drawing funding tied to the same students and whether virtual-school oversight had kept pace with enrollment growth.

Kevin Mitchell, the school board president, framed the settlement as a reset for the district. “We regret that these disputes occurred,” he said, as GMCS moved to restore a working relationship with Stride and K12 while limiting the deal to tutoring and a contract that expires in less than a year.