created 14 October 2026 · last modified 14 October 2026
running ledger · dated · sourced · 2016 –
The Record.
A dated, cited event ledger of the Amira reading-assessment story in New Mexico — from the 2016 procurement that began the state's relationship with the vendor, through the mergers, the mandates, the policy versions, and the district decisions of this school year. Every entry carries its sources, and every source carries its provenance class: a primary document, a journalist's reporting, or a capture this campaign made itself.
This is a research instrument, not an exposé. What happened and what we make of it are kept apart: facts sit in the entry, and the campaign's reading — where there is one — sits beneath it under its own label. The ledger also records what we looked for and did not find, because a documented absence is a finding about the search, dated like everything else.
Four rules, each with the mark it leaves on the page — so you can read the ledger's visual language before you read the ledger.
01
statement
🏷️Every source is classed.
→
meaning
Before you weigh a claim, you know what kind of evidence carries it: the artifact itself, a journalist's account, or a capture this campaign preserved — flagged in its own color, so our role in the record is never hidden.
→
signal — what you'll see
primary documentreportingour capture
02
statement
⚖️Facts and readings stay separated.
→
meaning
Entry text records what happened, neutrally. Where the campaign has a reading, it sits beneath the fact under its own label — subordinate, and skippable.
→
signal — what you'll see
significance
the campaign's reading, labeled
03
statement
🔍A search that finds nothing is a finding.
→
meaning
A confirmed absence records scope, venue, date, and the null result. It is a statement about the search — confirmed thorough on that date — never a verdict about anyone.
→
signal — what you'll see
confirmed absence
dated search · null result
04
statement
🧾The ledger only grows.
→
meaning
Entries are appended, never deleted. Amendments are made in place and dated. If you can close an absence or correct an entry, write in — corrections are published, not quietly applied.
New Mexico selects Istation by competitive RFPdocument
The state's statewide early-reading assessment relationship with Istation begins with a competitive request-for-proposals process under then-Secretary Hanna Skandera.
primary documentPED contract records, obtained by public records request· on file with the campaign
2019
JAN 2019
📄
JAN 2019
A sole-source letter continues the arrangementdocument
A transition-era sole-source continuation letter extends Istation's statewide role. PED contract 60-924-16-20672, Amendment 2, totals $3,313,020.
primary documentPED contract 60-924-16-20672 and sole-source letter, obtained by public records request· on file with the campaign
2020
2020
📄
2020
Purchasing moves under a CES cooperative contractdocument
Statewide purchasing of the assessment runs through Cooperative Educational Services contract 2020-12N-AC02-ALL, the umbrella vehicle districts buy against.
primary documentCES contract 2020-12N-AC02-ALL, referenced in district purchase records obtained by public records request· on file with the campaign
2023
AUG 2 2023
📄
AUG 2 2023
Santa Fe buys 1,500 five-year Amira licensesdocument
Santa Fe Public Schools purchases 1,500 five-year Amira licenses at $93 per student — $139,500, HMH quote 008740590 — declining a one-year option on the same quote.
primary documentSFPS purchase records, obtained by public records request· on file with the campaign
Istation — "now known as Amira Learning" in the merged company's own announcements — combines with Amira. Idaho, an Istation IRI state since 2017, selects the merged company again for five years through a bidding process.
PED guidance makes Amira ISIP the required K-2 screenerdocument
PED's AMIRA-ISIP guidance for school year 2025-26 requires the Amira ISIP assessment statewide for kindergarten through grade two, with grade three optional.
The CES umbrella contract reaches its end datedocument
Cooperative Educational Services' June 2025 member newsletter lists contract 2020-12N-AC02-ALL as expiring August 28, 2025, after a six-month extension.
primary documentCES member newsletter, June 2025· on file with the campaign; see the money-trail absence entry below for the successor vehicle
MARCH 2026
MAR 9
📄
MAR 9
Privacy policy version one: "Last Updated: March 9, 2026"document
Amira's US privacy policy carries a Last Updated date of March 9, 2026 — the baseline version of the three this site's version comparison documents.
PED sets SY2026-27 requirements; no parental opt-outdocument
Secretary Padilla's assessment-requirements memo requires Amira ISIP K-2 benchmarks, monthly progress monitoring for students at levels 1-3, and 30 minutes of Amira tutoring weekly — and states that PED "does not allow for a parent or guardian to 'opt-out' of required state assessments on behalf of their student."
The Legislature's analysts name the governance gapdocument
An LESC policy brief states that New Mexico "does not currently have statewide procurement standards for AI tools, student data privacy requirements specific to AI, and a formal evaluation process for AI education tools."
Amira's COO answers a Portland district disputeevent
Amira COO Amy Scholz writes Portland Public Schools' board stating the company does not collect the student-data categories at issue in a contract-disclosure dispute over the district's pilot.
LESC takes up the assessment as an agenda item with Amira CEO Mark Angel and PED's Lynn Vasquez presenting; committee questioning covers data storage and accuracy. Public comment the next afternoon includes six speakers addressing the assessment.
Santa Fe Public Schools announces at its board meeting a pause of Amira, including voice recording, pending PED guidance — with a stated contingency to switch to i-Ready if no guidance arrives by August 14.
Los Alamos asks the state to pause: "effectively biometric data"document
LAPS Superintendent Jennifer Guy writes Secretary Padilla requesting a pause of required Amira use: "A child's voice is effectively biometric data, and parents are rightly uneasy about it being collected and retained by a third-party system as a condition of a state-mandated assessment." The letter requests authorization to substitute mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition.
PED issues new guidance: monthly deletion, district options, no parental opt-outdocument
Secretary Padilla signs the Early Years Literacy Assessment guidance memo: all voice recordings are deleted monthly as the standardized 2026-27 practice; districts may request daily, weekly, or end-of-year deletion, paper-based administration, or an alternative assessment via a request form. The memo restates that "the PED does not provide for parental opt-outs from state-required assessments," and states that PED "will be selecting new assessments for the 2027-28 SY."
significance
Issued the same day as the vendor's policy rewrite, below. The record establishes the timing; it does not establish a connection.
The policy's Last Updated date becomes August 4, 2026. The sentence that recordings "improve the AI models supporting our Services" no longer appears; voice recording and analysis are "used strictly for instructional purposes and to aid the teacher." This site captured the version and verified it against the live page on August 16.
Three districts file exemption requests; Las Cruces disables recordingcoverage
The Associated Press reports Santa Fe, Farmington, and Clayton have submitted exemption requests to PED seeking alternative assessments. Las Cruces Public Schools keeps the test with audio recording disabled; district spokesperson Samantha Lewis: "We have also requested that all recordings of LCPS students be removed from the platform."
NBC News publishes "Meet Amira, an AI reading tutor alarming some parents and school leaders in New Mexico" (Tyler Kingkade) — the first national-outlet coverage. Its subhead: "Literacy software powered by AI has captured hundreds of thousands of recordings of New Mexico students. Now the state faces questions about children's data."
Six exemptions counted; the CEO describes training in the present tensecoverage
The Albuquerque Journal (Natalie Robbins) counts six exemptions — Santa Fe, Los Alamos, Farmington, Roswell, Clayton, Turquoise Trail — "for this school year only," per PED's Janelle Taylor García, at a state cost near $2.7 million a year. CEO Mark Angel tells the Journal the software uses recordings to "train" the program "but only to improve its own performance," and: "If policymakers want to put us in handcuffs and create a situation where we can't help more of these kids, they have a perfect right to do that. I would say that's an enormously horrible price to pay."
significance
Seven days earlier, the August 4 policy removed the sentence that recordings improve the company's AI models. Both statements are in the record; the version comparison on this site holds them side by side.
Las Cruces board materials attribute the changes to parent concernscoverage
Organ Mountain News (Damien Willis) reports LCPS board materials for August 18: recording retention disabled for 2026-27, a deletion request routed through PED, and a paper option on parent request — steps the materials attribute to parent data concerns. The materials do not name the vendor or confirm any deletion.
No third-party archive of the policy after May 14confirmed absence
Searched August 16, 2026: the Internet Archive's CDX index for amiralearning.com/amira-privacy. Result: no capture after May 14, 2026. An attempt to create one via Save Page Now returned a service error.
significance
The July 20 and August 4 versions exist in no third-party archive. The copies hosted on this site are the archival record.
No public rationale from four of the six exempted entitiesconfirmed absence
Searched August 17, 2026: district websites, board-meeting coverage, and local outlets for statements by Farmington, Roswell, Clayton, or Turquoise Trail Charter explaining their exemption requests. Result: the four appear only in PED's aggregate count; no individual public statement found.
No company statement addressing the New Mexico controversyconfirmed absence
Searched August 17, 2026: amiralearning.com/newsroom and press-release indexes for any company statement addressing the PED guidance, the district exemptions, or the national coverage. Result: none found; the newsroom's cadence continues with unrelated announcements. The company's on-record responses appear only as spokesperson and executive quotes inside journalists' articles.
The $2.7 million traces to no public contract documentconfirmed absence
Searched August 17, 2026: the New Mexico Sunshine Portal, State Purchasing statewide price agreements, and the CES procurement portal for the current contract vehicle behind the reported $2.7 million annual cost. Result: no public contract document found. The predecessor CES contract reached its end date August 28, 2025.
significance
Which agreement currently governs the statewide deployment — and what its terms bind the vendor to — is an open public-records question.
No legislative follow-up on the calendarconfirmed absence
Searched August 17, 2026: the Legislature's interim-committee calendars and the LESC committee page. Result: no LESC follow-up meeting on the assessment is scheduled, and no 2027-session bill drafts on student data privacy or AI procurement exist yet. Prefiling for the 2027 session opens January 4, 2027.
No outlet has reported the August 4 policy rewriteconfirmed absence
Searched August 17, 2026: news and social indexes for any report that the vendor's privacy policy language changed on August 4, 2026. Result: none found.
significance
As of the search date, the version comparison on this site is the only public documentation of the change.
Open questions, with the horizon on which each should resolve. These are not part of the record — an item graduates into a dated entry when it resolves, and not before.
week of August 18, 2026What does the Las Cruces board hear on August 18 — and does the district receive written confirmation that stored recordings were deleted?
early in the school yearDoes Santa Fe's exemption request resolve into an approved alternative assessment, and did the August 14 i-Ready contingency trigger?
school year 2026-27The August 4 memo says PED "will be selecting new assessments for the 2027-28 SY." What does that selection process look like, and does it carry data-protection terms?
openDoes Albuquerque Public Schools — the state's largest district, still using the assessment — change position?
openDoes the vendor's undated Trust Center page acquire a date, an archive, or a change history?
The Record: a dated event ledger of the Amira reading assessment in New Mexico. Kinetic Trust Protocol Advocacy. kinetic-trust-protocol.net/advocacy/sfps/the-record
APA 7th ed.
Perkins, C. (2026, August). The Record [Event ledger]. Kinetic Trust Protocol Advocacy. https://kinetic-trust-protocol.net/advocacy/sfps/the-record