SANTA FE The high plains village of Mosquero in northeastern New Mexico has a school district with 43 students.
A crowded classroom in Albuquerque has more kids.
Roy has a school district, too. It has 51 students. Wagon Mound has 71 in its district, House 79 and Des Moines 97.
Isolation, geography, a weak economy and tradition are reasons that places too small to appear on many state maps have school districts.
All told, 49 of New Mexico's 89 school districts have fewer than 1,000 students.
State Sen. Stephen Fischmann, D-Mesilla Park, has introduced a bill to close each of those small districts. His proposal, SB 80, is not as radical as it may sound, Fischmann said.
"I'm not in favor of closing schools. That's not what this is about," he said during an interview last week.
Rather, Fischmann's idea is to shrink the number of districts, combine resources and better serve students. Otherwise, he said, the sacred cows of funding formulas and entrenched districts go on, but student achievement does not go up.
Fischmann, who has a master's degree in business administration from UCLA, spent his career with Levi Strauss. He calls himself an outsider when it comes to schools, but says those inside may be so accustomed to doing things the same way that opportunities are missed.
People who are in the trenches, running tiny districts, say Fischmann's idea to force consolidations has a certain appeal.
"It looks good on paper," said Robert Cobos, superintendent of the Carrizozo Municipal Schools, a district with 175 students.
Carrizozo, in Lincoln County, is among a cluster of small school districts. Hondo has 169 students, Corona 83 and Capitan a whopping 516.
But put them all together and you still would not have a district of 1,000 students. Send every student to Ruidoso or a centralized campus and you would spend a lot of time on the bus but have no guarantee that anybody would learn more.
Cobos said the small districts in his area probably would not save much money even if they were all under a single umbrella with one superintendent instead of four.
His Carrizozo district has three schools serving students in grades kindergarten through 12, but it has only one principal. Cobos is the only administrator other than the principal. He said he performs the jobs of activities director, budget analyst, transportation director and superintendent, all in one.
"We're skeletal," he said.
Shirley Crawford, superintendent of the Capitan schools, runs an operation that is just as lean.
Her district, with more than twice as many students as Carrizozo, used to have three principals, one each for the elementary, middle and high school. She reduced the administrative tier this year to one principal for all three schools.
"We had cut the classroom as far as we could," she said.
Now, with just one principal racing between three buildings, each school gets a bit less attention.
"He walks seven miles a day," she said of the principal, Jerrett Perry.
Crawford said the paperwork demands on administrators had exploded in the last 15 years, given all the federal and state guidelines to answer for. Still, she is out of the office and accessible, even supervising two hours of lunch each day so her teachers have more time to do their jobs.
Fischmann said his goal is not necessarily to cut expenses in small districts. Redirecting resources is another option.
He said this might mean a combined district could eliminate a couple of superintendent's jobs and add more teachers to put greater emphasis on kids and classrooms.
Crawford said even that system would have drawbacks. People in Capitan can meet with her just about any time they like to discuss a problem or idea. A superintendent responsible for schools in three or four towns would spend a lot of time driving and a lot less making schools better, she said.
Cobos said a merger of districts would not advance the Carrizozo schools in ways that he thinks are important.
"I'd love to have a band," he said. "We don't have enough kids."
Fischmann, who is on the Senate Education Committee, said his idea to shutter small districts is unpopular with many legislators. He admits he brought the bill because the Las Cruces district, with an enrollment of more than 24,000, is the only school system in his legislative district. That means he faces no political pressures from constituents.
Slightly annoyed with him, he said, is the chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee. That is Democrat Cynthia Nava, superintendent of the Gadsden Independent School District, an operation more than large enough for her to spend the 60-day legislative session in Santa Fe.
Nava has not yet scheduled a hearing for Fischmann's bill, but he said it is plain she is no fan of it.
Asked about its chances of receiving approval, Fischmann did not hesitate. "Slim," he said.
"But this doesn't have to pass to do some good by pushing the discussion. It's just such a hot potato politically."

Santa Fe Bureau Chief Milan Simonich can be reached at msimonich@tnmnp.com or (505) 820-6898. His blog is at http://elpasotimes.typepad.com/newmexico.