em030521g/a/Gabby Gibbs, left, and Liz Valencia, right, teach a class of 4 and 5 year old pre-K students at Atalaya Elementary School in Santa Fe on March 5, 2021.
em030521g/a/Gabby Gibbs, left, and Liz Valencia, right, teach a class of 4 and 5 year old pre-K students at Atalaya Elementary School in Santa Fe on March 5, 2021.
As an early childhood educator with over 30 years of experience, and as the owner and director of Alpha School in Las Cruces, I know this to be true: The earliest years of a child’s life shape everything that follows. How we teach matters. But how we assess young children — how we see them, support them and understand their growth — matters just as much.
This fall, the New Mexico Early Childhood Education and Care Department is requiring all pre-K programs — whether public or community-based — to administer the Minnesota Executive Function Scale (MEFS), a digital assessment delivered via iPad. The test measures executive function skills like working memory, self-regulation and cognitive flexibility.
Ray Jaramillo, who has a master of science in early childhood education, is the owner and director of Alpha School in Las Cruces, an adjunct professor at Western New Mexico University College of Education, a children’s book author, former Las Cruces Public Schools board member and the vice chair of the New Mexico Childcare Association.
