In our travels across New Mexico, we have spoken to hundreds of young people. Often, these conversations have happened through panel discussions where we ask questions like: What are you good at? When have you been successful? What do you wish your school did more of?

These conversations have taken place in every area of New Mexico—in Aztec, Peñasco, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Lake Arthur, Santa Rosa, Hobbs, Alamogordo, and Las Cruces. In September, we collaborated with our partners at Ngage in Doña Ana County to host a community meeting where young people reinforced three key themes we’ve heard before. Young people want:

• Learning that has a purpose and is meaningful now and in the future.
• Care and concern for their well-being, both as students and as individuals.
• Mentorship to help them become responsible and successful adults.

Hearing from these students and their peers has been eye-opening. Not because their insights are entirely new—we’ve heard similar sentiments before—but because they understand the consequences of ineffective policies in a much deeper, more impactful way than we do. As a result, our role has shifted to standing in solidarity with them, sharing their feelings, opinions, and goals.

Young people are not the problem. They’re asking for our guidance, and we must confront the need to build a new system alongside them. Below are two direct quotes from students in Doña Ana County that are full of common sense. They highlight how deeply adults entrenched in the current system can overlook them:

• “I need practical experience.”
• “Every student wants help to be successful.”

The quotes are simple, but the implications are profound. What would it mean to build a system that focuses on students' strengths rather than their deficits? It would require rethinking the time and place where students learn, helping them discover what they are good at, and training educators for a new role centered on guiding young people into adulthood.

We established the Instituto Partners network (more than 100 education experts and community  members from across New Mexico) to create the following policy proposals that respond to the voice of young people:

Policy Priority #1:  Local School Board Graduation Requirements: Convened districts to create local policies that enable new graduation requirements to transform the school day by creating more opportunities for hands-on learning in the community.

Policy Priority #2:  Investing in Youth Mental Health in New Mexico: Collaborated with Representative Herndon to expand Teen Mental Health First Aid training that incorporates paid internships and a career pipeline into behavioural health careers.  

Policy Priority #3: Funding Sustainable Paid Internships in New Mexico: Worked with Representative Parajon to sponsor legislation to create sustainable funding for high school paid internships. 

Policy Priority #4: Artificial Intelligence in New Mexico’s School: Collaborated with the Legislative Education Study Committee (LESC) to create a Memorial (Study) to understand Artificial Intelligence and the implications for data sovereignty while building capacity to scale Capstone projects.

Policy Priority #5: Public Education Department Rule Making: Advocated to the New Mexico Public Education Department (PED) for rule making to include an expansive definition of “Assessment.”