Guest Blog from Tyson Ledgerwood of New Mexico's Public Education Department. These are Tyson's thoughts and observations about the NMOST 2022 Fall into Place Conference held during the week of October 17, 2022.

The conference began with Renata lifting her coffee mug to the field as the Lt. Governor expressed his continued stalwart commitment to supporting out-of-school time. May, Jeff, and Sarah were a steady calm presence throughout the conference.

Time when kids are not in school is crucial. It’s important that youth spend their time in a positive way when they are not in school. How is that time spent in the South Valley? As an intern for the New Mexico Out-of-School Time Network,  I was able to interview five youths in my community, the South Valley, about how they spend their out of school time and how important it is. 

Hi everyone! My name is Betzabed and I am a Summer Youth Intern with NMOST. On August 29, I had the chance to visit the RFK farm/garden out-of-school time program located on Isleta near the Shadyside park.

As a STEM Expansion VISTA for the New Mexico Out-of-School Time Network (NMOST) I have spent an entire year trying to understand the barriers that keep young women and people of color from pursuing careers in STEM. I have read countless academic articles, infographics, and I even took a month long training on how to foster equity and inclusion in a STEM learning environment. Despite all of this work, I learned the most from reading the personal accounts of young New Mexican women pursuing a career in STEM.

When examining the importance of mentorship for young women in STEM, a stark disparity in opportunities available to young women depending on their geographical location in New Mexico emerges.

Out-of-School Time (OST) STEM activities are quality STEM learning opportunities that can provide young women with representation, community support, and mentoring opportunities. 

Women and people of color are consistently underrepresented in computer science and engineering, two of the largest and highest paying sectors in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields. This lack of diversity hurts the industry by suppressing innovation, and hiring bias creates an untapped pool of talented workers. In addition, there is a significant gender pay gap across the highest paying STEM jobs.

To celebrate International Day of the Girl, STEM Next asked one of NMOST's Advancing Young Women in STEM scholarship recipients to share her STEM learning journey. Thanks to STEM Next and Suzzane Eisenberg for creating this wonderful blog post.

This March the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released a consensus study report, “The Impact of COVID-19 on the Careers of Women in Academic Science, Engineering, and Medicine.” The report on five academic studies found what many had already suspected: that the COVID-19 pandemic had a disproportionately negative effect on women in academic STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medicine) fields.

With the passage of the American Rescue Plan Act, New Mexico has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to use federal funding to dramatically affect the lives of New Mexico families by increasing access to and affordability of afterschool and summer enrichment programs in community schools over the next two years. Research shows that afterschool and summer learning programs help close the opportunity gap for students from diverse cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. By 8th grade, low-income youth have 6000 fewer hours of enrichment and extracurricular activities than youth from higher income families.