Paula Tafoya Nuñez is an education consultant at the New Mexico Education Network Center (NMENC) in Albuquerque. The mission of the center is to unite and support school communities who value the Coalition of Essential Schools' Ten Common Principles, and to provide professional development at the district, school and classroom levels to effect systemic educational improvement. NMENC focuses its work in four areas: school administrators, school culture, instructional practice and parent/community Involvement. NMENC is also the "Center of Activity" for the National School Reform Faculty, a network of people, schools and organizations pursuing significant change in schools. Previously, Nuñez taught seventh and eighth graders at Cleveland Middle School in Albuquerque, where she and her teaching partner helped produce impressive gains in student achievement by looping with their seventh-grade students into the eighth grade and engaging them in interdisciplinary hands-on projects. These projects included a science exploration of Carlsbad Caverns that also incorporated lessons in research, writing, math and finance, as well as a study of architecture involving local businesses. Nuñez boosted the number of Latino students at Cleveland Middle School as site sponsor of New Mexico's MESA (Mathematics, Engineering and Science Achievement) Program, an initiative to promote educational enrichment for pre-college students from traditionally under-served ethnic groups. Nuñez co-chaired Cleveland's Blue Ribbon Schools Committee which earned her school national recognition and helped coordinate the district's "Character Counts" initiative.
1993 University of New Mexico, B.S.
