When Marcia Durazo signed up for a free $5,000 classroom makeover from the New Mexico Child Care and Education Association (NMCCEA), she wasn’t expecting to win. All Durazo knew was that she was ready to take the steps toward creating a better space for the children at Our Little Kids Preschool.

As an early childhood educator, Durazo is constantly looking for ways to provide her students with a better education. She began her business running home child care in 2016 at 18 years old. After graduating from Central New Mexico Community College in 2019, she opened Our Little Kids Preschool to continue child education.

When Durazo found out the NMCCEA was hosting a competition for a makeover in collaboration with Kaplan Learning Center, she submitted her application with a hopeful heart. She got a call on Aug. 30, a few days after she had applied, announcing that Our Little Kids Preschool would be the recipients of a $5,000 makeover consulted by design expert Sandra Duncan, who specializes in creating designs to connect young children to their early learning environments, communities and neighborhoods.

Duncan has consulted and designed for classrooms across the world and has taught college courses on learning environments, so Durazo was excited to learn they would be working together.

“When I first started, my idea was to make the classroom colorful and have a bunch of plants and stuff. So when I opened my center, I started the same way I learned. Colors, a bunch of stuff on the walls, all of that,” Durazo said. “It was exciting to learn I would be working with someone who’s famous for designing classrooms.”

Durazo and her team had visited another child care center in town, East Gate Kids early learning center, and after seeing the school’s design and commitment to creating a better and more natural learning environment for children, Durazo knew she wanted to recreate the magic at her school.

“We got inspired to bring that quality of environment to our center and to provide that to the children in the South Valley,” she said. “I saw the makeover as an opportunity to accomplish the goal of bringing a great environment to my center.”

On Monday, Duncan arrived at the preschool, ready to teach the Our Little Kids Preschool staff ways to incorporate natural environments that help encourage students to pursue knowledge in a comfortable setting. Duncan emphasized ways to design the classroom that not only helped the children, but were cost effective to the center.

“You don’t have to have brand new anything to make a great classroom,” Duncan said. “You can do so much with so little and work with what you have to invest in your community more. Even if you don’t have the money to do it right away, we can do things step by step and make something wonderful.”

The school closed down on Tuesday for renovations and reopened the next day with new furniture, courtesy of Kaplan Learning Center. The new design allowed for space for a new play fireplace, a small gray couch and a new play kitchen.

Elizabeth Groginsky, secretary for the Early Childhood Education and Care Department, said the partnership is important and will elevate the work of the NMCCEA and child care providers like Durazo.

“When child care providers gain knowledge and professional development, the children reap the benefits of the changes that directors, owners and teachers will make,” Groginsky said.

“We want to make sure that the environment the families are sending their children to really reflect the quality and also create a space where children feel respected and valued,” Groginsky added. “It’s important that we all really begin to think about how important it is to have well-designed spaces for young children to improve classroom management, but also to help facilitate child-led activities and help our educators really be able to better observe and plan and document children’s development and growth.”