The Supports Needed For Migrant Secondary School Students
A Forum — June 28, 2002
Mary Gonzales, J.D., Program Analyst, U.S. Department of Education, Office of Secondary and Elementary Education, Office of Migrant Education provided an overview of the federal role in addressing the educational needs of migrant children. The Office of Migrant Education oversees the Title I, Part C funding in the newly reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) as amended by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. It administers the High School Equivalency Program (HEP), College Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP) and Migrant Education Even Start (MEES) discretionary grants. Gonzales indicated that the federal work on migrant education is “only the beginning of a long journey.”
Dr. Richard Gómez, Jr., Director, Migrant/Bilingual Education, Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, Washington State, described his state’s Migrant Education Programs, focusing specifically on services provided to secondary school students via the state’s Secondary Education for Migrant Youth (SEMY) office located in Sunnyside, WA and serving the entire state. The SEMY project is part of Washington State’s comprehensive effort to serve over 40,000 migrant children (cumulative enrollment) in approximately 82 projects. The state provides school districts with technical assistance and in-service training on instruction and parental involvement and provides services in the areas of migrant student academic and health records, identification and recruitment, dissemination, and transfer of high school credits. Additionally, independent statewide health and preschool services are funded by the state to provide services to eligible migrant children.
SEMY offers training for migrant youth through the Portable Assisted Study Sequence (PASS) program and Student Leadership Program (SLP). PASS is a credit retrieval program that enables migrant students to retake challenging high school courses and earn the credits required for graduation. The courses are translated into Spanish, and offered free to migrant students. The courses are completed by students within 90 days or less with an average grade of 75% or better. The student’s PASS activity is monitored at least two hours every week by a local school/agency contact person. There is currently a 60% completion rate for students involved in PASS. Students sent away to juvenile institutions also use this program to earn their high school credits, while confined.
With over 300 students involved in the program per year, SLP is known for arranging four-day conferences for migrant students around the state of Washington. The SLP is also known for its efforts of collaboration with communities in planning leadership training and service-learning projects for middle and high school migrant students. SLP was designed to help students set short and long term goals and trips are often taken to different universities. There is never a lack of volunteers for the student leadership programs. Volunteers were migrant students themselves. Other efforts to assist with the SLP come from universities, community organizations, parents, students, school districts and employers. Many migrant youth desire, but are not able to attend college because of the excessive tuition imposed by the state on persons who are not documented. These prospective college students are required to pay three times the state tuition fee inevitably causing many to stray away from the ideal of ever becoming college students. There is a publication that the Office of Secondary Education for Migrant Youth has published called, “The Book of Dreams”, which contains information on the goals, accomplishments, and dreams of many individual migrant students who were at some point involved with the SLP.
Dr. Ann Cranston-Gingras, Associate Professor, Special Education and Director, Center for the Study of Migrant Education at the University of South Florida described several migrant education projects, with an emphasis on programs for secondary school youth including the High School Equivalency Program (HEP) and College Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP). CAMP, authorized under Title IV of the Higher Education Act, assists students who are migratory or seasonal farm workers (or children of such workers) enrolled in the first undergraduate year at an institution of higher education to complete their study for that year. Competitive five-year grants for CAMP projects are made to institutions of higher education or to other nonprofit private agencies that cooperate with such institutions. CAMP serves more than 1,300 participants annually. Services include: counseling, tutoring, skills workshops, financial aid stipends, health services, and housing assistance to eligible students in their first year of college and limited follow-up services to participants after their first year.
There is such an immense need for money within the migrant households that children, as young as elementary school aged, are motivated to work and earn money for their families instead of continuing their educational studies. In addition to the pressures of “helping out”, several factors also contribute to the drop out trend occurring within the migrant communities. Students face social prejudice at school, there is a lack of communication between the students and teachers, and the continuous moving that migrant families undergo places an inconsistency in the curriculum from one state to the other, making it difficult for the students to sustain acceptable grades. There has been exceptional growth shown with migrant students interacting with today’s technology. The first students involved in HEP lacked the essential knowledge of computer operations, now incoming students to the program seem to be more familiar with today’s technology than the staff. Cranston-Gingras stated, “It is important for migrant students to become teachers because they will be able to impact future migrant students.”
Alma Espinoza, High School Student, East Union High School, Manteca, CA, described her experiences as a child of migrant farm workers. She has also been a tutor for a migrant program and a participant in a Migrant Leadership Program.
Alma Espinoza is from a family that has worked in the fields for thirteen years. Being a child of migrant farm workers has exposed her to constant moving. Espinoza reports that the migrant program’s leadership conferences helped her to establish long term goals for herself and introduced her to the ideal of pursing college. She also recalled a conversation between herself and the President of the Department of Commerce, which further encouraged her journey towards higher education. She commends the tutors and the counselors involved in the program for the outstanding work they have done in assisting her and her friends throughout their schooling. Espinoza has taken on the job of being a tutor for the Migrant Leadership Program, in addition to being a college student. Having eight brothers and sisters, she is the youngest, and the first to attend college. Currently involved in a migrant camp program for college students, she reports that she is doing well.
Questions included a concern about an over-representation of migrant students among special education students. Gomez acknowledged this problem and indicated that part of the over-representation is also true for speakers of languages other than English in general. Since many migrant young people do not speak English, the over-representation problem is compounded. In a response to a question regarding gifted and talented migrant students, speakers indicated that unfortunately bi-lingualism is considered a handicap when it should be considered a gift and an asset. Cranston-Gingras also pointed out that even for students who truly need special education services, often special education students are place in the wrong type of services for their needs.
In response to questions on inter-state collaboration, Gonzales indicated that the Office of Migrant Education encourages states to work together to collaborate with their programs. For example, the Florida programs accept migrant young people from Georgia.
Finally, speakers acknowledged that very little data exists on migrant students. Long term data in particular is lacking on what migrant students do after they participate in migrant programs, including how far they progress educationally, their employment gains, and if they stay in the United States.
This brief is from an American Youth Policy Forum held on June 28, 2002 in Washington, DC, reported by Donna Walker James and Christine Veney.
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