Migrant Education
Migrant students are students who move with their families as they search for work. These moves across school district lines may occur as many as two or three times each school year. Their parents are usually agricultural workers or fishermen who are compelled to move frequently in order to harvest and/or process seasonal crops and fish for a living. A family who spends the winter in Florida picking oranges begins to move north in the spring to pick peaches in Georgia and then to New York in the fall to pick apples. Once the apples are picked and the cold weather comes, the migrant family heads back to Florida until the following spring, when the cycle begins again. Other migrant families may fish during the fishing season in the Gulf of Mexico and move throughout the gulf coast states looking for work when fishing is in season.
While many migrant children were born in the United States, the majority of mobile migrants are primarily of Mexican, Central American, Puerto Rican, or Haitian origin. Many of these migrant students will move through a school district without ever finishing a grade and may or may not come back the following year after encounters with other schools. Irregular school attendance, traveling from one temporary site to another, and limited English language proficiency can limit the school success rate of these students.
Many of the U.S.-born middle and high school migrant students are fluent in English, but they have trouble succeeding in school because of the many risk factors associated with their highly mobile lifestyle. These students face the challenge of adapting to a new school, new teachers, new school rules and curricula, and new classmates many times each year. Migrant children draw a lot of strength from their family, which is the focal point and the one constant in their lives.
Follow the links below to learn more about how ESCORT can help.
Parent Involvement
Research has demonstrated that when families are involved in their children’s education in positive ways, despite the family’s economic status or the parents educational level, children achieve higher grades and test scores, have better school attendance, graduate at higher rates, and have greater enrollment in higher education. Mobility in migrant families makes the need for parent involvement even more crucial. Frequent moves during the school year require parents to understand how to help their children adjust to ever changing school environments, what documents are required for enrollment, methods to ensure credit accrual for graduation, and what rights they and their children have to basic education and special services. ESCORT has extensive experience in providing a wide variety of technical assistance in the area of parent involvement based on the individual needs identified by state and district level migrant programs and at the school level.
In Florida, ESCORT helped structure the Parent Advisory Council (PAC) and trained state and district MEP staff and the parents selected to serve on the PAC. Technical assistance provided by ESCORT included securing and reviewing various PAC bylaws, governance structures and practices, and helping develop the roles and responsibilities of PAC members. Beyond helping to establish the goals, structure and ongoing functioning of the PAC, ESCORT conducted training for parents in facilitating and presenting at various meetings and forums. Parents were also trained in the goals of the state educational agency, available programs, and testing requirements and accountability systems. These trainings enabled parents to more fully participate in their children’s education and in the governance of local schools.
In another long-term project, ESCORT provided training throughout an entire school year for a group selected to serve as a Parent Leadership Team in a North Carolina school district. A series of 3 two-day trainings were conducted for MEP staff and parents. Topics included programmatic requirements for involving parents in the educational system, parent’s rights and responsibilities, and the structure of the local school system and advisory boards. Representatives from the school district, school board, and city and county governance boards met with parents to encourage their participation in on-going local initiatives and decision-making. After receiving guidance about conducting meetings and speaking in public, parents identified areas of interest and developed projects in which to involve themselves as active participants and change agents.
Resources for Parents
The U.S. Department of Education has created a number of helpful online booklets for parents of school-aged children from preschool to high school. Each publication is available in English and Spanish.
Click on the links below to access individual titles.
Multicultural Awareness
Although the definition of migrant is related to mobility and agriculturally related employment, and many migrant families are second and third generation American citizens, current statistics indicate that the majority of migrant families identified in the U.S. represent a vast array of countries and cultures. Since most migrant families move to and between mainly rural areas, presentations on multicultural issues help receiving schools and communities become more aware of the various cultural backgrounds, norms and traditions that guide the lifestyles of migrant families. The following vignette describes the type of work ESCORT does in the area of multiculturalism.
Suddenly the staff at a Philadelphia school finds themselves with a new student population. While the district has had other cultures represented in the past, the staff in one particular school feels very apprehensive and requests assistance from ESCORT. Using Bafa-Bafa, a cultural simulation game, ESCORT helped the staff experience what it is like to be in a new school. The staff had to assimilate into new and changing cultural roles. The simulation provided an opportunity for experiential learning--what it feels like to be different--and to talk about those experiences.
The Migrant Library - Literature on Migrants
The Geneseo Migrant Center sponsors a bibliographic library which serves as an introduction to migrant farmworker literature, both fiction and non-fiction. These resources may be useful inside the classroom, for research or to increase understanding of the migrant experience in other areas. As of May, 2008 there were 170 authors and 192 books listed.
The web site for the Geneseo Migrant Center is a great place to learn more about migrants and services offered to them.
The Geneseo Migrant Center also hosts the National PASS Center.
What is PASS?
The Portable Assisted Study Sequence (PASS) Program consists of self-contained, semi-independent study courses which enable students to earn secondary-level academic credits. Participating students generally take these courses in order to make up courses, meet graduation requirements or cope with scheduling difficulties. PASS courses are designed to parallel regular academic courses offered in most schools. Each PASS course is competency-based and learner-centered, thus allowing the student to progress through five activity books and accompanying tests at his or her own pace. Because of this structure, students are able to continue course work as they move from district to district or even state to state.