Thursday, August 1, 2019
In its 17th year, Mississippi State University’s Migrant Education Center continues to offer services to migrant children of the state by strengthening their education and providing resources for both the students and their parents.
A solid education is, at times, something that is taken for granted, but in the 1960s all it took was a short 55-minute television documentary, aired just after Thanksgiving Day to help Americans realize that not every child has the opportunity to succeed. The documentary, “Harvest of Shame,” shines a light on the conditions of migrant workers, but also focuses on their children. At the time, children of migrant workers had low levels of literacy, and only one out of 5000 of those children would finish high school.
Even today the education of migrant children is often interrupted since their parents and other family members follow jobs linked to agriculture and fishing harvest seasons. In part because of “Harvest of Shame,” the federal government created the Office of Migrant Education and Migrant Education Service Centers which are located in every state. The only center in Mississippi is located at Mississippi State and is housed in the College of Education.
“The lifestyle of a migrant parent is following the crops, so oftentimes students miss a lot of school and fall through the gaps,” explained Gabriella Davis, Director of the Mississippi Migrant Education Service Center. “The Migrant Education Service Center functions as a supplemental program that helps close those gaps.”
Like others, Mississippi’s center sets out to ensure that eligible families are receiving appropriate educational services that enable their children to achieve academic standards by overcoming the obstacles of cultural and language differences stemming from their frequent moves around the nation. At any given time, Mississippi can have anywhere between 450 to 500 migrant students enrolled in its school districts, each with his or her own needs. Priority for service goes to the students that have been in the school district for less than a year so make sure they receive all the support that they need from tutoring to school supplies. The center identifies students and family through a survey from the public school systems. Once the survey returns to them, the recruiter visits the home to determine the eligibility of the family. Once the family qualifies for the program, then they are enrolled and can stay enrolled for 36 months.
Davis explains that the life of a migratory family is that they move many times throughout the year. Since the children move with them, they tend to miss out on school. Oftentimes they don’t have the resources that many other students would have. Mississippi State’s center, alongside the other centers, make sure they have all the tools they need to succeed academically whether it’s tutoring, English language books or even something as simple as know how to get affordable glasses. The center’s parent coordinator also makes sure that parents of the children have the resources they need to help their children succeed.
The center also offers after-school programs and even summer programs for migrant children. After school programs usually take place in a school district that has a large number of migrant students. During the program’s teachers tutor those children to ensure that those learning gaps are closed and students are brought up to their grade level. The service center also provides in-home torturing where the teacher meets the student’s families providing one-on-one tutoring for the child. This one-on-one tutoring is usually reserved for school districts where the migrant population is lower.
School year and summer programs are for increasing migrant student success, which is why the center provides summer programs, in addition, the program that runs throughout the school year. Much like the academic year programs, the summer programs are designed for pre-kindergarten through high school to connect language, literature, technology and life skills to develop English proficiency and promote academic achievement in reading and mathematics. Each program encourages and assists students to complete a project in relation to their thematic unit in order to affect change within their school and community.
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