BONITA (Florida) DAILY NEWS

July 2, 2006

From the fields to college

Summer program puts migrnts' children on path to a higher education

By Deirdre Conner

Angelica Rojas was underestimated long before she traveled thousands of miles with her parents, following farm work. Before she watched them wear down from hours of toil in the fields. Before she realized she was her mother’s youngest child and shining hope.

Before she was even born.

It worked, she says.

Now 17, the soon-to-be high school senior from Immokalee is making plans for college. When she does, she will be the first in her family to make it.

“I take it as motivation when someone underestimates me,” she said.

No one doubts her any more. Quite the opposite: A local summer program reaches out to change statistics that say students such as Angelica aren’t likely to become college graduates.

For six weeks, the Summer Migrant Institute makes Florida Gulf Coast University home to students from across the state, all from farmworker families, who are determined to beat the odds.

For decades, researchers have identified children of migrant agricultural workers as the group of students with the greatest educational challenges. The National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy organization, estimates the high school dropout rate for migrant students is between 45 percent and 65 percent.

Those who do plan to go to college are likely the first in their families to do so. They face hardships on all fronts, say educators.

Constant moving in search of work can disrupt schooling.

“Sometimes they come in January from a block schedule to a seven-period day. Sometimes they’re coming into a course halfway through,” said Abel Jaimes, who directs Immokalee High School’s migrant center. “You can see it in their grades.”

Angelica and her family traveled as far as Illinois during the summer. But that wasn’t the hard part, she said. The hard part was when her parents would come home, exhausted and unable to help her with schoolwork. Her father attended no school, her mother dropped out in third grade. That’s typical, according to a 2000 study from the National Agricultural Workers Survey. It found that only 15 percent of farmworkers had completed a 12 years or more of school.

“They wish they could help me, but they can’t,” she said.

Instead, Angelica said, her parents lend their unwavering support, she said.

“My mother is my inspiration,” she said.

She was in high school when her mother told her the story: The doctors told her she shouldn’t have Angelica. They said she was too old, and her daughter never would amount to anything.

Angelica has spent the past few years working to prove them wrong. She tutors children and volunteers at a retirement home, and works hard in school.

The institute takes only high achievers such as Angelica, and there are far more applicants than spaces available. It was even more so this year, as funding cuts hit and reduced the slots available from 120 to 75. About two dozen of the students come from Southwest Florida.

William Kasapidis, who teaches the institute’s leadership class, said it’s nothing like an average day of teaching high school.

“The kids are pretty sharp,” he said. “They ask for work. One day at the end of class I told them they wouldn’t have homework that night. They wanted a homework assignment. I couldn’t believe it.”

The institute, which runs through July 22, keeps its participants on a rigorous schedule. They must be downstairs by 6:45 a.m. and turn lights out at 10:30 p.m. They take courses for high school and college credit, get help with college applications and scholarships, have career days, do community service — and have a little fun. On Saturday, they traveled to Immokalee to volunteer, then headed to a rodeo later that night.

“It’s definitely beneficial,” said Elizabeth Rivera, 18, from Fort Meade High School. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

Bernie Martinez, a teacher at Immokalee High School and the program’s director since its inception five years ago, said just a glimpse of what’s possible can make an enormous change in the students.

“It opens a lot of eyes,” he said. “We’re showing these kids they do have a future ahead of them.”

Then there are the students who couldn’t attend this summer, because they had to work.

Poverty sets the bar higher for migrant students. In 2005, Florida’s farmworkers earned $16,470 annually. Agricultural graders and sorters earned less, about $14,950, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Locally, the hourly wage for them hovers around $7 per hour. Many of the students work to help with bills and groceries for their families.

“Historically, the reasons students from migrant farmworker families don’t stay in school is to work, either to help support the family or take care of younger siblings. Research shows that’s the No. 1 reason here in the state,” said Ann Cranston-Gingras, director of the Center for Migrant Education at the University of South Florida.

“In their community, family comes first and, if the family needs you, you help,” Martinez said. “They put family first, even if it’s in front of their education. It’s hard to break the cycle.”

During the school year, Jaimes visits the homes of students who have left school to work. He said parents sometimes don’t realize the long-term investment an education represents.

“We will do whatever it takes to go talk to those parents and convince them to send their kids back to school,” he said. “Every parent wants the best for their child, but sometimes parents don’t have knowledge of what there is.”

Many also face the pressure of being their parents’ only link to the English-speaking world, from hospitals to stores. The language barrier is high for many agricultural workers, especially in Florida.

“I’ve always been the translator for my family,” said Arturo Vasquez, 16, from Apopka High School. “It’s stressful because they count on you.”

In addition, some students are not legal residents of the country and don’t qualify for in-state tuition at colleges and universities or the jobs a degree would afford them.

What helps the most, experts agree, are teachers and other school mentors who can bridge the gap.

Jaimes and Martinez, both Immokalee High grads, are doing that.

“I worked the fields, I knew I wanted something better,” said Jaimes, who went to the University of Florida and returned to teach in Immokalee.

Martinez learned first-hand how influential educators could be when he was a student at Immokalee High, where children of migrant farmworkers make up half the student body. Coaches there inspired him in the ninth grade to go to the University of South Florida to become a teacher.

At some schools, that support isn’t always available. Throughout the state, many migrant students attend high schools in rural areas, without access to the array of clubs, Advanced Placement classes and dual enrollment in college classes, all things that local students use to get ahead.

“There’s really no one there to do (clubs or tutoring),” said Nathaniel McPherson, who will be a senior at Pahokee High School, a rural Palm Beach County school. There, most teachers leave right after school to make the long drive back to the city. He said he once believed a four-year degree was out of reach, but now plans to become an elementary school teacher in his hometown.

His cousin, a teacher, helped him find a reason for hope and a future career path. Nathaniel began tutoring her third-graders, an exercise in patience and in faith.

“Working with them really inspired he,” he said. “It made me realize what I could do.”