ASHVILLE (North Carolina) CITIZEN-TIMES

July 2, 2007

Migrant student numbers dip

By Ashley Wilson

ASHEVILLE — This summer, Pedro Robles-Herrera learned that fish have a lot of babies and sharks have a lot of teeth. But his favorite thing to learn was “A Fishy Wish Song.”

The 7-year-old was part of a three-week summer school for Buncombe County students in the Migrant Education and English as a Second Language programs. Primary students in the summer school learned about the ocean, and middle and high school students did projects on U.S history.

The summer school is one of the services the district’s Migrant Education Program provides for the nearly 165 Buncombe County migrant students it serves. But with development taking over area farms and many places cracking down on immigration, the program’s numbers have declined, limiting its funding, organizers say.

“It’s very helpful,” Juana Tirado said in Spanish. “It helps my son learn English with the after-school tutoring program. He’s learning how to read and write better.”

Tirado has been traveling to Buncombe County from Mexico for six years with her family and 8-year-old son, Antonio, during the tomato harvest.

The Migrant Education Program has been part of the Buncombe County School District for more than 20 years but has seen a decline in its numbers since 2004. During the 2005-06 school year, the program had 165 students, down from the 198 students it served the year before.

“We basically have to apply based on our numbers for a local grant from the state,” said Maureen Anderson, the program’s coordinator. “So if we don’t have enough kids, maybe our funds next year might go to Henderson County because they have more kids. Every year we have to apply to see whether we’re going to have a program or not.”

Anderson said that even though there is a large population of migrant workers in Buncombe County, it’s getting harder to recruit them for the program. Many undocumented migrant workers are scared to come forward and other families have begun to settle down and work in other industries, making them ineligible for the program, Anderson said. Between 2001 and 2004, more than 2,000 international migrants traveled to Buncombe County.

“That disruption is difficult,” said Anderson of the Tirado family, who live in a village in Guanajuato, Mexico, three months of the year. “Even though they put him in school in Mexico, it’s not the same, so they’ve been going for shorter and shorter intervals, which is great for them. It’s getting hard for our program because then they don’t really qualify.”

To qualify for the program’s services, the family must have children between the ages of 3 and 21 who have not graduated from high school. They also must have moved to Buncombe County within the past three years, seeking agricultural work.

In addition to summer school, the program also gives migrant families access to interpreters, transportation, school supplies and reading materials.