"Migrant education" may have gotten a new meaning in the Greenfield Union School District this past spring as farm workers' children took field trips ranging from the Monterey Bay Aquarium to Washington, D.C. Adrian Rodriguez, 14, told the Greenfield school board at its June 21 meeting about his adventures during a week in the nation's capital with 33 other students. Adrian said that at first he didn't want to go. "I didn't know anybody, and I didn't think there would be anything there to interest me," he said. "But once I got there, I was glad I had come." In a prepared speech that he read to the board, Adrian said, "When I got to Washington, D.C., the building that impacted me the most was the National Archives, because I got to see all of the important documents there." He spoke of his excitement at viewing the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. "I learned how a man named George Mason, who had helped to write the Declaration of Independence, refused to sign it because they had not included a Bill of Rights," Adrian said. He spoke of visiting Congress, the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials, the Supreme Court, Arlington Cemetery, Malcolm X Park and many other historical locations. "What made it really interesting was because I got to see a lot of the history I had just learned (in books) in the eighth grade," Adrian said. "It really made it (history) come alive." Adrian will be a freshman at Greenfield High School in the fall and wants to become a lawyer or a doctor. But the GUSD migrant program also offered many other outings closer to home during the past school year. Working hard behind the scenes were Angelica Fonseca and Marisela Morales, both teachers at Cesar Chavez Elementary School, one of the three elementary schools in Greenfield. For a child to qualify for the migrant education program, his or her parent must be an agricultural worker and have moved within the past two years in search of work. Fonseca and Morales organized several field trips this year. On April 15, about 45 students and 20 parents boarded a school bus and went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium for Día Del Niño - Day of the Child. "There was a mariachi band from San Jose and singer, songwriter and author José-Luis Orozco was on hand to greet the children," Fonseca said. "... there were lots of crafts for them to do and great things to see." Another adventure came two months later, on June 15, when a group of 60 children and 20 parents were treated to the fun and festivities of Gilroy Gardens (formerly Bonfante Gardens) amusement park. Visits to universitiesFonseca said the best trips, from an educational standpoint, were the ones the group took this spring to San Jose State University and Stanford University. These trips involved the sixth-, seventh- and eighth- graders from Vista Verde Middle School. "We got a guided tour of the campuses," Fonseca said. Why take middle school students to tour universities? "We wanted the kids to start thinking about their futures, to start setting goals," Fonseca said. "Middle school is the perfect time to start working on your grades and preparing for the expectations of a university." These two campuses were chosen because of their closeness and distinction. The parents who went were just as fascinated as the students, as it was a first-time experience for them as well, she said. Devorah Duncan, director of special services for the Greenfield district, provided the funding for all the trips. As she watched a Power Point presentation that Fonseca and Morales made to the school board, Duncan said, "Anytime you can put 'Greenfield' and 'Stanford' in the same sentence, it shows the level of excellence we have in Greenfield." |