Education of migrants Students graduate despite obstacles Government programs help

By Marjorie Hernandez

As a daughter of migrant workers, Cynthia Cortez Rodriguez was no stranger to a nomadic lifestyle.

In her first two years of high school, Rodriguez's family moved back and forth from Ventura County to Washington state, where her parents picked apples. By the end of her sophomore year, Rodriguez had attended four high schools.

The constant moving affected Rodriguez's grades, and she was behind by at least 75 credits by the time she started her junior year at Rio Mesa High School in the Oxnard Union High School District.

"I would really stress out so much, I got gray hairs," said Rodriguez as she touched her curly strands of thick, dark hair. "It was tough and I went into a depression. But when I got here (Rio Mesa), my counselor told me about my different options to recuperate those credits. It gave me hope."

Rodriguez is one of 13,000 students in the Ventura County Office of Education's migrant education program, which is one of 24 federally funded regional programs throughout the state.

'The mobility factor'

Although the county's program provides various academic and other services for students, only 60 percent of its migrant seniors graduated in the 2006-07 school year, said Joe Mendoza, the program's director.

Those numbers fall below the 80 percent graduation rate last year for all students in Ventura County, and the 79 percent statewide rate for seniors in migrant programs, according to state Department of Education data. Graduation figures for this year are not yet available.

"Our biggest problem is the mobility factor, because students are not staying much more than a year or two and that's what makes our group so unique," Mendoza said.

"A lot of people still don't understand that our kids are moving or they are dropping out and going to work. Our biggest challenge is not only getting them to school, but getting them to stay. If there is work available, our kids will go and work alongside their parents."

According to the state Department of Education, students can be considered "migrant" if their parents or guardians work in the agriculture, dairy, lumber or fishing industries and have moved within the past three years.

A student also can qualify individually for the same reasons.

Statewide, there were 240,942 migrant students ages 3 to 21 in the 2006-07 school year, said Ernesto Ruiz, administrator of the state Migrant, Indian and International Education Office.

While some students sometimes stay with other family members while their parents follow harvest seasons across the country, at least 6,000 in Ventura County leave their schools, Mendoza said.

"Many families go to Washington to pick apples in the fall and in the late spring, while some go to the San Joaquin Valley or Texas for sugar or cotton," Mendoza said. "Some schools start as early as August, and our kids end up missing a lot of school. We end up seeing an increase of students after September and October in middle and high schools."

Language barriers

While some students have to deal with disruptions in their academic progress, others who are recent immigrants also have language barriers to overcome, said Lupe Reyes-Castillo, the Oxnard Union High School District's director of migrant education.

Some students also deal with cultural or family traditions in which young men are told to forgo education to earn money in the fields instead and young women end up taking care of younger siblings while the parents work, Reyes-Castillo said.

"All students have obstacles and barriers they have to overcome, but our migrant students have some huge mountains to climb just to reach that goal of earning a high school diploma," Reyes-Castillo said. "In our program, we want them to think beyond high school that college is possible."

In the Oxnard Union High School District, migrant graduation rates have fluctuated slightly, from 75 percent in 2004-05 to 71 percent in 2005-06, Reyes-Castillo said. The district currently has about 2,950 students in the program.

High school migrant students throughout the county can take advantage of a wide variety of programs, including Portable Assisted Study Sequence, or PASS, which allows students to catch up on credits. Educational materials, available in English and Spanish, are uniform throughout the state, so students who move have the opportunity to finish a course and take tests over the Internet.

Tutoring and social support

There is also the California Mini-Corps Program, which links local college students with migrant high schoolers who need tutoring and social support. College tutors often come from a migrant background themselves, which helps a great deal, said Paul Johnson, special programs director at Rio Mesa High School.

At least three days a week, Mini-Corps counselors Karina Manzo and Mayra Paniagua are on hand at Rio Mesa's migrant education office, where they provide additional support.

Both are students at CSU Channel Islands in Camarillo. Manzo and Paniagua said they can relate to the daily challenges migrant students encounter.

"We are here to help motivate them and to let them know that it doesn't matter that English is your second language," Paniagua said. "If we did it, they can do it, too."

In the Santa Paula Union High School District, many students in the migrant program participate in work study, where they have the opportunity to work alongside professionals in office settings, said Tony Gaitan, director of educational services.

Chance to be recognized'

To highlight the accomplishments of migrant students, several schools held their own award ceremonies at the end of the school year.

Rio Mesa High's migrant awards night on June 11 recognized all students who earned a 3.0 grade-point average or above and seniors who earned diplomas.

Rio Mesa senior Esther Abigail Ordoñez, 17, said working closely with migrant guidance technician Lucero Benitez is just one of the reasons why she graduated with her peers this month. Others often don't realize the hurdles migrant students have to overcome, she said.

"They don't see that we go through so many obstacles and we often don't get acknowledged for the hard work," Ordoñez said.

"We get a chance to be recognized for our accomplishments, and for us, it's a great thing."