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Why Aren’t Migrant Students Enrolling in an Education Program Designed Just for Them?

One out of every three migrant farmworker students lives in California, yet a federal program offering extra academic help has seen a marked decline in enrollment.
Katie Orr
Students prepare to build card towers on table-top earthquake simulators as part of a STEM class in the Migrant Education Program for farm worker students. (Katie Orr/KQED)

On a recent fall day at the San Joaquin County Office of Education, groups of children built delicate towers out of playing cards balanced on small tabletop earthquake simulators. Their teacher came around and one by one turned on the simulators as the students waited breathlessly to see which tower would stand the tallest after the shaking stopped.

The class is part of the federally funded Migrant Education Program, and the roughly 30 students in attendance were all children of farmworkers. The program offers extra instruction — after school, on weekends and during breaks — to kids who might otherwise fall behind academically as their families move around with the harvest.

“We learn a lot about science and it helps us get ready for [the] school year,” said fifth grader Alexys Chaves, who added that his favorite part was building robots.

But over the past decade, the program has seen a significant drop in enrollment across the state and nationally. Those numbers are reflected in the area centered around Stockton, where the program is run by Manuel Nuñez, a regional director of migrant education.

“When I first started with this region back in ‘01, we had about 21,000,” Nuñez said. “Currently we’re at about 2,200. So that’s a huge drop off.”

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California, which is home to one in three of the country’s migrant students, runs the largest program in the nation, where 90% of the students are Latino.

The reasons for the decline in enrollment are complex, said Nuñez. It’s getting tougher to qualify for the program and there are fewer migrant workers as people take jobs in different fields. Then there’s the political atmosphere: Nuñez said that under the Trump administration, many migrant families are reluctant to sign up, even if their children could benefit.

Nuñez said they don’t ask about immigration status, but he and others say that fear persists in the community.

“Many times when we have staff go out and they’re talking to families and interviewing them to qualify for the program, they’re hesitant to give us information,” Nuñez said. “Especially because they know we’re a federal program.”

“Part of what we’re trying to do is empower those parents to support their students in their education,” Nuñez added. “So when we don’t have those parents coming in, they’re losing out on that part. So it’s impacting their students, too.”

Veronica Aguilar, director of the English Learner Support Division at the California Department of Education, said migrant education programs across the state are seeing a similar decline in enrollment. She is concerned the program’s budget could take a hit next year, which could hurt the 82,000 students enrolled statewide.

“We do anticipate next year seeing some fluctuation only because there are rules that are changing in terms of how the allocation to the states are given,” Aguilar said.

Nuñez said he knows first hand how hard migrant labor can be.

“I did it from when I was 7 years old until 18,” he said. “When the other kids were happy about summer, my brothers and I were like, ‘Oh, summer.’ ”

While Nuñez and his brothers spent the hot summer months working in the fields to help their family, they all participated in the migrant education program during the school year. He credits the program with helping him see college as an option and to imagine a different future.

It’s the same message Nuñez is trying to spread today.

“We’re trying to show the kids, too, that there’s something out there for them besides what life they know,” he said.

For now, the message is getting through to seventh grader Jennifer Sandoval.

“We get to do a lot of fun things,” she said. “I think we’re going to start building robots. And last year I came and it was a lot of fun because you get to do competitions.”

Sandoval wants to be a doctor when she grows up. It’s kids like her that keep Nuñez motivated, although he acknowledges the program might look different in the future.

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