A New Crop of Bright Minds : Education: A county program to help the children of migrant farm workers complete their schooling is paving the way from Santa Clarita Valley fields to institutions of higher learning.

Just off California 126 near Val Verde, fields of parsley stretch across the horizon, creating an ocean of green. The beauty of the landscape eludes 20-year-old Martha Celedon, who has spent much of her life trying to escape such fields.

Now a junior at Cal State Northridge, Celedon worked from the age of 5 alongside her parents and other fieldworkers picking, wrapping and packing onions for $2.20 a box. “I hated it,” she said emphatically. “Even as a little girl, I would say I wanted to get a good education, a good job and take my parents away from the fields.”

Celedon credits a special program run by the Los Angeles County Office of Education for her successful journey from fieldworker to college student. “I don’t think I would have made it to college without this program,” she said.

This summer, Celedon returned to the Migrant Education Program, this time as an instructor’s aide. “I have to give something back of what I received,” she said.

Celedon is not alone in her success. This past academic year, a record 45% of the 22 students who graduated from the migrant program in the Santa Clarita Valley went on to college. Nationally, only about half of migrant laborers’ children even graduate from high school.

The 24 school districts in Los Angeles County that participate in the program serve 15,000 students, making it one of the largest and most comprehensive programs of its kind in the nation. In the Santa Clarita Valley, the Newhall School District, Castaic Union School District, William S. Hart Union High School District and Santa Clarita Community College District take part.

Since 1983, the program has offered children of migrant workers enrichment classes, counseling and tutorials--all designed to help them succeed in school and go on to college. The families of the 257 children served in the valley this year also receive health services and other benefits.

With the closing of several large farms in recent years, few of the students served in the valley still work in the fields, but educators say the itinerant lifestyle has left a lasting impact on them academically and on their families economically.

Raul C. Almada, senior project director, said children of present and former migrant workers are some “of the most educationally disadvantaged students in our schools today.”

They often lag two to three years behind their classmates in basic skills and suffer from a lack of self-esteem, he said.

Some of the problems are caused by the constant movement dictated by crop patterns. Others result from poverty.

The program seems to be succeeding in overcoming those factors and helping young people such as Celedon prepare for college. Celedon first began attending the program’s weekly Tuesday school when she was in the eighth grade. There she received assistance with homework and participated in rap sessions aimed at improving students’ self-esteem.

The high school sessions exposed students to different careers. It was during one of these sessions--a presentation by Latino students from CSUN--that Celedon first considered going to college.

“They really motivated me,” she said. “They said, ‘We need more Latinos earning degrees. . . . We know you can do it.’ ”

Program staff members helped Celedon apply to CSUN and obtain financial aid.

Like other “at risk” students, migrant students need a support system at each level--from elementary grades to the early years of college, said Carol Ramnarine, program specialist.

Although the migrant program offers a range of services to students and their families, the major emphasis is on supplementary instruction through independent study courses and classes conducted in the evenings, on Saturdays and during the summer.

At the evening classes, held at College of the Canyons in Valencia, for example, students ages 13 to 18 earn credit toward graduation for attending 3 1/2 hours per week of individualized instruction in reading, language arts and math.

In addition, counselors hired by the program regularly meet with the students to discuss attendance, progress toward graduation, college and career goals. Similar instruction and enrichment courses are available for younger students in the program’s Saturday school. Summer sessions include field trips to museums, and an introduction to computers and performing arts.

“They get the extra time and attention that they’re not able to get in the school year,” said Nori Rosenberg, an instructor in the program’s Saturday and summer sessions.

This summer, 80 elementary school students from the Santa Clarita Valley gather each day for courses at Castaic Elementary School, and 25 older students meet at a school in Valencia.

Bridgette Gonzales, 15, has been in the Migrant Education Program since seventh grade and said she doesn’t mind spending her summers in school. “It’s something you look forward to,” she said.

Bridgette beams when she talks about the four weeks she spent last summer on the USC campus as a student in METAS (Migrants Empowered to Achieve Success), an adjunct to the Migrant Education Program that focuses on preparing students for college and establishing a strong sense of self-esteem.

“I got an A in everything,” she said with a smile.

Through METAS, 80 high school students from Migrant Education Programs throughout Los Angeles County are spending four weeks at USC this summer. The students study math, science, computers, drama and other subjects and live in the university’s dormitories.

“If you give them high expectations, they achieve,” said Ignacio Rojas Jr., METAS coordinator. “What we do is tell them that they have the power to do it.”

For Bridgette, the youngest of 12 children, the encouragement and motivation helped transform her from a failing student to one intent on going to college after she graduates from high school in two years.

“It just changed my whole life,” she said. “After I came out, I felt like I could do whatever I wanted.”

Bridgette’s and Celedon’s families, and many other farm workers in the Santa Clarita Valley, had to find other kinds of work in 1987 when Boskovich Farms, a major employer, plowed under its onion fields in Saugus.

“The fieldworkers are having to move to other types of employment because the fields are closing,” Ramnarine said. “They’re not just passing through. They’re becoming contributing members of the community.”

Programs such as the Migrant Education Program are needed to help the children of migrant farm workers make the transition, staff members said.

One recent day, Arlene Medina, an aide in the program, made her rounds through the winding roads of Val Verde delivering bagged lunches and hope to the residents of this isolated community, where many of the farm workers live in poverty.

At one house, she gently scolded a student for not attending the program’s summer school. At another, she helped a parent who does not speak English fill out a release form so her child can participate in a summer activity.

“You have to stay on them,” she said. “You can’t let up. Education is really the only thing that is going to change their lives.”