Schools Try to Aid Children of Farm Workers

Teachers in 13 Ventura County school districts learned Thursday how to use music, bottle caps and computers to improve education for more than 6,500 children of migrant farm workers.

Concerned about a 45% dropout rate among such students countywide, about 175 teachers and classroom aides met to share ideas about keeping the students in school. They also discussed ways to draw parents into their children’s education and emphasize math, reading and language development.

“We at the school sites, out there in the fields, at home, in the streets--we need to make students aware of what education means to us,” said Isaias Ochoa, president of the parent advisory committee to the state’s migrant education program.

One workshop showed teachers how to instruct parents in using everyday household items such as bottle caps, pieces of paper and string for counting and other math exercises.

“The idea behind it is to put on workshops for parents, using things they have at home,” workshop leader Ricardo Tellez said. “Oftentimes, parents don’t know they can help.”

For migrant students in particular, working with parents is crucial, said Joe I. Mendoza, director of migrant education with the county superintendent of schools office. Often, migrant parents come from other countries and are not accustomed to American schools, he said.

“Sometimes we forget the cultural shock they’re going through,” Mendoza said. “Migrant education goes beyond the classroom and reaches out to the homes and the families. This is a program dedicated to the family.”

A workshop on reducing dropout rates focused on ways to improve the relationship between migrant families and the school system, including telling parents how essential regular school attendance is for their children.

Urging teachers to make home visits, Mendoza said a student’s problems at school may stem from problems at home, including frequent moves and the struggle to make ends meet.

Mendoza cited the case of a 16-year-old student from a family of eight children supported by a single mother who worked in the strawberry fields. He said the mother called him at home one night, seeking his advice about her child, whose schoolwork was suffering because of dental problems. The girl had never been to a dentist and was terrified, he said.

Teachers can often give reassurances and refer parents to help in such cases, Mendoza said.

Moorpark High School senior Monica Morales, 18, gave an emotional speech in Spanish to the assembled teachers, telling them that she will be the first from her family of 12 children to attend college in the United States.

Morales, who began studying English when she came to the United States four years ago, has won a scholarship to Cal Lutheran University, where she will go in the fall. Now fluent in English, she credited hard work and Moorpark’s bilingual and migrant education programs with her success.

Several migrant students were among members of the Ballet Folklorico Infantil de Fillmore, a dance group that performed for the teachers.

Sandra Magallon, who teaches first-grade migrant students at Mar Vista School in Oxnard, said her own frustration years ago as a Spanish-speaking child in English-only classes led her to become a teacher in the migrant program.

“I felt alienated from an area and a school system I could not understand,” said Magallon, a former migrant student. Since her school days in Oxnard, she said, school programs have improved for both Spanish-speaking migrant students and their parents.

“Today, they can visit schools with a certainty that someone will be able to speak to them.”