Investment in the future: Classes are held throughout Missouri for children of migrant workers

Missouri is one of several U.S. states that sees a regular influx of migrant workers, and the children of those workers struggle to get a good education.

Lack of educational continuity is a problem first brought to the forefront in 1960 by legendary journalist Edward R. Murrow during his last documentary film for CBS, "Harvest of Shame."

Jesse De Leon, who works with the Migrant English Language Learner (MELL) program, knows better than most about the challenges children of migrant workers face.

De Leon, one of five regional instructors across the state, works with migrant children in Southeast Missouri, as well as those in Franklin County and some eastern parts of Missouri.

"I've got a huge territory," he says.

Angel Castro, recruiter for Missouri's Migrant Education and English Language Learning Program, assists migrant families in the area to ensure their children receive a quality education.

De Leon stared his career teaching English as a second language and special education. In 1995, he began working with MELL, and in 2005, he took over the curriculum and began working with a consortium of nine other states that have high populations of migrant workers.

"We meet two times each year to analyze results," he says.

De Leon says things have changed a lot since he first began working with MELL.

"We started out renting community centers and in churches. The children would make puppets and watch videos," he says.

Now, the program is much more formal, and school is held in Clarkton, Cardwell, Springfield and Noel each July, because that's where the greatest concentration of migrant children is during the summer, explains Shawn Cockrum, director of grants and resources for the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Classes are held during the school year, from fall to spring, all over the state.

"Throughout the regular school year, we're dispersed across the state," Cockrum says. "All corners of the state have migrant children, so we have 17 programs in schools across the state."

About 70 percent of the migrant children are Hispanic, he says, but migrant children come mainly from Texas and Florida.

Education is available for migrant children from age 3 to 21, though the focus is mainly on kindergarten through eighth grade, De Leon says.

That's because by the time most of these children reach ninth grade, they are working in the fields with their parents all day. Too often, because migrant children haven't been able to receive a quality education, they get married, have kids of their own and the cycle continues.

"It becomes a generational thing," De Leon says. "What we're trying to do is break it."

To help older migrant children earn their high school diplomas, the program works with the Genesco Center, a New York-based portable credit-assisted program that allows migrant students to do their work at home and take the material with them as they travel from state to state.

Another challenge for older students is that they don't test well, and some states, such as Texas, require them to pass a standardized test before they receive their diplomas.

That's another area De Leon, and others like him across the state, concentrates on to help students get a high school diploma.

A migrant is still considered to be a migrant if they do first-stage processing and they work on a temporary basis, De Leon explains.

Migrant workers operate on a seasonal labor calendar, and they take their families with them.

Many workers come to Missouri in March to help plant watermelon and cantaloupe. Some stay through the season, while others leave and return in the fall to help with ginning the cotton crop. Some take work in meat processing plants.

On average, migrant children miss about nine weeks of each school year as they move from place to place, following the work of their parents.

"Then the courses are too far along, and they've missed too much," De Leon says. The extended absences necessitated the summer program, which does not include nonessential courses such as physical education and art.

The MELL program offers migrants more than just reading, writing and arithmetic.

"The migrant program for us is education, but we work with other agencies to provide other services," De Leon says.

He and his co-workers connect the children with services, such as those of a dentist or optometrist, that they may need to succeed in school.

"If someone has a bad tooth, they won't be concerned with an education," De Leon says. "They'll be worried about their tooth."

Unlike many students who attend summer school, De Leon says migrant children are pleased to be there.

"These kids want to be there," De Leon says. "They want to learn. They're good kids, as far as discipline problems, there are none."

The program is an investment in the future, and benefits more than just the students alone.

"An educated society is a better society," Cockrum says.

Achieving that better society requires effort.

"If you want to have good, solid members of society, you're going to have to help them," De Leon says. "Their parents are just trying to make a living at the lowest level."