MIGRANT WORKERS: CHILDREN OF THE FIELDS; SCHOOLS IMPART HOPE FOR MIGRANTS (LAST IN A SERIES)

SENATH -- Unlike some elementary students, Ramirro Nava Jr., 7, likes going to school during the summer. It is about the only time he attends classes regularly; his parents are migrant workers.

"I like coming to school," he said. "This year we might stay."

Typically, his family moves to Michigan in the fall to harvest cherries and then to Florida in early winter to pick peaches. Home is a city somewhere in Mexico.

Like most migrant families who work in Southeast Missouri, Ramirro and his parents want to find a permanent job and home. With its offerings of farm jobs year-round, the Bootheel seems to be the place to settle.

As more migrant workers move into the area, communities will be forced to adjust by offering more bilingual services. Public schools will need additional tutors, teachers' aides, and English as a second language courses for the children.

The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education offers education programs for migrant children in Southeast Missouri and in the Monett area of Southwest Missouri. The summer school classes ended Friday.

The Eastern Missouri Migrant Education Center serves about 130 children at schools in Malden, East Prairie and Senath. The schools are funded by the federal Title I program, which filters money to the state and local levels.

The funds aren't only used in the summer programs; the center serves children year-round. Any child of a worker who moves across school district lines to seek seasonal and agricultural employment qualifies for the program.

"You can be any race or ethnicity to be a migrant," said Shelby Brown, a librarian. "You don't have to be Mexican."

Yet every student enrolled in classes at the Migrant Education Center this year is Hispanic. Southeast Missouri has seen a slight decline in numbers compared to Monett, Brown said.

The purpose of the summer school is to help children learn the English language and to help with math, reading and writing skills, said Jerry Edwards, director of both state centers.

One of the biggest hurdles for teachers is that the students' educations are often interrupted several times before they arrive in Missouri. "They change schools so often that they barely have time to get adjusted before they are gone," Brown said.

Because they move so often and so quickly, teachers often are given little information about the students' learning habits and needs. Until 1995, the Arkansas-based Migrant Student Record Transfer System provided a national record-keeping system; now each state must keep its own records.

There is no coordination between states, so teachers don't know what to expect in a classroom until the students arrive.

"Some of the students are too shy to even speak in Spanish," said Kerrin Darnell, who teaches kindergarten and first-grade students at the Senath school. "If they don't speak English, then someone else in the class will translate."

Darnell, who teaches at Russell Elementary School in Wardell, is teaching the English classes as part of her work with Project Interact, a graduate program at Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau.

Although students will continue to rely on Spanish when they ask a question or are among playmates, Jesse De Leon, another teacher at the school, will only answer their requests in English. He teaches 3-to-5-year-old children at the school.

The whole philosophy of the program is to teach and talk in English, De Leon said. "It's important to assimilate with the cultures. More migrants are staying each year, so they need to speak English."

Speaking English isn't only important to the children; it is also important to their parents.

"If you catch them at this age, then you get them to learn a lot faster," he said. "As they get older they get better with English. They are even better than their parents."

Erasmo Garza wanted his children to speak English, even though he can't. His children attend school in Texas. "He would like for us to study something," said his 11-year-old daughter, Norma. "It's hard in the fields."

Although the Migrant Education Center only offers a morning summer-school program, some of the children stay each afternoon for a day-care program in Senath. "They don't make the distinction between school and day-care," De Leon said. "It's an organized environment."

Going to school is so important to some of the students that De Leon has received tearful phone calls from children who couldn't find a ride to class. "It's important to them. They come expecting to learn, and they are sent to learn something," he said. "If they don't come here, they go to the fields."

De Leon also is an assistant teacher for the English program at Senath-Hornersville schools. After moving to the area from Oregon, he was asked by the district to help with the program. English as a second language was first offered in the 1995-96 school year.

Most Spanish-speaking students are quick to learn English but have some trouble with the letters "v" and "r" and "th" sounds. "It's hard because they aren't used to speaking that way," De Leon said.

But they keep trying with some careful prodding and attention. Even some farmers and adult migrant workers go to De Leon for English lessons.

Many migrants must learn English before they can drive tractors or lead crews on the farms where they work, he said. But even the farmers are willing to learn a new language so they can speak to their workers.

De Leon does much of the translation in the Senath area. He translates for farmers who take him lists of words and phrases they want to learn in Spanish.

He also helps migrants understand some of the basics of American culture such as paying bills. This might be the first time they have lived alone since many are accustomed to living with extended families in south Texas or Mexico. Many are unaware of how to use a bank account.