Summer classes offered to migrants

By WILL STEWART / Staff Reporter for the Southern Standard

ZEDAH

Migrant children, who by definition move with their families from place to place on a fairly regular basis, are not often in school long enough in any one place to receive a proper education.

To combat this growing problem, Warren County Schools will offer a migrant summer school course to begin next month which will target those school-age migrants deemed at-risk and who show they need additional help in English and other basic skills.

According to Dianna Zadeh, the school system’s director of ESOL, testing and equity, Warren County is home to 269 state-certified migrant children between the ages of 3 and 21. She noted, however, it is impossible to determine the actual number of migrants as their migratory nature prevents a precise count.

Of the migrant children state and school officials know about, 98 are enrolled in county schools. And while the majority of these students are Hispanic (they make up over half of the system’s English Language Learner population), it was noted there are several American migrant children here as well.

Most of the migrant children’s parents are employed in the nursery industry.

Scheduled to begin the week after school lets out next month, the intensive migrant summer school course will be held on the campus of the middle school and will last five to six weeks. Zadeh said each week will feature a different theme as instruction involves topics such as self, community, state, nation and world.

Teaching the course will be current system English as a Second Language teachers and bilingual assistants. Officials hope to recruit 60 recently arrived migrant students in grades kindergarten through 12 to participate.

Zadeh noted the cost of the summer school program, around $70,000, will be paid for entirely through federal funds, including migrant education funds and emergency migrant education grants. This money, in addition to providing teachers and supplies, will also fund limited transportation for students to and from the program.