SPRINGFIELD —Nine-year-old Ery Perez Gutierrez focused last summer on sharpening his academic skills at Boland Elementary School, under a program that provides additional education to the children of migrant farm and fishery workers. The jobs, which require families to move across the state and country due to seasonal employment, can take a toll on their children’s education — a challenge the program aims to address. This summer, however, Ery, a US-born citizen whose Guatemalan mother previously worked in tobacco fields across three states, won’t get the chance to learn science lessons or meet new friends.
The Trump administration froze $6 billion in funding for educational programs, including the national Migrant Education Program. While the administration in recent days said it will release about $1 billion of those funds, for summer programs and others, the Migrant Education Program money is not among them. In addition, President Trump has proposed cutting the Migrant Education Program altogether in the next fiscal budget, saying the programs are expensive, haven’t been proven to be effective, and service immigrants who aren’t in the country legally. However, the program focuses on families who move due to their employment, regardless of immigration status. While some working the jobs don’t have legal immigration status, many hold visas designed for seasonal and agricultural workers, or are US
citizens.
The Migrant Education Program, which has operated in Massachusetts since 1966, ensures children like Ery don’t fall behind academically as they transfer between different school districts or miss school altogether because of the moves or to work alongside their parents. The program provides additional academic support for children who might be struggling with an inconsistent curriculum and interrupted learning.
To qualify for the program, children’s parents must have moved recently for work in meat or vegetable processing, farm and dairy farms, plant nurseries, or fisheries, or worked in such fields in the past 36 months. Advocates worry cuts to the program will set children, who already are struggling with pandemic learning losses, further behind academically. Ery’s mother, Vicenta Gutierrez, repeatedly moved for job opportunities, working in tobacco fields in Florida, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.
Last year, the grant served 438 students for summer programs statewide, said Emily Hoffman, director of the program in Massachusetts. Ery was among the 56 who attended the summer program offered at Boland Elementary for students starting at age 3 and continuing through fifth grade. Children followed along with their teacher, Riley McLaughlin, in the regular summer school program at Boland Elementary School, where the Massachusetts Migrant Education Program summer programming would be taking place, if funding wasn’t frozen.
While Boland cannot offer the program this summer, due to the cuts, about 120 students in other parts of the state were able to stay in the summer program, thanks to leftover funds from last year, Hoffman said. However, that’s only a fraction of the more than 500 students who qualify, requiring program coordinators to prioritize those with higher needs, she said. “This federally funded program is essential to making sure that children of agricultural workers and fishers receive the support
they need to succeed at school,” said Alexandra Smith, a spokesperson for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, which contracts with the nonprofit Collaborative for Educational Services to provide the services to students.
The loss of the program at Boland Elementary is “heartbreaking” and a “huge step backwards,” as students will have to go without much-needed services, said Lisa Bakowski, the school’s principal, who oversaw the program for the past three summers. “Many of them don’t have the resources to find other support,” Bakowski said. “ It’s the kids that are going to lose out on it.”
Bakowski said the children enrolled in the program are among the most vulnerable in the community. Their parents work in the fields all day and often don’t speak English. Students who qualified for summer instruction at their schools would attend regular summer school in the morning and later in the day be bused to Boland Elementary, where they’d engage in additional instruction or enrichment activities until their parents could pick them up. With summer instruction, Bakowski said, children don’t need to start the academic year remediating. Instead, they return to school ready to pick up where they left off.
A critical aspect of the program is the relationship staff members cultivate with families, Hoffman said. By employing multilingual staff who are culturally sensitive to the needs of this specific population, the program is able to more effectively reach and engage with families, she said. It is the connection with the families that allow children to catch up academically and remain in school, Hoffman said. Sometimes one single conversation with a parent leads to a child participating in the program and later increasing their likelihood to graduate from high school.
Seidner Reynoso, 20, held the book he used in last year in his English class through the Massachusetts Migrant Education Program in Springfield. Reynoso, who’s from Guatemala, is learning English through the program.
The program has helped generations of children to graduate from high school and pursue professional careers. “I have three professional children: an engineer, a dentist, and another one becoming a therapist,” Lynn resident Juan Payan said in Spanish. “All of this, we owe it to the program.” Payan moved to the US from the Dominican Republic on a visa in 2010 to work in Chelsea fields harvesting leafy greens, and the education program was the foundation for his children to learn English, finish high school, and attend college, he said. Payan, who’s now a US citizen, no longer works in the fields, but he said he’s grateful for all the support he and his family
received when they were beginning their life in the United States.
In Springfield, Gutierrez, who immigrated from Guatemala and is taking steps toward becoming a US citizen, is now scrambling to find babysitters or family members to watch Ery while she works at a laundromat. He’s falling behind academically, Gutierrez said, and she worries his chances of finishing high school and getting better job opportunities than she had will diminish without the return of the program. “We’re not the only ones doing this kind of work, but we are the only people that are paying attention to and serving and connecting with this specific population,” Hoffman said. “If this program ceases to exist, that is lost.”
Learn more about the Massachusetts Migrant Education Program.
