Migrant Student Services
What makes a child eligible?
Phone: (417) 523-0064
Fax: (417) 523-0099
E-mail: nquinn@spsmail.org
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To qualify for the Migrant Education Program, a migrant child must have moved within the past three years across state or school district lines with a migrant parent or guardian to enable the child, the child’s guardian, or a member of the child’s immediate family to obtain temporary or seasonal employment in an agricultural, fishing, or food processing activity. The child may be in any grade between preschool and 12th grade and must not be older than twenty-one years of age.
Migrant children can be either interstate or intrastate. An interstate migrant child is one who has moved with in the past three years from one state to another with his/her family to find qualifying work. An intrastate migrant child is one who has moved within the past three years to another school district, but from within the same state.
Who are migrant workers?
The migrant population is made up of diverse ethnic groups. In Missouri, Anglos make up the largest group, with Hispanics, Southeast Asians, African Americans and other racial ethnic groups completing the remainder of the migrant population. While many migrant families consider Missouri to be their home base, others come from Texas, California, Florida, Mexico, and some come from other states and countries.
The majority of students enrolled in Springfield Public Schools have parent(s) working at Willow Brook Foods. The Migrant Education Center in Monett, conducts employee surveys at the plant to identify and enroll migrant families.
Springfield Public Schools Migrant Education Program (MEP) Guidelines
- The district will identify all migrant children enrolling in school from the Parental Survey form in the school enrollment packets. These forms are sent to the district’s Migrant Coordinator.
- The district’s coordinator sends completed Parental Surveys to the MEP Center.
- The MEP Center provides documentation of eligible migrant students and priority for service to the district.
- The schools assess the educational, health, and social needs of the identified migrant children and develop objectives to address those needs.
- The coordinator reviews existing programs and resources to determine those, which can help, meet the needs of migrant children, and assure that the children, have access to them.
- Students needing educational assistance will be referred to a migrant instructional aide for follow-up with the student’s teacher.
- The coordinator arranges for support services available from the MEP Center.
- The district maintains and regularly updates educational and health records of migrant children and provides information to the MEP Center for entry into the state MEP database and transmittal to schools where the children will next