Maine Migrant Education Program

Maine Migrant Education Program The Maine Migrant Education Program (MEP) is a federally-funded program under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (Title I, Part C) that provides supplemental educational services to the children of seasonal agricultural and fishing workers that move to new school districts in order to obtain work in industries such as blueberries, broccoli, apples, dairy, eggs tree tipping, fish processing and countless more. The Maine MEP is operated from the Maine Department of Education, but we work with community agencies all over the state to identify potential students and to make sure we pursue all potential leads. The Umaine Cooperative Extension has been exceptionally helpful in the past, due to the widespread nature of the program and many avenues of communication it has. The unique nature of the MEP, however, lies in the fact that in order for work to qualify, it must last for less than 12 months and truly be seasonal or temporary work. For our purposes, migratory is only defined as moving across school district lines. Workers can come from as far as Guatemala, and as close as the next school district over. No matter where they move from, children will still experience a disruption in education and the MEP exists to compensate for that disruption. We are a relatively small program which serves a specific group of some of the most disadvantaged students in the nation. In the 2015 reporting period, we had 522 students. A student qualifies because they moved either as the worker, or with a worker to a new school district in search of seasonal work in agricultural or fishing. In Maine, the primary industry for which families move is the Downeast blueberry, generally between Ellsworth and Machias. Our scope is not just limited to that area, though. We provide services year round, all over the state, to students ages 0-21 who are in Maine and we also collaborate with the other states when our students move outside of Maine. Our service provision just intensifies during the summer when the migrant population increases for the blueberry harvest. The services we proved include our Blueberry Harvest School, a four week program for students ages 3- 13. The Blueberry Harvest School is run in collaboration with Mano en Mano, a non-profit agency based in Milbridge. The summer program serves breakfast, lunch, and a snack to students at a safe school- based environment while their parents are raking in the barrens. It is designed to be engaging, fun, and hands on learning with field trips and project-based learning throughout Downeast Maine. Besides the blueberry harvest, we provide one-on-one tutoring and advocacy to students from down in York, all the way up to Aroostook County and make sure that their educational opportunities do not suffer because of their mobility. The overarching goal for the Maine MEP is to provide migratory children the same educational opportunities as every other student in the state of Maine. Through working closely with farms, businesses, and community organizations, we can accomplish that goal. The Portland Press Herald wrote an excellent article about the MEP last summer, and I’ve included links to the Blueberry Harvest Website, and the Maine MEP Homepage http://www.pressherald.com/2015/08/16/at-maines-blueberry-harvest-school-migrant-kids-reap- education/ http://maine.gov/doe/migrant/ http://www.manomaine.org/programs/bhs

For more information, please contact David Fisk, the State Director, at [email protected], or by phone at 207-624-6722.