Texas Border Business
EDINBURG – Migrant recruiters will be going door-to-door throughout Hidalgo County neighborhoods this month to identify migratory students, encouraging them to participate in the Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District’s Migrant Neighborhood Recruitment Program.
“We go to the neighborhoods and basically what we want to do is go door-to-door and try to find and identify people that have not been recognized as migrants and try to explain to them the benefits of this program,” said Maricela Valdez, an ECISD migrant recruiter.
The Migrant Neighborhood Recruitment Program is aimed at informing students and their families about the many educational programs available at Edinburg CISD.
“We have teams of people go out in neighborhoods canvasing streets in the areas of growth in our district, but we actually do recruitment all year round,” ECISD Migrant Coordinator Patricio Escamilla said. “It’s important for parents, if they are not able to be get identified during this recruitment process, to contact our Migrant Department and see if they can qualify for agriculture or fishery.”
Many migrant students enroll in other schools when they travel up north with their families and take on jobs in the agriculture or fishing industries.
“We tell them from the elementary level, middle school and high school, exactly what they can benefit from being identified as migrants,” Valdez said.
Migrant children, as young as 3 years old, may qualify for the Bright Beginnings Program, where home educators work in conjunction with parents to provide educational lessons at home for their children.
Some of the other programs available to the migrant students, include assistance with obtaining concurrent enrollment and dual credit courses, participation in Advanced Placement classes, and support with taking entrance exams.
“We also have counselors who guide our students, because we want them to be on track for graduation,” Escamilla said. “We want them to be able to be focused on the careers that they could really have an interest in pursuing.”
For more information on the ECISD Migrant Education Program, call (956) 289-2300 and ask for Debra Ramirez at extension 2105 or Rolando Vargas at extension 2106.
