Through the eyes of children

Story by Paul Peters

Photos by Katherine Head

For the 847 school-aged children who came with their parents to the Flathead Cherry harvest this year, there are two choices: pick fruit or go to school.

Before 10-year-old Eduardo's choice had been made, it was apparent he wasn't just like any kid on summer break.

Instead, he shepherded some of the younger children around the sunny yard of the Finley Point packing plant, speaking Spanish to some, English to others, and Spanish again to check in with his parents as they filled out paperwork for jobs and aid services.

But a few days later the choice was made, and Eduardo was at the Polson migrant school, appearing more like any normal 10-year-old as he concerned himself with reading rather than looking after other children.

"Yes!" he cheered after walking away from his teacher's desk, "I got to a new level."

His new reading level allowed him to read a story about emperor penguins, which he finished in a few minutes.

Eduardo is here from Los Angeles for his third year. During those three years he has attended the migrant school in Polson. The school itself has operated for 30 years in the Flathead Valley, educating migrant children for about two weeks during the cherry harvest.

The program is housed at the Polson Middle School. It runs five days a week with 10 full-time teachers and an assortment of volunteers, including several Polson High School students who receive community service hours while helping with the program.

Funding for the school comes from the federal Title I program, which was created in 1965 to provide additional funding to schools with a high incidence of poverty.

About 70 of the 847 school-aged children attend the migrant school each day.

An average of 20 children per day attended fourth through sixth grade classes in Polson. This is out of 139 children counted in that age group.

There is no funding for children above the sixth-grade level, or the age of 12, when children are legally eligible to do farm work. About 279 sixth through 12th graders are believed to have been in the valley for the harvest.

Many of the children in the fourth through 12th age group are spending their days out in the orchards.

The necessity of going to school for these children is clear. The high school drop out rate for children of migrant workers is about 50 percent.

This is, in part, caused by the migrant lifestyle.

"They have such disrupted schooling," Montana's Migrant Education Director, Angela Branz-Spall said. Because they're parents are always on the move to try and find work, their children often miss chunks of the school year.

"We try to provide them with the same amount of school that other kids get," Branz-Spall said.

But the parents still keep children in the orchard who are eligible for school. They have good reasons for doing so. One is that workers are paid per basket of fruit picked. So, according to Branz-Spall, "Every hand is an important one."

Especially when migrant families' annual income is typically $2,000 under the federal poverty line.

To convince parents to send their kids to the school, recruiters are sent into the orchards to provide information.

"It was a pretty hard job," Cristina Aguilar, one of this year's recruiters said. "You have to kind of beat the bushes and find these families."

"At first it was hard to persuade them, but once they saw it was a good thing, they were enthusiastic about it," she added. "A lot of the parents don't want their kids to do the same thing they're doing."

Aguilar said the orchard owners are also enthusiastic about getting the children to school.

"Having the little ones in the orchards are too dangerous," she explained.

The danger is caused by heavy equipment, such as trucks used to haul cherries out of the orchards and pesticide residues in the orchards.

The migrant school in Polson offers a place for children to get away from these dangers, while addressing some of the problems caused by poverty.

Breakfast, lunch, healthcare, school supplies and transportation are offered to the children. The school also offers a nursery program so that the older children are free to attend school.

But the most important thing that the school offers is knowledge. According to tests taken in compliance with the No Child Left Behind Act, 95 percent of students at the Polson school show a gain in mathematics, and 62 percent show a gain in reading ability.

But sometimes it's the little improvements that can make a difference.

"My one 9-year-old couldn't spell her own name in English or Spanish," Aguilar said. "She got the opportunity at last to learn to write her name down."

Classes focus on the basic of education for the children, but they are also offered a little high-tech training each day in the Billings Techmobile.

The Techmobile is a pink shuttle bus wired with 10 laptop computers. It tours Montana during the summer to offer migrant children a chance to learn computer skills.

According to Marty Jacobsen, the bus's driver and on-the-road teacher, "A lot of these kids haven't even used computers before.

"We think it's a skill the kids need," Jacobsen.

Funding for the Techmobile program is provided by Rural Employment Opportunities and the Migrant Education Program.

The result of these programs for migrant education can be observed over time. In 1965, when Title I programs began, the dropout rate for migrant children was as high as 80 percent. Since then it had decreased by 30 percent.

Perhaps the biggest benefit of these programs can be seen in the hope given to migrant children.

On a warm, sunny day at Polson migrant school, 10-year-old Almagil sits at her desk and reads.

Almagil used to live with her family in Bigfork, but she said they had to move Los Angeles when her father hurt his back and could no longer work his construction job.

"I like it here better," Almagil said.

She is back this year, along with her mother and 16-year-old brother, for the Flathead Lake cherry harvest. While her mother and brother both work in the orchards, Almagil plans for a different future.

"I want to be a doctor, a family doctor," she said. "I like to help people that are sick."