05/20/2007

Special to the Record-Eagle
Children take part in a group movement activity at the center last summer.

Head Start on Summer

Migrant programs gear up for a new season

By
Record-Eagle staff writer

Record-Eagle/Douglas Tesner
Crystal Haase is the director of the Telamon Corporation Michigan Migrant Head Start Center in Bear Lake.

BEAR LAKE — Sitting idle in a clearing off a rural dirt road, the Telamon Corporation Michigan Migrant Head Start Center could be abandoned but for the playground equipment outside.

In just a matter of weeks, however, the center will come alive as director Crystal Haase and some 50 employees hang colorful pictures on the seven classroom walls, stock the kitchen with food and supplies, and spruce up the two playgrounds in preparation for the 50 infants and toddlers that will arrive soon.

Located off the beaten path about a mile north of Kampvilla RV Park and its prominent landmark, a giant yellow dinosaur, the Bear Lake center is one of two Migrant Head Start centers in northwest Lower Michigan that are gearing up for the growing season, said Patricia Raymond, State Head Start director. Opening and closing on a timetable determined by area crops, the centers here and in Suttons Bay provide a safe educational environment for children 2 weeks to 5 years whose parents will spend the summer working in local orchards and fields.

Unlike regular full-time employees who get at least six weeks of maternity leave, "migrant workers don't have that luxury,” Raymond said.

"Most are two-parent families and they're working out in the field so there are very limited resources to take care of their children. This keeps children out of the fields and it keeps them safe,” she said.

The centers are among 17 seasonal head start centers around the state that are funded by the federal Department of Health and Human Services and operated by Telamon, a private non-profit corporation that provides programs to those in need, especially migrant and farm workers, Raymond said. Not just glorified child care centers, they provide free bi-lingual education and other services — from health and dental care coordination to developmental screenings and nutritious meals — with the goal of preparing the children for kindergarten.

Besides a director and aides, the centers are staffed by teachers and teacher assistants; health, family service and education specialists; and a food service manager or cook.

”A lot of the families who return year after year know we have highly educated and dedicated staff,” said Haase, who helps spread word of the services through postings around town and recruitment visits to migrant camps. "They're not coming in to work, they're coming in to have fun with the kids. It helps ease the parents' minds. They have enough worries and trials to worry about (with) having to go to work.”

While the exact number of migrant farmworkers in northwestern Lower Michigan is unknown, a survey during the 2006 growing season by Northwest Michigan Health Services' Migrant Health Program discovered 369 workers in Leelanau, Grand Traverse and Antrim counties alone, who represented 1,314 family members. That's at least 1,314 people who need specialized services, officials say.

"Unlike what you might think, migrant farmworkers don't quality for a lot of the benefits that people in the regular community qualify for, so we're constantly working with other agencies to try and get them the services they need,” said Judith Williams, executive director of the program.

Begun more than 40 years ago by a nurse working out of her kitchen, Williams said the seven-county program has grown to include seasonal clinics in Traverse City and Onekama that provide comprehensive health care to about 1,400 people, plus summer dental programs in Suttons Bay and Elk Rapids. There's also a year-round clinic and an "outreach post” farther south. Altogether, the agency's summer budget is just over $2 million, she said.

Although the agency begins recruiting for staff in January, May is the time it kicks into high gear with new staff orientation, she said. Migrant workers start arriving in the region as early as mid-May, when asparagus is ready for harvesting, and stay until the processing season ends in November. But there's an "added energy” in the summer, she said.

"It's crazy. When the migrant workers come into our community, there's a real influx of activity, not only at the clinic but other organizations within the community,” she said.

Summer also is a busy time for Northwestern Michigan Migrant Education, a consortium of 14 school districts that runs two migrant summer schools, said Jean Franco, the program's executive director.

In session from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., the Suttons Bay and Elk Rapids schools offer regular academics to children 3-22 whose parents left Texas or Florida or Mexico before the school year was done, Franco said. Many will stay in the region through September, October and November, enrolling in local schools, before returning again to their home-base state.

"These kids come with holes in their education because of their mobility,” said Franco, who has been with the program since 1963. "Their education is consistently interrupted.”

Besides working on regular objectives geared according to age development, bi-lingual and ESL teachers and aides work with the students' home-base schools to coordinate studies and credit transfer and are trained to give required standardized tests like the "TAAS” or Texas Assessment of Academic Skills, Franco said. Without the tests, students would not be able to go on to the next grade level or graduate. Older students can receive "home” or on-site instruction.

Last year the federally funded program served 386 students with about 30 staff, making it possible for alumni to become teachers, social workers, engineers and other professionals, Franco said.

"We can't change the world, but we can change one individual at a time so they have choices the way you and I have,” she said.

Migrant farmworkers have a "strenuous” lifestyle which includes moving their families from state to state at the drop of a hat to follow the crops, Williams said. Yet, "it's one of the most gracious populations I've ever worked with — and I've been in this business 30 years.”

Besides the contributions they make to the region's agriculture-driven economy, she said the workers bring a wealth of diversity to the area.

"With any influx of another culture into our community they bring with them a richness of art and music, a richness of food, a richness of culture and philosophy and all of those things that enrich us on a different level,” she said.