It was 9:00 a.m. on a Saturday and the heat was already setting in. Four large trailers were parked outside of San Marcos’ Woodland Park Middle School’s gym, a nearby generator humming.
Inside of the trailers and the gym were dozens of dental students and professors from the University of Southern California’s Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry. Some were performing exams and tooth cleaning, while others prepared for everything from fillings to root canals.
The families and young people receiving this free dental care weren’t a random assortment. Ninety percent of them were enrolled in the San Diego County Office of Education’s Migrant Education program.
The program serves children and young people from age 3 to 21 throughout San Diego County and Orange County. To qualify, families or young people must work in agricultural, fishing or lumber industries.
They also must have moved at some point during the past three years in pursuit of employment. Those moves can be from state to state, county to county or just to another school district.
As it stands, the program serves about 4,000 students and young people across 56 districts in the two counties. Those the program serves often work on the farms that dot North County, moving to follow the harvesting season of flowers or avocadoes for example.
The program is not unique to San Diego County – there are nearly two dozen regional or school district-administered programs across the state. In fact, the program is federally funded and exist in all 50 U.S. states.
Their roots date back nearly 60 years to President Lyndon B. Johson’s “War on Poverty.” As part of his sweeping “Great Society,” domestic affairs platform that aimed to “end poverty and racial injustice,” Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Among many other provisions, the bill provided additional funding to schools with high numbers of disadvantaged students and allowed for specialized services for children of migrant workers.
For the families San Diego County’s Migrant Education Program works with, its services are vital. Though the jobs are necessary, they can create a high degree of instability, especially for children. The jobs are also generally low paying, meaning many families the program serves struggle to make ends meet.
Saturday’s event focused on providing the children of those families with much-needed dental care. About 100 people had signed up, and staff ferried them to and from the gym from all around the county in Office of Education vehicles. That meant that Migrant Education Program Senior Director Elisa Ayala, who did some of the ferrying, didn’t get home until 9:00 p.m. the previous night.
The dental work provided is also comprehensive. Over the nearly a week the USC students and professors are in town, every need of those who signed up will be met. If that means 14 filings and eight root canals, so be it, Ayala said.
“This is really lifechanging. Many of our students say, ‘this is the first time I’ve been to the dentist,’” Ayala said. “It’s not neglect from our families. Sometimes they have to make the decision of whether to pay for a filling or spend that money to put food on the table.”
But dental care is only a small part of what the program provides, Ayala explained. The program also provides tutoring after school, puts on events to teach parents how best to get involved in their children’s education, gives students college guidance, connects students to other resources like food banks and even hosts vaccine clinics. All the program’s services are provided outside school hours.
They do work with schools to spread word of the program to students who may be eligible, however. And they sometimes partner with them on events like the dental clinic.
The goal is simple: even the playing field for migrant students.
“We want to provide our students with the same opportunities as every other child who’s not moving significantly, maybe not experiencing poverty, so that when they graduate, they have the option to choose whatever they would like to do,” Ayala said.
That may mean attending a four-year university, enrolling in a vocational school or even getting right into the workforce.
For the daughter of Javier Soza, who for years worked on avocado farms before he saved up enough to start his own car detailing business, the dream is to become a law enforcement officer specializing in narcotics. Soza’s family followed a familiar pattern, moving over the years from Fallbrook to Vista to San Marcos following jobs.
This also isn’t his first time interacting with the Migrant Education program. Soza attended a parent conference and said he valued learning how to better support his children’s social-emotional and mental health needs.
For Maria Ramos’ youngest child, the dream is to be an astronaut. She was another parent at Saturday’s event who’s worked at commercial flower nurseries and avocado farms for years.
Ramos has long been nervous about speaking in front of people, she said. Participating in Migrant Education events has started to change that, though. Little by little, she’s gained confidence and felt more able to represent families and teach others what she’s learned. She and her husband have even both served on the program’s parent advisory council.
But beyond self-empowerment, she’s also found that there are opportunities for her children to grow and learn in ways she never knew existed.
“I learned that children have many opportunities to study and grow and if they are good students and get good grades they can even study for free,” Ramos said.
All of this, she hopes, can help empower her children to find their own way.
“I really just want them to be happy, but I’d love for them to be a doctor or a dentist,” Ramos said with a laugh.
This sort of family empowerment is another cornerstone of the Migrant Education program. Research has long shown that students are more successful when their families are invested in their education. But, for a variety of reasons, that can be difficult for migrant families. Not least of which is because many of them didn’t attend school in the U.S. So, the program helps teach parents about the American school system and equips them with strategies to teach other parents in their communities.
Ultimately, Ayala, the program’s director, hopes their work can help lead to multi-generational change.
“If we help one student and they graduate from high school, and they go to college, and they become an architect or whatever, we know that their children are more likely to be successful,” she said.
“That’s really our goal – to help these families and surround them with as many services as possible so that this isn’t just a one-time thing. It’s a transformation.”
Once again, another cost of the reckless behavior of Sac Politicians that will be imposed on the tax paying residents of California. This is a road to disaster.