Migrant Education Program

Mission
To help migrant children and youth meet high academic challenges by overcoming the obstacles created by frequent moves, educational disruption, cultural and language differences, and health-related problems.

Goal
Ensure that all migrant students reach challenging academic standards and graduate with a high school diploma (or complete a HSED) that prepares them for responsible citizenship, further learning, and productive employment.

Program Description
Funds support high-quality education programs for migratory children and help ensure that migratory children who move among the states are not penalized in any manner by disparities among states in curriculum, graduation requirements, or state academic content and student academic achievement standards. Funds also ensure that migratory children not only are provided with appropriate education services (including supportive services) that address their special needs but also that such children receive full and appropriate opportunities to meet the same challenging state academic content and student academic achievement standards that all children are expected to meet. 

States use program funds to identify eligible children and provide education and support services. These services include academic instruction; remedial and compensatory instruction; bilingual and multicultural instruction; vocational instruction; career education services; special guidance; counseling and testing services; health services; and preschool services among other services depending on the needs identified.

Child Eligibility

Please read the eligibility criteria below, and click on the following link if you'd like to refer a child to our program: https://idrreferrals.net/index.php. You may also email or call a staff member from the Program to refer a child. 

According to the regulations, a child is a “migratory child” and is eligible for MEP services if all the following conditions are met:

• The child is not older than 21 years of age; and
• The child is entitled to a free public education (through grade 12) under State law or who are below the age of compulsory school attendance; and
• The child is a migratory agricultural worker or a migratory fisher, or the child has a parent, spouse, or guardian who is a migratory agricultural worker or a migratory fisher; and
• The child moved within the preceding 36 months in order to seek or obtain qualifying work, or to accompany or join the migratory agricultural worker or migratory fisher identified in paragraph 3, above, in order to seek or obtain qualifying work; and
• With regard to the move identified in paragraph 4, above, the child:
• Has moved from one school district to another; or
• In a State that is comprised of a single school district, has moved from one administrative area to another within such district; or
• Resides in a school district of more than 15,000 square miles and migrates a distance of 20 miles or more to a temporary residence to engage in or to accompany or join a parent, spouse, or guardian who engages in a fishing activity.  (This provision currently applies only to Alaska.)
• “Agricultural work” is the production or initial processing of crops, dairy products, poultry, or livestock; as well as the cultivation or harvesting of trees. The Department considers agricultural production to mean work on farms, ranches, dairies, orchards, nurseries, and greenhouses engaged in the growing and harvesting of crops, plants, or vines and the keeping, grazing, or feeding of livestock or livestock products for sale.  The term also includes, among other things, the production of bulbs, flower seeds, vegetable seeds, and specialty operations such as sod farms, mushroom cellars, and cranberry bogs