"Migrant labor camp"? I'm having trouble unraveling this - help please....

[d_r]

4. yeah

there are three main "alleys" of migrant farm labor, one from Florida up the east coast, one up the west coast with winters in California then up through Oregon and Washington in the summer, and one from winters in Texas up through summers in the midewest like Michigan and Wisconsin. This looks like the west coast. Basically, the farm workers are following the harvest times for the different crops that grow in different regions. When I say "farm" don't think like a 40-acre or even 200 acre family farm. Think like a big farm operation. The farm owner will have housing units that are a "camp" for the workers during the weeks they are working there. I've worked with migrant head start in Michigan but not for a program for teens. There would be migrant head start centers in one camp at a farm where the owner provided the space, but there might be kids coming from other camps, too. Honestly, I'm surprised teens 16-21 aren't working themselves. There is a migrant education program that tracks kids - the graduation rates among children of migrant farm working families is below 50% so I am guessing that this is a summer program to try to improve those graduation rates. What happens is that kids start out school - in the west coast, say in California, then the family leaves to follow the crops before school lets out in the spring and they end up not finishing a few weeks of school. I'm guessing this is to round out the school year.