May 2004 — Web/Net
Print this article | Email this articleClick here to receive your FREE subscription to T.H.E. Journal
Special Education Migrant Students and the Need for a National Migrant Student Tracking Database
It is obvious from the length of time that it takes for a cumulative folder to be received from a school that precious time is being wasted. These migrant special education students are not receiving equal access. This lack of communication between schools complicates the process for not only regular migrant students, but for our special education migrant students as well.A need for a federal-tracking database has been previously identified and implemented; however, it has now been phased out because of new laws. The previous program was called the Migrant Student Record Transfer System (MSRTS). The Record Transfer Committee began with the belief that migrant students were not experiencing a continuity of care in their education. Janis K. Lunon (1986) discusses the historical background of the need for this records database: In 1968, "representatives from 37 states held a conference to discuss this lack of continuity and other problems, including the transfer of educational information about migrant children from one state to another and one teacher to another." She indicates that "educational discontinuity is a problem that often is intensified by the presence of emotional and physical problems." Therefore, if a child was suspected of having a learning disability under MSRTS, then that student's health and learning disabilities would be transferred from school to school along with the student.
The merits of such a program can be enumerated with a long list of positive results. For instance, children would no longer have to be re-evaluated from the beginning. In other words, the wheel would not have to be reinvented each time a child entered a new school. If a child had an IEP at one school, then the IEP could follow the student without the usual three- to five-month delay of the cumulative file arriving at the new school.
'The Passport to the Future'
According to the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO), for "more than 30 years [the Migrant Education Program and the Department of Health and Human Services] have served millions of migrant children. In 1998, about 660,000 children received services from MEP and MHS" (GAO 1999). As of 1999, these two government offices have had no way to coordinate their services. There is a "need to transfer key information in a timely way as students move around the country" (GAO 1999). Because of this lack of record management, the GAO has stated that "students may experience inappropriate classroom placements or delays in receiving services, repeat immunizations, or fail to complete high school graduation requirements" (1999).
While some states and counties are trying to correct the problem, there is currently no federal management. For example, Ana Leon is a migrant student program director for Region 8 in California, which presently covers Tulare and Kings Counties. According to her records, there are currently about 17,224 students who are served by the Migrant Department of Education. We are significantly risking the futures of thousands of children in one of California's 23 regions. Leon indicates that the Tulare County Regional Migrant Office is working on a coordination of records-keeping with Washington state, but the coordination of two states is still not even equal to the results that could be seen in the coordination of services between all 50 states.
