A group of K-through-8th-grade students in Ventura County is singing a familiar song: If You're Happy And You Know It.
The words are in both English and Spanish, as they sing along.
The children of migrant farm workers were led in song by Areli Lopez, a teacher from Jalisco, Mexico. She’s one of four teachers visiting the county from Mexico to provide academic assistance, arts enrichment and supplemental support services to these students at three Ventura County elementary schools.
"My main purpose is to share my culture with the students," said Lopez.
"I have made some memory games about vocabulary, Mexican vocabulary, and difficult words. And also I have made some masks and flags, and I have taught my students the meaning of the colors of the flag. Also, they've made this wall of masks about the Día de Muertos. This is related to culture. We have this celebration, this tradition in Mexico. So they have the opportunity to learn about this," said Lopez.
The program is a collaboration between the Ventura County Office of Education, the California Department of Education, and the Mexican government's education agency to help ensure educational barriers are reduced for underserved families.
"Migrant Education is a federally funded program, and students who are identified to participate in the program, their families have to meet certain criteria, so they are working in agriculture or in fishing or in lumber or in nurseries, and they have made a move within the past three years that might provide a gap in education for their students," explained Mike Winters, the Director of Student Services at Ventura County Office of Education.
"Our program offers supplemental academic support in English language arts, math, and English language development," added Winters.
The curriculum focuses on more than standard academics, and includes teaching Mexican language, history, and traditions.
"Our bi-national program is a special program. We're working with seven school districts of Ventura County for our migrant ed summer school program. And then three of those districts, we have our bi-national programs. We have four guest teachers who we've brought over. They're all credentialed teachers from Mexico. They are offering our students also academic support, but also cultural enrichment through art, music, dance, and just really doing some great fun projects with the kids," said Winters.
The students have created a brightly decorated bull’s head from colorful tissue paper and a cardboard box, as part of learning about a traditional Mexican festivity where the bull charges at onlookers, and are delighting in playfully charging at each other.
It's just one example of how the three-week summer program blends academics with cultural enrichment for children of migrant agricultural workers in Ventura County.
