29-04-2025
Amid federal turmoil, Hillsborough's Migrant Education Program soars
RIVERVIEW — As graduation season begins, Belzar Roblero-Pedro wanted people to know that his fellow graduates in Hillsborough County's Migrant Education Program were more than just an othered category.
They were 'fighters, dreamers and survivors,' he said.
Roblero-Pedro grew up between Florida, North Carolina and Michigan, with vivid memories of his parents regularly carrying pounds of strawberries, cucumbers, and blueberries in grueling temperatures. They wanted him and his siblings to be able to pursue their dreams, he said.
But at school, he said, he was met at times with racial slurs, snickers when his name was called or other students asking if his parents had 'hopped the border to be here.'
This month, the Armwood High School senior was one of 85 Hillsborough County students on track to graduate through the Migrant Education Program. For them, it's the end of a journey filled with added challenges that come with often moving between states several times within a school year.
'Not just across states,' Roblero-Pedro said, 'but across identities, and the dreams of our families and our own.'
The Office of Migrant Education, the federal office in the Department of Education that runs the Migrant Education Program, was created in the 1960s, around the time a documentary about migrant workers created public outcry about the living conditions of agricultural and fishing workerswho often make several moves a year.
Though the majority of participants in Florida's Migrant Education Program are Latino, in Hillsborough County, not all migrant students are immigrants, and the demographics of the program have shifted as the agricultural industry has shifted.
According to agricultural worker surveys by the U.S. Department of Labor, data from 1989 to 1993 shows that almost three in five agricultural workers were white, compared to less than a third from 2019 to 2022 period.
In Hillsborough County, the program serves more than 1,800 children aged 3 to 21 in schools. Its small staff of advocates seek out children of migrant workers, educating parents about their rights and responsibilities, bridging the gap between curriculum requirements in different states, offering tutoring services and sometimes helping address food insecurity. They often work nights and weekends, making home visits around work schedules.
With President Donald Trump setting a goal of dismantling the Department of Education, and specifically targeting Title I, Part A funding that supports low-income students, little has been said about Title I, Part C, the program's federal source of funding
Carol Mayo, who has supervised the program in Hillsborough County since 2013, said there is too much work to be done for the time being.
'I don't think anyone's really heard anything' about future funding, she said, though the program has seen less funding in recent years. 'We work really hard to make sure that (families) know school is the safest place for your child. It doesn't matter what's going on. That's always been the message.'
But on an evening earlier this month celebrating their largest graduating class in recent years, it was a moment to celebrate the students and recognize their families' sacrifices, as a mariachi band played the national anthem and tears flowed from parents and teachers.
Silvia Villegas said she was filled with pride to watch her daughter Jasmine graduate among the top of her class at Lennard High School.
Olga Perez, a teacher and migrant advocate for more than 20 years, worked with Villegas' older daughter, who was Lennard's valedictorian in 2007. It was a full-circle moment for her, too.
Perez said she hoped people thought about the invisible labor behind produce displays at grocery stores.
'There's a story behind those beautiful displays of vegetables, fruits,' she said. 'There's sweat, tears. Those kids have to go to schools in different districts. They have to leave people behind, leave friends behind. They have to follow the crops.'
Araseli Martinez Pena, founder of an education equity firm and a doctoral candidate at the University of South Florida, was a former Migrant Education Program graduate.
She told graduates they'd face challenges ahead.
'You will have many voices that tell you you cannot do what you dream of doing,' she said. 'You will have many voices that tell you you cannot dream at all.
'The only voice that's important is the one in your own head, because your worth, your value, is defined by who you are, and what you tell yourself you can do.'
