Model Program

The Migrant Education Advisor Program (MEAP) is a collaborative advising program in its thirteenth year of existence, between the Office of Migrant Education, the Masters in Counseling Program at Sonoma State University, and participating school districts. MEAP was modeled after a similar program which has enjoyed great success and longevity (over 40 years), the Mini-Corps Program, which focuses on preparing future bilingual teachers from a pool of migrant and former migrant college students. MEAP was developed in response to three specific needs: 1) The need to provide academic advisement and support services to middle and high school migrant students in order to help them to experience educational success and ensure that they graduate from high school, 2) the need to identify cost effective strategies and programs for providing these types of services, and 3) the need to increase the pool of potential bilingual/bicultural school counseling candidates, former migrant or not.

Program Descriptors Include:
Academic Improvement, Attendance/Truancy, Behavior Management/Discipline, Bi-lingual/ESL, Bullying/Violence, Career Education, Community Collaboration, Counseling/Advisories/Coaches, Credit Recovery, Extended-School/Summer Program, Extra Curricular, Family/Parental Involvement, GED, Mentoring/Tutoring, Middle/Early College, Service Learning, Study Skills, Life Skills Training

Strategies for Locating Students:
Unspecified

Starting Date: 1996
Students Served Per Year: 500+
Reenrolled Students with Disabilities: N/A
Last Verified: 2009

Program addresses the following:

Individual factors

• Has a learning disability or emotional disturbance
• High number of work hours
• Parenthood
• High-risk peer group
• High-risk social behavior
• Low achievement
• Retention/overage for grade
• Poor attendance
• Low educational expectations
• Lack of effort
• Low commitment to school
• No extracurricular participation
• Misbehavior
• Early aggression

Family factors

• Low socioeconomic status
• High family mobility
• Low education level of parents
• Large number of siblings
• Not living with both natural parents
• Family disruption
• Low educational expectations
• Sibling(s) has dropped out
• Low contact with school
• Lack of conversations about school

School factors

• Limited resources: expenditures per student/ teacher salaries/ student-teacher ratios
• Race/ethnicity
• School policies and practices
• Student engagement
• Teacher expectations

Community factors

• Family composition/socioeconomic status
• Local labor market/neighborhood stability
• Youth social attitudes

Program promotes the following:

Relationships

• Presence and involvement of caring, supportive adults
• Opportunities and rewards for pro-social involvement
• Clear social norms
• Good relationships with parents, peers, and teachers
• Involvement with positive peer activities
• Perception of support from adults and peers

Independence

• Healthy/conventional beliefs and standards
• Positive/resilient temperament

Competence

• Social competencies
• Self efficacy

Creativity

• Problem-solving skills
• Flexibility

Optimism

• High expectations by community, family, school, and self
• Optimistic

The following presents a summary of findings of the 2006/2007 MEAP Evaluation: Approximately 1200 middle school and high school students at 20 schools received services through the Migrant Education Advisor Program (MEAP) during the 06/07 academic year. Sixty-two percent of MEAP participants (38/61) graduated from high school during the 06-07 academic year. Of these 38 graduates, 32 (84%) enrolled in college for the Fall 2007 semester; 14 enrolled in junior colleges. This is a 73% increase in college attendance rate compared to 2005-2006. MEAP participants maintained levels of school bonding with 54% of students reporting an increase in bonding over the course of the 2006-07 academic year. Based on the overall evaluation, the MEAP program appears to be an effective method of providing support services to migrant students in the school environment and promoting academic success and advancement to higher education while effectively reducing the drop-out rate among students served.

How evaluation data was collected:
Data collected and analyzed at state or organizational level