Educators Having Eyes Opened By MSIS Training

By Editor Ken Harvey

Information is power, but educators around the state are only slowly comprehending the power of the statewide Migrant Student Information System (MSIS).

The Washington State Migrant Student Data and Recruitment (MSDR) Office, which created the Internet-accessible database, strives to keep MSIS up to date with academic and health information for 32,000 migrant students around the state so educators can quickly look after the needs of migrant students when they move from one school district to another.

Bengie Aguilar, data management specialist/trainer for MSDR, has "opened the eyes" of about 200 educators over the past 18 months to help them see just how the information can help them do their work.

The most important information is assessment data that helps counselors place new migrant students, along with "secondary data," such as unresolved coursework and partial credit data, says Ms. Aguilar.

"When a student gets there in the middle of the school year, the counselors otherwise place the student in a classroom based on what the student is telling them. But if they know he's a migrant student, all they have to do is open up MSIS, and the data is right at their fingertips. It's a really important tool.

"Migrant student lists in the system are also valuable to educators," she says. "Many times educators are not even aware which students in their classrooms are migrant students.

"We have an 'On Course To Graduate' report based on age to show which students are one year behind, which ones are two years behind," Ms. Aguilar continues. "When we have teachers in the trainings, I always show that report.

"They frequently are not even aware that some of the students they're working with are two years behind. Then suddenly they can focus more on that particular student to help him be successful. It changes the way they work with students," Ms. Aguilar says.

"They can see where the student is in their graduation goal, what additional credits they need, and what classes they have taken already," she says.

Lisa Schlenker, coordinator of MSDR's data management services, says the system also helps school officials "see families' mobility pattern -- when they move out and when they come back."

Migration patterns can be important, Ms. Aguilar agrees. "If educators know a student attends their school in the fall but migrates to Mt. Vernon every spring, the counselor can talk to the student and look at the Mt. Vernon graduation requirements, because that's probably where the student will graduate."

Meanwhile, MSIS provides school health professionals with information about migrant students' immunizations and physical exams, and if there are any medical alerts teachers need to be aware of.

"There are awesome reports on MSIS that give a lot of important information," Ms. Aguilar says.

Despite the obvious value, however, most educators still do not yet know this information is available.

"I got a call from a counselor wanting information about a migrant student," recounts MSDR Director Lee Campos. "The counselor said, 'I've been working with this other school district and been waiting for about a year for them to send me information, and they haven't given it to me yet. Can you help me?'

"We had the data. But what stunned me was that those schools were just 18 miles apart," Mr. Campos says. Without accessing MSIS, they couldn't even get the information just 18 miles between those two districts.

"By having this information easily available on MSIS, it is helping a lot of schools in placing their students and making sure they are getting in the appropriate classes a lot quicker," Mr. Campos says.

While MSDR has spent 18 months training principals, counselors, teachers, and building coordinators -- "showing them the wealth of information available on our system, a lot of them are still unaware that our system even exists," says Ms. Schlenker.

So far Mr. Campos' staff has provided training to fewer than 20 of the 86 project school districts around the state that receive migrant funding.

And even school districts that have received some training have many more teachers, counselors and administrators still unaware of how powerful this tool is.

Even in one nearby school district that had received previous trainings, Ms. Aguilar found five counselors this year who did not have passwords to MSIS.

"It was a real eye-opener for them," she says. "They knew it was there, and they had people 'taking care of it,' but now that they have access to it, they're all excited."

"So we're just getting started," Mr. Campos says. "And we hope to canvass the entire state."

Ms. Aguilar shares her information at conferences and workshops for teachers, counselors and administrators, but getting educators to schedule district trainings is still not an easy thing to accomplish.

"Because they are very, very busy people, it is difficult for educators to make the time. But once they get it, then it's like, 'Whoa!'" Ms. Aguilar says.

"Before the training they're thinking, 'Oh, do I really need this training?' Or they'll say, 'Oh, that's for the migrant folks,'" says Ms. Aguilar. "But once I can show them some of the reports, they realize, 'Wait a minute. That's not just for migrant people. We would like our teachers to know this, we would like our principals to be aware of this.' So it opens up their eyes."

Ms. Aguilar has seen this happen time after time.

"We sometimes nearly force them to go to the training. But once they go, they realize how awesome the MSIS is and how helpful it will be to them. It will make their job so much easier," she says.

To gather and input all the required data, the state's Migrant Education Program funds migrant records clerks in each participating district. Sometimes it can be a thankless job - misunderstood by others on the school staff.

"The training helps the school staff understand the key role of the records clerk and how valuable the information that she's collecting is," Ms. Schlenker says.

"There are sometimes really obvious communication breakdowns. The records clerk is really struggling to get the information," Ms. Aguilar agrees. "But the training makes a huge difference. We get reports how much easier it is because others went to the training and now understand."

She recalls one recent case where an administrator had been giving the records clerk a hard time. But after the training, says Ms. Aguilar, the administrator "was so excited about the MSIS, the principal walked in and he grabbed him and sat him down and said, 'I need to show you this. You need to know this is here.' He asked if we had extra packets we could leave, and he became a total advocate of MSIS.

"The records clerk was just ecstatic because now this administrator has become her biggest supporter. It was a whole paradigm shift," says Ms. Aguilar.

Jim Briggs, the Walla Walla School District registrar, admits he wasn't aware of MSIS at all before Bengie's recent training. "It's going to be real helpful," he says.

"The MSRS training provided to the Sunnyside High School counseling staff was quite beneficial," adds Kriste Hildahl. "This was a system that many of us had no prior knowledge of whatsoever. We found it easy to navigate and understand.

"Our trainer, Bengie Aguilar, was able to adapt the training to meet our needs," Ms. Hildahl says. "We even laughed a lot during the training. That's unusual for a training!"

MSDR has been developing and refining MSIS for 10 years. "We have three people on our technology staff working on MSIS, trying to find different ways to enhance it and make it better. There are not very many organizations with that kind of expertise available," says Ms. Aguilar.

This has made the Washington system the model program in the United States. The staff demonstrated its system at the annual migrant education conference last spring, and other states are contracting to take advantage of MSDR's expertise. It has become obvious how important such information is.

"That's the whole reason why they're trying to create a national system now because they want to improve the method being used by many states. Indeed, many states don't have anything," says Mr. Campos.

Ms. Aguilar says such information does need to be shared beyond our state's borders.

"We all have to work as a team to help these students be successful," she says. It isn't just the migrant staff needed to help the migrant students be successful. It has to be the whole team, including educators in Texas and across the country.

Ms. Aguilar receives high praise for her efforts to spread the word about MSIS.

"She's a people person and presents herself very well. She can communicate very well with administrators. And I think her love for migrant students is a real key for her because she's so familiar with that," says Ms. Schlenker.

"She's a true migrant advocate," agrees Mr. Campos. "She knows the needs of the students because she lived those needs. And when she comes across personnel who do not understand and, in some cases, don't want to understand, she can talk to them on a person-to-person level in a way that lowers their anxieties. She's very polished."

Ms. Aguilar has been very involved in the Sunnyside community for many years, participating in various boards and committees. She is currently the only woman on the Sunnyside City Council.

"When I go out and work with federal program directors, superintendents and principals, titles don't get in the way for me," she says.

She also agrees that having a migrant background is important.

"I'm real familiar with the struggle of the migrant student. Now that I get a chance to help the migrant student be successful, I'm really proud of that. It's really awesome to be able to give back in that way," she says.

The MSDR officials encourage school districts throughout the state to call them to set up MSIS trainings. Only in that way can the districts' educators put the power of MSIS to work for their migrant students.

Districts should contact Ms. Schlenker or Ms. Aguilar at 1-800-274-6084 or at (509) 837-2712, or by emailing them at lschlenker@msdr.org or baguilar@msdr.org, respectively.