Hispanic / Latino Students

The College Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP) is a unique federally-funded educational support and scholarship program that helps more than 2,000 students annually from migrant and seasonal farmworking backgrounds to reach and succeed in college.  Participants receive financial assistance during their freshman year of college and ongoing academic support until their graduation.  View the list of the 35-40 currently funded colleges/universities.

The U.S. Departments of Education (ED) and Justice (DOJ) offers this online English Learner (EL) Tool Kit Resource to support states, districts and schools in meeting their legal obligations to ELs and ensuring access to quality education. Included in the tool kit are tools and resources for identifying ELs, delivering high quality EL programs, evaluating the effectiveness of EL programs, preventing unnecessary segregation, providing qualified staff, ensuring access to school programs and activities (including disability-related services), exiting ELs from EL programs at the appropriate time, monitoring students’ progress, and supporting limited English proficient parents. The EL Tool Kit is a companion to the English Learner Guidance released jointly by ED and DOJ in January, 2015.

This Department of Education web site features an idea book that chronicles the statistics supporting Hispanics students among the most educationally disadvantaged in America.  The idea book also introduces ESEA programs that work to serve Hispanic students such as: Title I of ESEA (including Part C – The Migrant Education program, the Bilingual Education Act (Title VII), the 21st Century Community Learning Center Program, and the CSRD program.

This 2009 NEA Today article announced, "In a groundbreaking alliance, the National Education Association (NEA), the nation’s largest professional organization representing 3.2 million educators and Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA), one of the nation’s leading youth organizations with more than 4,300 Clubs that serve 4.5 million young people announced plans to join together to advance dropout prevention efforts, promote high school graduation, and increase public engagement.   According to estimates, approximately one million students or 30 percent of the high school population drops out before graduation each year. Only five in 10 Black and Hispanic students graduate on time with a standard diploma and less than one-half of American Indian and Alaska Native youth complete high school."

This U.S. Department of Education website explores, the "My Brother's Keeper" (MBK) initiative which seeks to support the success of men and boys of color. The White House released a new MBK Task Force report to the President and invites people everywhere to volunteer as mentors.  Through this initiative, the Administration is joining with cities and towns, businesses, and foundations who are taking important steps to connect young people to mentoring, support networks, and the skills they need to find a good job or go to college and work their way into the middle class.

The U.S. Departments of Education (ED) and Justice (DOJ) today released joint guidance reminding states, school districts and schools of their obligations under federal law to ensure that English learner students have equal access to a high-quality education and the opportunity to achieve their full academic potential.  "Four decades ago, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Lau v. Nichols that all students deserve equal access to a high-quality education regardless of their language background or how well they know English," said ED Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine E. Lhamon. "Today's guidance not only reminds us of the court's ruling, but also provides useful information for schools as they work to ensure equity for students and families with limited English proficiency."

This Department of Education article discusses The White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics Initiative  and  offers a video entitled, “College: A Possible Dream.”  According the article, the Initiative, “works directly with stakeholders, linking together key individuals and organizations from across the country to increase awareness of educational inequalities that persist and communicate and share programs and resources available to the community. Initiative staff workers, alongside the Commission and a national network of community leaders, will provide real‐time input and advice on the development, implementation, and coordination of education policy and programs that impact the Hispanic community.”

The Initiative encourages stakeholders to develop partnerships in order to stimulate public, private, and nonprofit communities’ investments in the creation and/or expansion of quality education programming throughout the nation serving Hispanics. These high impact, long-term Commitments to Action will make a meaningful and quantifiable contribution to increase and support educational outcomes for Latinos cradle-to-career in the following critical areas: Early Learning, K-12 Education and College Access, College Completion, science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) Education, and Latino Teacher Recruitment.

“Latinos in Action” is an elective  high school course that will empower Latino students to graduate from high  school and matriculate into postsecondary education. The course focuses on  leadership, literacy and service. BCPS will start the pilot program at six high  schools:  Charles W. Flanagan, Cypress Bay, Everglades, Hollywood Hills,  McArthur and West Broward.  “The commitment from Broward County Public  Schools to invest in advancing educational achievement and building leadership  among its Hispanic students is an example of how our nation can ensure a  prosperous future not just for the Latino community, but the entire nation, for  the next 25 years.”