After graduating from high school, Filiberto Gorosquieta was working for his cousin’s company, hauling tents to outdoor parties. College wasn’t on the radar. But then he took a job assisting after-school programs at a local charter school in Immokalee, Fla. Something clicked.
Now Gorosquieta is a teacher’s assistant at Immokalee Community School, working mostly with students in fifth grade – a grade in which he says he once struggled academically. And he’s taking classes at nearby Florida SouthWestern State College, with the goal of becoming a teacher himself.
Gorosquieta, who grew up in this farm community on the western edge of the Everglades, said he saw reflections of his own academic ups and downs in the students. Nearly 40 percent of them are children of migrant workers. Others have parents who work long hours in packing plants, or driving trucks, or commuting to nurseries and landscaping businesses. He recognized they needed not only a teacher, but a mentor who could relate.
“These kids make me who I am now,” he said. “I wanted to give them the help that I didn’t have.”
Gorosquieta isn’t the only one who has felt the school’s gravitational pull. What started out as an extension of an early childhood program for farmworkers is now earning academic accolades, winning praise from other charter school operators and drawing passionate young teachers from near and far.
“You can just tell that it’s more than a job … people invest a lot more than time here,” said Adam Tweet, who moved last year from Minnesota to take a job teaching third grade. “We think people are called to work here.”
Gorosquieta said the culture of the school is shaped by the community where he grew up. Parents, in many cases, cannot read English. They don’t always have time to help their children with school work. But they enroll their children each fall, often at a financial price. And they instill in them the powerful idea that has fueled immigrants for generations – that education is the key to a better life.
“They get that push from home, from the parents,” he said. “They want their kids to do better for themselves.”
Immokalee Community School is one of three in Florida run by the Redlands Migrant Christian Association, a nonprofit devoted to uplifting farmworkers and their families. It is one of Florida’s largest childcare providers, operating more than 75 centers from High Springs near Gainesville to Homestead south of Miami.
Barbara Mainster, its executive director, said RCMA opened its charter schools – the one in Immokalee, and two in eastern Hillsborough County near Tampa – after seeing its young children prepare to enter school and “not wanting to let go of them.” Now students can stay in the network through middle school.
Mainster says she starts receiving text messages over the summer from migrant parents who want to ensure their kids have a spot. The main planting and picking seasons in Immokalee run from October through May, so if parents want to arrive in time for the start of the school year, they must forgo potential work farther north.
Not every migrant family moves around every year, but the school makes arrangements to ensure stability for those who do. Migrant children get priority in the school’s admissions, in case there’s a waiting list. The school also serves students three meals a day, and after-school programs run until 5:30 p.m. – measures designed to accommodate students whose parents may be out in the fields before sunrise, or working late into the evening.
Its status as a charter school, run by a nonprofit, has helped the school seek funding from charities like the United Way and the Naples Children and Education Foundation, which help underwrite its after-school programs.
Maria Jimenez helped start the RCMA charter but now works for the foundation in Naples. She said extending the school day has helped improve student achievement. “We see the information that tells us that children are making academic gains and that they are well-rounded,” she said.
The school’s philosophy can be seen on the walls of its classrooms, which spell out expectations teachers and students set for each other. Reads one message: “We will not be fake readers.”
Starting in kindergarten, the students meet with their teachers to discuss learning goals, such as recognizing every letter in the alphabet. Then they meet periodically from that point to gauge progress. Parents are notified with handouts in English and, if necessary, in Spanish.
Sixth-grade teacher Amanda Schoedel said this practice continues in the higher grades, part of a concerted effort to give students a “sense of ownership” over what happens in their classrooms. “It’s very intentional,” she said.
Many of the students’ goals emphasize literacy. Nearly a third of the 246 students are classified as English language learners, and nearly a third grew up speaking a language other than English or Spanish, such as indigenous languages from Central America, said Juana Brown, RCMA’s charter schools director.
Yet Brown eschews what she calls a “deficit model” of language instruction. Rather than treat English language learners as having a deficit, why not turn their multi-lingual backgrounds into an asset? “It’s an incredible thing to see a five- or six-year-old translating for their mother,” she said. “It’s a high-level cognitive function.”
This year, the school started rolling out an English-Spanish immersion program at its elementary schools. It is intended to cultivate literacy in Spanish, while helping students learn English. Brown said the goal is that by the time they leave sixth grade, they’ll be fluent in both languages, giving them a leg up in an increasingly bilingual state.
The school has found other ways to turn students’ backgrounds to their benefit. In 2012, when students around the country were reaching out to their peers at Sandy Hook Elementary in the wake of a horrific shooting, RCMA’s Immokalee students became their pen pals. The pairing worked because the students could relay unfamiliar experiences to their counterparts in Connecticut – like taking part in the winter strawberry harvest.
Last year, the cultural cachet of RCMA’s charter schools was matched by their academic results. Its schools in east Hillsborough both jumped multiple letter grades to earn A’s. The Immokalee school rose from a C to a B.
The progress is getting notice. During a frank discussion about charter policy at a recent conference in Orlando, charter advocates talked about the need to promote success stories at their schools. Richard Moreno of Building Hope, which helps finance charter schools around the country, suggested people look at RCMA’s network.
“Here’s a school that’s working in a very low-income community,” he said, “and it’s getting amazing results.”
