Continuous Improvement Increases Child Counts and Reshapes the Meaning of Teamwork

WestEd’s Migrant Education Services team provides technical assistance and support to the California Department of Education (CDE) to cultivate the highest quality identification and recruitment (I&R) practices across the state for the Migrant Education Program.

The goal of the MEP is to ensure that all migratory children and youth reach challenging academic standards and graduate with a high school diploma (or complete a High School Equivalency Diploma) that prepares them for responsible citizenship, further learning, and productive employment.

About the Brief

To determine if a child is eligible for the Migrant Education Program (MEP), a recruiter conducts an interview and asks a series of questions. One primary recruitment challenge is finding potential eligible families to interview. Recruiters often rely on referrals from school personnel to build their list of potential families to contact.

This is the sixth of six publications in the Professional Learning Network (PLN) profiles series. This brief describes work accomplished by the San Joaquin County Office of Education Migrant Program, an MEP subgrantee in California known as Region 23.

Region 23 took part in a PLN in which participants used a continuous improvement process to increase the number of referrals generated by all MEP staff, increasing the possibility of more children qualified.

Further Reading

Read other profiles in the PLN series:

• Identifying Students Closer to Their Qualifying Move Date by Utilizing an Interactive Enrollee Form
• Layered Training to Harness the Power of the Subsequent Qualifying Move
• Maximizing Child Counts: A Collaborative Approach
• Using the Professional Learning Network to Develop Leading Practices for Identification and Recruitment in California
• Using Data to Revise a Change in Practice