"that payments will be used for programs and projects The states moved expeditiously to fulfill your mandate. Following a a student's academic and health records were to be received by the schools. This automated system has now been in operation for a total of seven years fulfilling the requirement and meeting its objective in transmitting student's academic and health data. MIGRANT STUDENT RECORD TRANSFER SYSTEM-GENERAL The MSRTS was the first massive interstate cooperative effort instituted with P.L. 89-750 funds. More recently P.L. 93-380 provided that migrant children of migratory agriculture and migratory fishermen should be deemed to continue to be a migrant child for a period not in excess of five-years during which he resides in the area served by the agency carrying on a project. This expansion provides some 15,000 schools and thousands of users of the System a cohesive structure within which they may cooperatively devise and implement programs of education and health care for some 520,105 migrant students as of September 21, 1977. The System became a defined concept in 1968, a project in 1969, an operational instrument in 1970, and a national reality in 1971. As a concept, this system is unprecedented; as a working success, it is unprecedented. The MSRTS interacts with its nationwide educational and health services environment in a healthy manner; for, it both shapes and in turn is shaped by that environment. The System assists administrators, counselors, aides, clerks, teachers, nurses, and medical doctors in a new dimension of migrant education--and hence, it helps them uncover new informational needs to support the decision making processes so necessary to the new dimension. These discoveries in turn require the System to be responsibly responsive to its users and insure that the newly emerging needs are met. There are three basic communication elements in MSRTS: (1) the school, (2) the teletypewriter terminal, and (3) the computer. The school initiates all information that goes into the student's academic and health records and the school requests certain actions to be performed on a student's record such as enrollment date, skills attained or mastered, health problems such as chronic and urgent conditions, inoculations, withdrawal date, date of graduation, and date of death. The school may also request that a student's record be terminated. The computer accepts data and requests from the terminal then processes, stores, and disseminates information according to these requests. MSRTS offers rapid turn around service to schools. This rapid service reduces the loss of time in planning health and academic programs for migrant children. Two basic reports are provided a school upon the enrollment of a migrant student. The first report is returned to the terminal that serves the requesting school in a matter of a few hours. This report is called the 98-491 0785 Critical Data Report which contains the following information from The Critical Data responses are sent immediately to the terminals that serve the requesting school(s) so it is possible for the schools to have the benefit of the Critical Data within a few hours of enrollment on a given student. This reduces very significantly the evaluation time required prior to program planning. On the day following the receipt of a request against a student's data base record, up-to-date migrant student health and academic records are mailed to the school that initiated the action. This allows the responsible school and student to check the validity of the actual update on each record. The cumulative record generally arrives at the requesting school within two to three days. A postal card survey is conducted periodically on all records mailed on a given day, and it has been found that in most cases, the Transfer Records and Medical Records were delivered at their destinations on the second and third days of the postmark and in a few cases, the first day. This reduction in time in the transferal of student data from school to school adds numerous days to the productivity of each migrant student. Heretofore, the time lapse between a school requesting and receiving a student record from a previous school was several weeks, and in most cases, was never received. This means the record was never available for the teacher when the child enrolled in his new school. This tended to create a "why should I try" attitude among school people. Knowing the student would, in many cases, be in a given school for only a few days or a few weeks at the most, it was easy to rationalize "there's no use in requesting a record. The student will most likely be gone before it arrives, so I'll let him bide his time with some activity (maybe crayons and paper) while he is here." MSRTS is changing that attitude by providing pertinent data on a rapid basis which in turn results in more attention being given by the professional school staff to health and educational program development. Better programs and more attention given to the students' needs will tend to develop more holding power for schools. The greater the holding power, the better the education of participating migrant children. As recently as three years ago, the MSRTS staff heard very little concern expressed by the states for any accommodation in MSRTS for high school credit. Now it has become important for MSRTS to serve the total migrant population from early childhood to post-secondary. Too, it has been noted that a large number of our students in the data base have reached the age and are presently participating in high school courses. It is believed that this represents a significant short-term increase in the number of high school aged students staying in school. With the Credit Accrual Section of the Transfer Record, the System has seen 5,242 students graduate from high school. This number represents the time period of February, 1976 until September 20, 1977. We can no longer look at the migrant program as an elementary school age program. In addition to the speed capability of MSRTS, another important feature is flexibility for change. The records have undergone several changes since the inception to assure maximum data utilization at the school level. The records are presently undergoing some changes as dictated by those who work directly with the migrant children in the country. The changes being implemented will allow teachers to establish a complete profile on these children in the academic areas of math, reading, early childhood, and oral language skills. 6. Special interests and abilities 7. Health which includes screening exams for physical, dental, visual, auditory, and TB; treatment record, urgent conditions, inoculations, and chronic conditions. The MSRTS is operated by the Arkansas Department of Education under the direction of Mr. Winford Miller. The System is financed through a cost reimbursable contract between the U.S. Office of Education and the Arkansas Department of Education. The System is financed with Migrant Program funds disbursed from the U.S. Office of Education. SERVICES OF MSRTS The Arkansas Department of Education serves as the central headquarters of MSRTS. From the offices located in Little Rock, Arkansas, the MSRTS staff performs the following services: 1. Yearly contract proposal development, negotiation, and execution. |