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Except for a few limited exceptions, yes. (See the instructions for completing the COE at http://www2.ed.gov/programs/mep/legislation.html for more information about these exceptions.) By signing the national COE, the interviewee confirms that the information he or she provided is accurate and identifies who provided the information so that the SEA can verify information contained on the COE at a later date, if necessary.
H9. Must the interviewee sign the national COE?
For purposes of this chapter, we use the term "qualifying work" as shorthand for temporary or seasonal employment or personal subsistence in agricurlture or fishing. Under 34 C.F.R 200.81 (n)......
C3. What is "qualifying work"?
The Department considers a crop to be a plan that is harvested for use by people or by livestock.
F3. What is a crop?
Work such as cooking; baking; curing; fermenting; dehydrating; breading; marinating; and mixing of ingredients involves transforming a raw product into a more refined product. Therefore, the Department does not consider this work to be production or initial processing. In addition, the Department does not consider the following work to be production or processing: placing labels on boxes of refined products; selling an agricultural or fishing product...
F25. What work is not considered production or initial processing?
Yes. Every child who the SEA determines is eligible for the MEP must have the basis for his or her eligibility recorded on the national COE. Children within the same family may be recorded on one COE so long as all of the children have the same eligibility information.
H7. Must each SEA maintain a COE on all children eligible for the MEP?
The accuracy of a State's eligibility determinations is important both for programmatic decisions regarding which children are eligible to receive MEP services and for fiscal decisions about the size of the State's MEP allocation.
A11. Why is the accuracy of eligibility determinations important?
In situations where the child and worker do not move a the same time, the Department considers the QAD to be the day that the child and worker complete the move to be together. That is, if the child's move precedes the worker's move, the QAD is the date that the worker arrived. If the child's move follows the worker's move, the QAD is the date the child arrived.
E3. What is the QAD when a child moves before or after the worker?
As used in the definitions of agricultural work and fishing work in 34 C.F.R. 200.81(a) and (c), and as defined in 34 C.F.R. 200.81(m), "personal subsistence" means that the worker and the worker's family, as a matter of economic necessity, consume, as a substantial portion of their food intake, the crops, dairy products, or livestock they produce or the fish they catch.
F28. What does "personal subsistence" mean?
Yes. The Department considers the term "plants" to include decorative greens or ferns grown for the purpose of floral arrangements, wreaths, etc. Therefore, the collection of these plants can be considered agricultural work. For the purpose of the MEP, the collection of these greens for recreation or personal use would not be considered agricultural work.
F5. Is work such as gathering decorative greens considered agricultural work?
For the purposes of the MEP, examples of initial processing work in the crop industry include, but are not limited to: cleaning; weighing; cutting; grading; peeling; sorting; freezing, and enclosing the raw product in a container.
F22. What are examples of "initial processing" work in the crop industry?
In order to ensure that children remain eligible to be counted and served by the MEP as long as is appropriate, recruiters should complete a new COE every time they have determined that a child has made a new move that would re-qualify the child as a migratory child under the MEP.
H8. When should a recruiter complete a new COE for a child?
Jobs that occur only at certain times of the year because of a holiday or event (e.g., Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.) should be considered temporary employment because the time of year that the work is performed is not dependent on the cycles of nature, but rather the holiday or event.
G12. Should jobs that occur only at certain times of the year because of a holiday or event be considered as temporary employment or seasonal employment?
No. These workers' moves must be from one school district to another (with specific exceptions for States comprised of a single school district or moves within a district of more than 15,000 square miles), whether the moves are accomplished by water or by land. As with any other MEP eligibility determination, the SEA must maintain documentation of school district boundaries as they extend into the water. In addition, all other eligibility criteria must be met.
D8. Are there special issues that affect only the moves of migratory fishers who travel by boat?
No.
B5. Must a recruiter see a marriage certificate or other legal document in order to establish a spousal relationship when MEP eligibility is based on a spouse's status as a migratory worker?
A worker who takes a non-qualifying job for a limited period of time after a move may still be considered a migratory agricultural worker or migratory fisher based on that move, so long as the worker either engages in new qualifying work that is still "soon after the move" or meets the alternative requirements addressed on C1, C2, and C8-C18.
C7. What happens if a worker first takes a non-qualifying job and only afterwards engages in qualifying work?
No. As amended, the ESEA no longer requires that a worker needed to move "in order to obtain" qualifying work. The new statutory definitions enable individuals to be considered migratory agricultural workers, and migratory fishers without the need for recruiters or States to determine the intent, or purpose(s) of the worker's move.
C4. Must the SEA determine whether the worker moved in order to obtain qualifying work?
Stopover sites are rest centers where migrant families who are in transit stop for a night or two before moving on to another locale.
D10. What are stopover sites?
No. The statue uses the phrase "recent history of moves", but does not state that thse moves must be "qualifying moves", i.e., moves from one school district to another (except in special circumstances, See D1 of this chapter. Therefore, an individual's recent history of moves for qualifying work does not have to be from one school district to another. However, any such historyc move must meet the definition of a "move" under 34 C.F.R. 200.81(j), which requires a change from one residence to another residence that occurs due to economic necessity.
C18. Must the individual's recent history of moves for qualifying work have been moves from one school district to another?
Although the statute and regulations are silent on the duration of a qualifying move, a migratory worker and a migratory child must stay in a new place long enough to show that the worker and child "moved," i.e., changed residence due to economic necessity. Recruiters should carefully examine and evaluate relevant factors, such as whether the move to work was a one-time act or a series of short moves to work in order to augment the family's income. With respect to moves of such short duration (less than a week) that an independent reviewer might question whether the move was a change in residence or "due to economic necessity," the Department recommends that the SEA establish a ritten policy for determining and documenting when and why these moves qualify for MEP. Consistent with the COE instructions, the Department also recommends that recruiters explain in the comments section (IV) of the COE why they believe that a move of very short duration would be considered a qualifying move.
D5. Is there a minimum duration for a qualifying move?
**IN FLORIDA, ANY SHORT DURATION MOVE OF FEWER THAN 10 DAYS REQUIRES SUPPORTING DOCUMENTATION ON THE COE TO EXPLAIN THE RECRUITER'S DETERMINATION OF ELIGIBILITY** P.52-53
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