Centennial BOCES: Helping Migrant Families Thrive

The Centennial Board of Cooperative Educational Services (Centennial BOCES) administers the largest Migrant Education Program (MEP) in Colorado, serving over 2,500 students in North Central and Northeast school districts and communities. Centennial BOCES secured RISE funding to address the unique needs of families in rural communities exacerbated by the pandemic (see earlier story).

The Colorado Lab supported Centennial BOCES in this work, helping them to identify key program elements and intended outcomes, develop tools for data collection, examine data to make meaning of progress, celebrate successes, troubleshoot barriers to implementation, and integrate lessons learned into next steps. 

As a part of our partnership with Centennial BOCES, we describe their work over the past decade to cultivate partnerships with a diverse array of groups including school districts, higher education institutions, early learning centers, churches, community health clinics, local nonprofit organizations, and state departments like the Division of Housing to improve outcomes for migrant families that have been historically underserved.

The RISE funding was catalytic in supporting Centennial BOCES to expand their work with preschool-aged children and families. Centennial BOCES built the READY for School program, which delivers emergent literacy and oral language enrichment to preschool-aged children to help them be “preschool ready” and coaching parents to build self-efficacy. The Colorado Lab worked with Centennial BOCES to help them learn from their work and identify strategic next steps to sustain their work with this important population.