Since 1972, UTRGV’s High School Equivalency Program (HEP) has assisted migrant-farm workers with the means to achieve a high school diploma equivalent, and thanks to a grant, they will be able to continue for another five years.
HEP has received a federal grant of $475,000 a year for the next five years from the Office of Migrant Education.
“So, there was a competition, I think of 25 entities, [where they] submit a grant and then out of those, 14 will get funded,” said Erik Carlos Toren, director of HEP. “Out of those 14, there’s us.”
The grant cycle began in July and will end on June 30, 2024, when the program will reapply.
HEP is based on the Edinburg campus but can provide its services to those on the Brownsville campus.
Toren said a couple of the ways they recruit in Cameron County is by letting potential students know they can stay at the dorms in Edinburg and by possibly doing remote instruction.
“Our program is designed to give instruction to 100 participants a year,” said Abiu Duran Rodriguez, learning instructional specialist I for HEP. “We were granted with the renewal for this grant for another five years, so that means we have another potential 500 new students that are going to graduate in these five years.”
Toren said the “primary usage” the grant will fund will be for HEP’s instruction, academic counseling, post-secondary placement, as well as Career and Technical Education (CTE) and STEM activities.
Rodriguez said the program is free of charge to those eligible, and they offer free lunch to participants this year.
Toren said the application process can take as quickly as a few hours to see if interested individuals qualify.
“The first [qualification] is age,” he said. “They have to be at least 16 years old or older. There’s no age maximum. The second one, they have to show work history in agriculture within the last three years for a minimum of 75 days. And the third one, they have to do an assessment with the GED rating, which is basically a practice test on reading, grammar and math. And see if there’s a certain level of assessment.”
The program is required to graduate about 70% of the students and place 80% of graduates in a post-secondary goal.
Rodriguez said students graduate quickly, some as short as a week. Other students who need more help with preparation for their tests can take one to three months, depending on the capacity of each one of the students.
“It’s a pretty fast-paced program where we have to teach four years of high school in about two months,” said Aaron Sanchez, learning instructional specialist I for HEP.
Sanchez said that his favorite day of the year that he looked forward to was graduation.
“It’s very fulfilling for me to see their faces in graduation and they’re crying,” he said. “I love seeing the grandparents … because they’ve waited all their life to see their child graduate from a high school program even if their child’s 25, 30 or 40 years old. They still see it as something that was on their bucket list, and now they’re able to fulfill that dream. It’s a beautiful thing.”
Sanchez said that he’s been teaching GED preparation for about 21 years, and Rodriguez about 20 years. He said what he loved about teaching over the years was being able to change student’s attitudes about school in a positive way and impact the lives of those who may have given up at some point in their academic careers.
For the month of August, the program currently has four students.
“This is my first time involved in this HEP program,” Debbie Martinez, a current HEP student said. “Compared to other programs I’ve been with, I’ve actually gained more experience, more ideas of how to prepare myself for the GED testing.”
Martinez said she hopes to pursue a career in the medical field after the program and showed interest in hospice care.
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