It's summer, it's hot and the old windows in Midvale Elementary offer minimal relief. The inside of a classroom is the last place many kids want to be in mid-July. But more than 200 students who attend summer programs at the school aren't complaining. They are there because they want to be, and for many of them summer school is where they learn the most.

About 75 percent of the students are in the Jordan School District's migrant education program, a federal plan that recruits and provides for migrant children during the summer in an effort to fill in the learning gaps due to a mobile lifestyle.

Goals of the federal program are aimed at ensuring children of migrant workers, or migrant workers themselves, are provided with education and support services that address their needs. It serves students ranging from preschool to age 22.

The programs are designed to help migrant children overcome educational disruption, cultural and language barriers, social isolation, various health-related problems and other factors that prevent them from doing well in school. They also are intended to prepare migrant children for a successful transition to postsecondary education or employment.

State Migrant Education Specialist Max Lang said Utah receives $1.7 million a year to fund programs in 13 districts that have a moderate concentration of migrant students. Around 4,000 kids in the state participate in the programs.

For their children to qualify as migrant students, families must have moved to Utah in pursuit of seasonal or agricultural employment such as meat packing, turkey plants, pig farms and work in the fields.

Recruiters such as Jordan's Hilda Gonzales-Lloyd search high-risk areas such as low-income housing and schools often attended by migrant children to find the students. They then contact parents and let them know about the program and what services are available to them.

"Some are scared of the (education) system or don't understand it, but they want their children to have an education," Lloyd said.

Lyn Burningham, alternative language services coordinator for Jordan, runs the migrant education program at Midvale. She also brings in Native American and homeless students who attend to work on reading and math, English language skills or earn credits for graduation. Around 50 of the 204 are junior high and high school students.

Each classroom has at least one teacher and an aide, and classes are small, enabling substantial one-on-one instruction. All teachers are English as a second language-endorsed and either a teacher or aide is bilingual in each classroom.

Doxey Elementary principal Bernardo Villar, who directs Davis' migrant program, said the program's main job is reinforcing material that students have learned earlier in the school year. But aside from academics, students are able to engage in enrichment activities as well.