After a brief signing ceremony at St. Mary’s University on Tuesday, more than 60 high school teachers turned to one another to say “I am glad you are here!” before bowing their heads in prayer and kicking off their first day of graduate school with an orientation.
These area educators — from Northside Independent School District, North East ISD and East Central ISD — are part of the inaugural cohort that will receive free certificates and graduate degrees to soon teach dual credit courses through a new partnership between St. Mary’s University and Alamo Colleges District.
“This is a need for us,” said Frank Hernandez, a history teacher at East Central High School with 30 years of experience. “I am going to grow as a teacher, learn the teacher styles that are available. It’s going to make me grow as an educator.”
Hernandez and his new classmates will receive graduate-level training to become adjunct faculty. They’ll eventually get to teach Freshman Composition I and II, History 1301 & 1302 and Government 2305, in their own district schools through partnerships with Alamo Colleges campuses.
The signing ceremony served as the formal announcement of this partnership between Alamo Colleges District and St. Mary’s University, which is slated to provide free tuition for up to 100 high school teachers over the next few years. An investment of $1.1 million.
By expanding the number of teachers with the ability to teach dual credit courses across San Antonio high school, Alamo Colleges officials said they expect to teach at least 400 high school students during the 2026-27 school year and about 1,750 by the 2027-28 school year.
“It’s not always feasible for school districts to bring students, certainly not mass numbers of students, to our colleges to take courses,” said Sara Mann, chief high school programs officer for the community colleges district. “So with that in mind, that’s how our dual credit faculty expansion project was born.”
Dual enrollment or dual credit programs have gained popularity across the nation and the state, saving students time and money by allowing them to earn college credits while in high school. But some experts studying the outcomes of these programs warn that unequal access to these programs can also result in racial equity gaps.
In Texas, white students represent about 36% of all dual enrollment students, despite constituting about 30% of the overall student population, according to a study by the Community College Research Center. Hispanic students, on the other hand, represent 51% of the entire student population, and 41% of dual enrollment coursetakers.
Alamo Colleges District reported having 16,518 dual credit high school students across its five campuses in the fall of 2024. At least 67% of all ACD students identify as Hispanic or Latino and 29% as economically disadvantaged.
With more than 100,000 high school students across Bexar County, Mann said they know every new program is only incrementally moving the needle toward their goal to reach 29,000 dual enrollment students by 2029. This is part of the Alamo Colleges’ Moonshot, a plan driven by the goal to eradicate poverty through education and training.
“We are a highly impoverished community, and we wholeheartedly believe that dual credit is one way to make a huge difference on this,” Mann said. “Research tells us that if a student has the opportunity to take at least one dual credit class, if they can be successful in one dual credit class, they’re twice as likely to enroll in something post-secondary.”
For now, the new partnership is specifically designed to offer certificates and degrees in the areas of history, political science and English and they are welcoming applicants from these three school districts only. But the goal is to eventually expand this program to educators in other school districts in the region, she said.
Like Hernandez, some of the participants might already have a master’s degree, but require a certification in the specific subject that they’ll teach a dual credit.
Those that have a master’s degree and only need 18 hours to complete a certificate, should be ready to start teaching dual credit by the fall of 2026. For those seeking master’s degrees, the goal would be to start teaching dual credit by the fall of 2027.
These educators will be able to take classes online starting this summer and will not have to stop teaching to complete the courses.
“One of the most appealing things about the St. Mary’s program is that they were willing to build a program that allowed teachers to do this asynchronously on their own schedule online,” Mann said. “High school teachers are also club sponsors, and coaches, and have families.”
Over the last year, Mann worked alongside St. Mary’s and Northside ISD, the district that had originally requested a program like this one. Once they identified how the program would function and the cost, they expanded access to the initial cohort to the two other districts.
For years, Hernandez questioned if he should get loans in order to complete a certification to teach dual credit. So, when this opportunity came about he told himself, “Here is your chance to do it!” Hernandez said.
If accepted into the program, teachers are required to sign an agreement to teach at high-need schools within their school district for at least three years. If they leave before completing the contract, they’ll need to pay some of the cost of tuition back to ACD.
Erika Melero has taught English for 16 years at NEISD’s Design and Technology Academy, known as DATA. She applied for the program the minute she heard about the opportunity, she said.
Like Hernandez, Melero’s biggest hurdle was financial. She was accepted for the Master’s of Arts degree pathway and is looking forward to being a student again.
“I wanted my master’s for a long time,” Melero said. “I was afraid to verbalize it because I just didn’t think I could afford it. But now I feel like if this can help even a little bit, it’s huge for me. It’s just a lifelong dream.”
The San Antonio Report partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.
