Seventeen local high school teachers were the first to complete a tuition-free program created to increase access to dual credit courses across San Antonio high schools.
“To our teachers who have now completed this program. I know you are wearing many hats, and I want to confirm that you now have a new hat that you are wearing, and I want to invite you to wear it proudly. And that is, you are all alumni of St. Mary’s University,” said St. Mary’s Provost Jason Pierce in front of the graduating class and their families on Wednesday evening.
The Dual Credit Faculty Expansion Program launched in June 2025 through a partnership between Alamo Colleges District, St. Mary’s University and three area school districts: Northside ISD, North East ISD and East Central ISD.
Alamo Colleges District invested $1.4 million in the program for which St. Mary’s University agreed to open up to 100 slots over two academic years to prepare area teachers in the fields of English, history and political science. This means free tuition for the teachers who agree to invest the time needed to get credentialed.
“We’ve had a fantastic year. “St. Mary’s has continued to be an exceptional partner,” said Sara Mann, chief high school programs officer at Alamo Colleges District. “Anytime you launch a new program, there’s always bumps and hiccups along the way and they have just sat side by side with us all along the way to get teachers across the finish line.”
In Texas, teachers need to have a master’s degree and complete 18 graduate-level semester hours in the subject you intend to teach. For many working teachers, the greatest barriers become the financial and time investment required to get certified.
The first year, a total of 60 teachers enrolled, with 17 of them already having a master’s degree and needing only their 18 credit hours to graduate. The rest are working toward a master’s degree and the remaining credit hours and are expected to graduate in 2027.
This year, Alamo Colleges is recruiting about 35 new teachers and adding new partner school districts including Alamo Heights, San Antonio ISD, Southwest ISD and Somerset Academies of Texas. The number of teachers will vary depending on their size and demonstrated need, Mann said.
By year three, program officials are expecting these teachers to have provided access to at least one dual credit course to 1,750 San Antonio area students.
“That’s a win for the students. It’s a win for the families,” Pierce said. “We understand the importance of accessibility, the importance of degree affordability and this is sort of part and parcel building up capacity there in the high schools.”
Partnering districts agree to select teachers from schools where there’s a need for dual credit teachers to participate in this program. Part of the agreement is supporting the teachers by helping pay for instructional materials or textbooks, or providing substitute teacher support throughout the school year.
The teachers are in turn agreeing to the time investment and to teaching for at least 3 years in their district, or paying back the tuition if they leave before the end of the contract term.
“I was very interested because, number one, I’m a lifelong learner and I just love school,” said Jessica Parlett Saenz, an English teacher at Madison High School in North East ISD. “And my campus didn’t have any teachers qualified to teach dual credit this year…I plan on being at Madison for quite some time and I wanted to make sure that our students had this opportunity.”
Parlett Saenz was among the first cohort to sign up for the program, and because she already had a master’s degree, all she needed was her 18 hours to earn the certification.
Frank Hernandez, a social studies teacher at East Central High School, was also in this first graduate class. He has over 30 years of teaching experience and next year he’ll be one of three dual credit teachers on his campus and he will teach World History.
“That old adage is you’re never too old to learn and we were still learning a lot of things that we kept asking one another and ourselves, ‘How do we not know this already?’” Hernandez said.
The teachers were excited to be done with the program for many reasons, including getting some of their already scarce free time back. Managing a full-time teaching job, family and graduate-level education is not an easy task, but they say they are proud to have been among the first to take advantage of the opportunity.
“They were paying for it and it was either that or I had to [pay] it out of pocket. That’s the only reason I hadn’t done it prior,” said Ebony Tinajero, an English teacher at John Jay High School in Northside ISD.
With four children under the age of 12, Tinajero said her free time was already limited, but the St. Mary’s professors leading the program offered the flexibility needed to make sure she could stay the course and earn her certification.
“I’m happy to have my weekends back, finally!” she said.
The program was designed to be asynchronous, meaning it is completed fully online, but with some windows for the class to meet and work together. Having this community of teachers who were balancing similar workloads was key to their success, Hernandez said.
“It’s just nice to hear other teachers and what they’re going through at their school districts,” Hernandez said. “So, it was really nice to get that and learn from one another, because there are things that I learned from them and it was like oh I want to try that in my classroom.”
Dual enrollment or dual credit programs promise to save students time and money by allowing them to graduate high school with college credits and even college degrees. But that doesn’t mean there’s equity on who has access to these types of courses.
According to a study by the Community College Research Center, white students represent about 36% of all dual enrollment students in Texas, despite constituting about 30% of the overall student population. Hispanic students, on the other hand, represent 51% of the entire student population, and 41% of dual enrollment coursetakers.
Increasing the number of teachers who are qualified to teach these courses in their own campus, could help increase access by lessening the number of students who have to leave their schools to seek college-level courses.
As part of their growth assessment, Mann said they are also considering adding more subject areas to meet the needs of teachers and more students.
“Our primary conversation with our ISD’s centers around the focus for us which is continuing to expand access to students that don’t currently have access,” Mann said. “That is a critical factor for us as we think about our moonshot, our goal of trying to eradicate poverty.”
The San Antonio Report partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.
