SAISD: Generation TX y los hispanos del futuro

Generation TX San Antonio, the San Antonio Education Partnership and Advise TX plan to rally more than 40 high school counselors to help students and their families fill out college applications from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Nov. 19. The free event, called Apply SA, will be held at Trinity’s Fiesta Room.

Students will have more than 30 computers at their disposal along with help writing essays and gathering information needed to complete admissions forms and the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, said Generation TX San Antonio spokeswoman Rosa Gomez.

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He was, however, sure of one thing: he was determined. Seeing his mother overcome obstacles to care for him and his brother gave him drive but what he lacked was direction. That’s what he got from his theatre director at Thomas Jefferson High School.

“Mr. Joseph Brown wasn’t just a theatre director, he was a friend and a father figure to us all and helped me find a passion for theatre,” said Garrett, “Mr. Brown showed me there’s so much out there and all you have to do is go out and take it.”

Theatre is not only a passion, but a career path as well. Garrett is a freshman at the University of Texas at Austin seeking a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre Studies. He wants to be a theatre arts teacher.

“Going to college is important to me, because it allows you to explore life,” the 19-year-old explained. “College is a place where you find out who you are and what you can do.”

Garrett is a first-generation college student – the first in his immediate family to enroll in higher education.

Along with that title comes many obstacles, perhaps the biggest is finding the path to college. That’s where Generation TX San Antonio came in.

“GenTX helped me figure out what to do. They helped with information about the SATs, ACTs and with the actual college application,” said Garrett. “They even helped me create a brag sheet.”

A “brag sheet” is like a resume. It lists student accomplishments, their school organization involvement and extracurricular activities. Students can use when applying to college to show they are motivated, involved and can multi-task.

Along with the brag sheet Garrett says GenTX SA staff serve as role models.

“Their experiences from college helped motivate me to want to go to college even more,” said Garrett, who is expected to graduate in May 2016.

Generation TX students Estefania Lamas Hernandez and Garrett Jackson at Mayor Castro’s May 2012 College Week Event in San Antonio.

Estefania Lamas Hernandez also had a lot of motivation and support and says going to college was the best way for her to say “thank you” to her parents who gave her a chance at an education in the United States.

Estefania was six years old when her family moved to the U.S. from Mexico following a job opportunity for her father. Her mother, who earned a Master’s degree in Mexico, had to leave her career as a political strategist and become a stay-at-home mom.

“There hasn’t been a day since moving that I don’t recognize the extreme sacrifice my mother made,” explained Estefania. “This is how I show that I appreciate her, so one day she can stand up and proudly exclaim ‘Es mi hija’ (That’s my daughter)!”

However, Estefania’s journey began with a major obstacle – starting school in the U.S. with english as a second language (ESL).

“My first day of first grade was spent in tears,” Estefania said, “My teacher, LouAnn Phillips, took me under her wing and tutored me after school. I finished the ESL program by the end of the year and moved into the Gifted and Talented program a few years later.”

Estefania graduated from Douglas MacArthur High School in North San Antonio this past June and is the first generation in her family to go to college in the United States. Estefania is now a freshman at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

“This isn’t just for me – it’s for everyone who has ever been in my position. It’s for kids whose families cannot fathom their children receiving a higher education because they cannot afford it. I’m here because they can’t be,” Estefania said.

Learning about financial aid helped her get there with resources such as Student Aid Saturdays San Antonio (SASSA).

The SASSA event offers free one-on-one help to parents and students filling out federal and state forms for college financial aid such as the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Beginning January 26, SASSA is held for 11 consecutive weekends through April at 23 host sites around San Antonio including high schools, colleges and community centers. The program partners with schools, businesses and education focused community organizations across Bexar County including Mayor Julian Castro and the City of San Antonio, Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, San Antonio Education Partnership and Generation TX San Antonio.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 90% of high school graduates across the nation who filed a FAFSA application enrolled in post-secondary education. Most of Esefania’s tuition is covered by scholarships and endowments.

“Students just have to buckle down for a few hours and work with teachers to fill-out the applications and write essays,” she said, “I thank GenTX for showing parents that higher education is possible under every budget and that college is a blast!”

Estefania is expected to graduate from Wellesley May 2016.

Learning about financial aid and scholarships is what helped Clarisa Media reach her dream of attending Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana.

Clarisa Medina, Gates Millennium Scholar. Photo courtesy of St. Mary’s College.

The Thomas Jefferson High School alum is also a Gates Millennium Scholar (GMS). The GMS Program selects 1,000 talented students annually to receive a good-through-graduation scholarship to use at any college or university of their choice.

“My senior AP English teacher James Hammond is one of the main reasons I am a Gates Scholar,” said Clarisa. “He took the time to sit and talk with me, staying later than normal and arriving at school early. He is one of the most outstanding teachers I have ever had.”

Hammond is also a curricula specialist, creating lesson plans for SA-Ready.org and helping other teachers challenge students to be prepared for college rigor.

Another inspiration for Clarisa is her sister, Cecily Medina, whose footsteps she is following to the college classroom.

“My sister and I took it upon ourselves to set the standard of going to college,” Clarisa explained. They proudly walk the campus of Saint Mary’s College together as the eldest of the family’s eight children.

Clarisa says the support from her sister and others gives her motivation.

“I know if I need anything I can call the GenTX team. They give me moral support, academic advising, peer mentoring, and sometimes just a friend since it is so hard being away from home,” said 18 year old Clarisa. “I even got a care package and it’s a wonderful feeling to know that I am cared about and thought about.”

Now, Clarisa is providing that guidance to other students.

“Do not hesitate to fill out those out of state applications, leave your town, leave your state, and explore somewhere new. Travel the world and find out who you really are,” Clarisa said.

Clarisa says she chose to go to college because she wants to impact the world. She is majoring in Global Studies and Political Science and hopes to become a U.S Ambassador.

“I knew if I wanted to accomplish that I would have to have a degree,” explained Clarisa. “I know when I am educated I have power.”

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Mari Aguirre Rodriguez is the Executive Director of Generation TX San Antonio. You can reach her at mari@gentx.org.

Rosa Gomez is the Director of Marketing & Communications for Generation TX San Antonio. You can reach her via Twitter @rgomez1 or email at rgomez@gentx.org.

With the four-year grant from the Lumina Foundation, an Indianapolis-based organization that works to expand college access, SAEP will lead 15 area partners — the city, colleges, school districts and others — toward a lofty goal.

Through what has been titled the Diplomás Project, the effort seeks to raise Latino postsecondary completion rates by 9 percent by summer of 2015, which is equated to an additional 66,000 degrees.

But $600,000 won’t be enough. Eyra Perez, SAEP’s executive director, said she expects everyone involved to chip in $3 million total, and possibly more.

“Because of the local buy-in, it does commit us to understanding that we have to put in our own resources,” Perez said. Perez said the San Antonio area is rich in data, which is mined and analyzed by different groups. The challenge is to connect groups to build an informed picture of the education landscape and to share best practices, she said.

For instance, the project aims to improve communication between a group working to streamline student transfers from two-year junior colleges to four-year schools and another group devoted to financial aid, because when a student transfers, their financial aid issues will follow.

Perez said the other local agencies involved are the City of San Antonio, Generation TX San Antonio, Advise TX, the P16Plus Council of Greater Bexar County, Educate Texas, the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Texas Association of Chicanos in Higher Education, the Alamo Colleges, the University of Texas at San Antonio, UTSA’s Hispanic Scholarship Fund chapter, and four independent school districts: Harlandale, Northside, San Antonio and Southwest.

Judy McCormick, executive director of the P16Plus Council, said all involved will be searching for obstacles to college access that need to be removed or for student needs that should be better met.

“We have a lot of students enrolling but not too many finishing and a lot of it has to do with being college ready,” McCormick said. “If they’re in college, we want to make sure we can provide more support once we find out which barriers they are facing.”

The Diplomás Project is one of 13 community efforts in 11 states that will share a total of $11.5 million from Lumina.

James Applegate, Lumina’s vice president for program development, said those in San Antonio and other cities have struggled to bring their programs “together into a tightly integrated effort,” which is what the anchor group defined in the grant is meant to achieve.

“If everybody is collaborating out of their hip pocket, some days collaboration happens and some days it doesn’t,” he said.

Once the projects start rolling, Lumina hopes to develop a model to improve educational attainment in other cities, Applegate said.

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jlloyd@express-news.net

Twitter: @jlloydster

Educators say students in our schools are learning the required content but are not developing the higher order thinking skills necessary to succeed on the state’s more strenuous standardized tests and in higher education.

Armed with a $272,000 grant from the Ewing Halsell Foundation, Generation TX San Antonio, a nonprofit organization focused on education, is working with 11 local school districts to increase classroom rigor and help students succeed. The group is building a library of teaching resources that will eventually include 700 lesson plans that teachers throughout the community can access for use in their classrooms. The goal is to eventually offer universal access to teachers from any district.

The lesson plans have been drafted by classroom teachers highly regarded in their fields and vetted by curriculum experts who are consulting on the project. Generation TX San Antonio’s SA Ready program provides an invaluable resource for frazzled teachers who each year are being asked to do more with less resources and for cash-strapped school districts struggling to absorb state funding cuts.

It is estimated that on average only 83 out of every 100 San Antonio ninth-graders will make it across the high school graduation stage. Data compiled by Generation TX San Antonio indicates only 47 of those 83 graduates will enroll in a certificate or degree program. Only 18 of them will earn a certificate or degree within six years of high school graduation.

For too long, the focus has been on getting students to graduate high school and providing them easy access to higher education. That is no longer enough. We are failing them if we don’t equip them with the tools to succeed.

Large numbers of students are finding themselves in remedial courses, dropping out and failing to achieve their academic goals. That is simply unacceptable and the public education system must work to fix those deficiencies.

The state has taken steps toward raising the bar for high school graduation by mandating that students take four English, four science, four math and four social studies courses to graduate. But the rigor of that curriculum is pretty much in the hands of the individual school districts.

As we all are only too well aware, there is a disparity in funding among school districts across the state and the resources available to students. Generation TX San Antonio’s SA Ready program will help level the playing field when it comes to curriculum and the students’ experience in the classroom.

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Generation TX San Antonio partners with area teachers to provide those skills by preparing this generation of San Antonio students to be college- and career-ready. The reason is simple: The careers are available but students need to be prepared for them.

Today, 32 percent of the jobs in San Antonio require post-secondary education, but only 18 percent of our kids are getting that education, according to Workforce Solutions Alamo and H-E-B Customer Insights. That’s why we started Generation TX San Antonio and SA Ready with Dr. David Conley, the nation’s expert on college and career readiness.

In 2011, GenTX SA organized a task force of curricula specialists and educators and challenged them to develop an instructional thread — kindergarten through high school — that helps students in classrooms prepare for college and careers. Throughout the 2011-2012 school year, five local school districts piloted this innovative lesson writing and professional development project, and an additional six districts have joined the program in 2012-2013.

Through this collaboration of educators, including Texas Teacher of the Year Finalist Theresa Heim, we are now making these high-quality lesson plans accessible via our free, online, teacher resource platform, www.SA-Ready.org. As of our Oct. 8 launch of SA-Ready.org, more than 80 educators have signed up and downloaded lesson plans for use in classrooms across Bexar County. This is a direct reflection of teachers needing, wanting and looking for high quality resources.

So what makes these resources different from other educational open-source sites? The quality, validity and variety of resources SA-Ready.org offers are a first-of-its kind. These high quality lesson plans go through a rigorous review process. Lesson writers are trained using a college- and career-ready professional development model created by Dr. Conley, aligning the lessons with the Texas College and Career Readiness Standards (CCRS).

Along with lesson plans, the website hosts multiple free resources including a community toolkit and videos capturing excellent classroom teaching.

In just one year, we produced and vetted more than 100 high-quality lessons now on SA-Ready.org. By the end of the 2014 school year, the site will feature more than 700 lessons.

Another unique aspect of SA Ready lesson plans is that they are specific to college and career readiness and the Texas CCRS. This will help to ensure our kids are continuous, rigorous learners ready for college and careers.

That continuous learning is one part to a bigger solution — job creation and career achievement. College- and career-ready lessons expand students’ thinking beyond high school and college into what they want to do for their careers. More importantly, it helps them find a promising career path supported by strong academic skills.

Overall, we find that tying technology, curriculum and classroom instruction together can be a powerful tool to connect teachers and students better. We believe that teachers could start a movement not seen before. A movement of inspiration. A movement of information. A movement of college and career readiness for every student. Join our movement at www.sa-ready.org.

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Dr. John Folks, Generation TX San Antonio Board Member, Programs Committee Chair & Retired Superintendent of Northside ISD

Dr. Brian Woods, Generation TX San Antonio Board Member & Northside ISD Superintendent

Gary Patterson, Generation TX San Antonio Board Member & East Central ISD Superintendent

Generation TX San Antonio is ensuring students have a plan by preparing this generation of San Antonio students to be college-and-career ready. The reason is simple: the careers are available, but the students need to be prepared for them.

Today, 32% of the jobs in San Antonio require post-secondary education, but only 18% of our kids are getting that education, according to Workforce Solutions Alamo and H-E-B Customer Insights.

Dr. David Conley, CEO of Educational Policy Improvement Center

That is why we started Generation TX San Antonio and SA Ready with Dr. David Conley, the nations’ expert on college-and-career readiness. Within just one year, GenTX SA is already in every Bexar County school district, working with students and teachers, to change expectations, and that’s going to change San Antonio’s future. The SA Ready website officially launches today.

Common Core Standards Initiative

Texas chose to adopt a different core of knowledge base that the state has labeled the College-and-Career Readiness Standards (CCRS), in lieu of the Common Core State Standards Initiative. The state hired Dr. David Conley, CEO of the Educational Policy Improvement Center (EPIC), to facilitate those standards and lead that conversation for teachers, educators and higher-education administrators.

SA Ready Program

We work to help teachers who are continuously looking for reputable tools to solve and ease gaps in their classroom. They need them. They are looking for them. And the SA Ready program has them, all created for teachers by teachers.

In 2011, GenTX SA organized a task force of curricula specialists and educators and challenged them to develop an instructional thread (kindergarten through high school) that helps students prepare for college and careers. Throughout the 2011-2012 school year, five local school districts piloted this innovative lesson writing and professional development project and an additional six districts joined the program in 2012-2013.

Theresa Heim, Texas Teacher of the Year Finalist, Connally Middle School 7th grade reading teacher and AVID Coordinator

The educators in those districts include Texas Teacher of the Year Finalist Theresa Heim. Heim not only helped develop the lesson plans alongside fellow teachers, but she also implements the lessons in her classroom at Connally Middle School. As the 7^th grade reading teacher and AVID Coordinator, she sees college-and-career readiness teaching not only as her responsibility as an educator but an honor to change her students’ lives like her teachers changed hers as a student.

“I am grateful and thankful for them (my former teachers) for getting me where I am,” Heim explained. “They were teachers, yes, and you know technically it’s supposed to be your job. But, they went above and beyond. They did it and now it’s my turn to do it for these kids. Just like in the way they changed my life, I know that in going the extra mile with these kids, I may be doing that for one of them.”

Technology & Teaching with SA-Ready.org

One way to make it easier for teachers to go that extra mile is making credible resources easily accessible through technology. That’s why we created the free online, teacher resource platform, SA-Ready.org, to house the SA Ready lessons.

So what makes these lessons different than other educational open source sites? The quality, validity and variety of resources SA-Ready.org offers are a first-of-its kind.

First, the high quality lesson plans go through a rigorous review process. Lesson writers are trained using a college-and career-ready professional development model created by EPIC’s Dr. Conley, aligning the lessons with the Texas College and Career Readiness Standards (CCRS).

Along with lesson plans, the website hosts multiple free resources, including a toolkit and video capturing excellent classroom teaching in a Khan Academy style of learning for teachers.

“Tying technology, curriculum, and instruction together can be a powerful tool to connect teachers and students better,” said Dr. Conley. “We find of 100 middle schoolers nationally, 93 say they aspire to go to college but only 26 earn a college degree within six years of enrolling. That shows us one thing: We are losing kids along the way. They are not prepared. However, Generation TX San Antonio’s online project will prepare more young people for college and careers.”

With Dr. Conley’s help, in just one year we produced and vetted more than 100 high-quality lessons. By the end of the 2014 school year, SA-Ready.org will feature more than 700 lesson plans to be used by teachers nationwide.

Photo courtesy of Generation Texas San Antonio.

College-and-Career Readiness

Another unique aspect of SA Ready lesson plans is that they are college-and-career ready specific. So what does that mean? It means any student that graduates from high school should be able to enter a technical, trade, two-year or four-year institution without taking any remediation courses. The overall focus is continuing learning. 

“As the economy has changed, our social needs have changed and the structure of our society has changed, we find that what we need is an aligned connected system that creates the opportunity for all students to receive an education that enables them, if they choose to do so, to continue learning beyond high school,” said Dr. Conley. “That’s the heart of my definition. That’s the heart of the policy issue. That’s the heart of the problem at the same time.”

Classroom to the Boardroom

SA Ready is one part to a bigger solution – job creation and career achievement. College-and-career ready lessons expand students’ thinking beyond high school and college into what they want to do for their careers. More importantly it provides the details that help them to prepare to achieve all the goals they are setting for themselves.

Part of that achievement is finding a promising career path supported by strong academic skills. That creates a win-win scenario for the teachers, students and businesses.

So I ask you to think about this, what teacher inspired you to “be what you wanted to be when you grow up?” Mine (Mari) was Mrs. Cathcart, my high school journalism teacher who convinced me that I was good enough and smart enough to be anything I wanted to be. Most importantly, she gave me the skills and knowledge to succeed in a college classroom. A great teacher can change the path of a student. We believe that teachers could start a movement not seen before. A movement of inspiration. A movement of information. A movement of college and career readiness for every student.

For the complete story please click here.

Mari Aguirre Rodriguez is the Executive Director of Generation TX San Antonio. You can reach her at mari@gentx.org.

Rosa Gomez is the Director of Marketing & Communications for Generation TX San Antonio. You can reach her via Twitter @rgomez1 or email at rgomez@gentx.org.

“I think it’s a way to take all of the content knowledge students have and put it to use and help it get developed in a way that the brain is going to organize so that it can be used for college,” said Conley. “I think that’s not something we think about very often. A lot of times, we just think about, ‘Can they pass a test?’”

Conley’s sentiments are echoed by Terry Heim, a Generation TX teacher and a nominee for Texas Teacher of the Year.

Heim is a 7th and 8th grade teacher who said teachers are teaching to a test, and she believes that doesn’t give children critical thinking skills.

Heim said programs like SA Ready and Mayor Castro’s Pre-K 4 SA initiative – which will be voted on in the November general election – are ways to supplement educational challenges.

Critics have criticised measures like Pre-K 4 SA for a number of reasons.

“We just know with the way technology is changing, I mean we’re getting our kids ready for jobs that don’t exist right now,” said Heim in response.

In his research, Conley said that of 100 middle schoolers nationally, he found 93 aspired to go to college, but only 26 received their degree.

It’s a signal to Conley that many students are being lost along the way.

Teachers in Bexar County developed materials that any teacher in the city, across the state or nation, are able to use in their classrooms.

Heim said it may not pick up immediately because teachers have planned their semesters already, but she’s hopeful it will begin to snowball in the future.

Generation TX San Antonio Executive Director Mari Rodriguez is excited about the site as an additional resource for all teachers.

“It’s an open-source resource created by teachers, for teachers,” said Rodriguez. “I’m a former teacher myself, so I spent a lot of time looking for good quality lesson plans and resources and you just really couldn’t find them. And so we know these are the best lesson plans because they’ve been edited four times by the nation’s expert on college and career readiness.”

Rodriguez said 32 percent of jobs require post-secondary education in San Antonio but only 18 percent of students are getting that education.

She and others say it’s not too late to do what’s needed to give kids the extra edge in their education.

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Additional Resources:

• SA Ready online at: www.sa-ready.org
• Generation TX San Antonio online at: gentxsa.org

Children today hear the drumbeat of college preparation before they take their first steps.

The assumption: My parents and teachers will help me get there.

The truth: Rarely do students — especially those from families without college graduates — have someone to hold their hand through the tricky financial aid process and labyrinthine admission system.

Last week, a local nonprofit and global bank teamed up to help close the knowledge gap.

Generation TX San Antonio and Wells Fargo hosted citywide free film screenings of the award-winning documentary First Generation, which tells the story of four high school students who set out to break the cycle of poverty by pursuing a college education.

“The college admissions process is complicated, especially for students without family members who are college graduates — much like many of the students in our city,” says Mari Aguirre Rodriguez, executive director of the nonprofit Generation TX San Antonio.

Generation TX San Antonio is a nonprofit — supported by the City of San Antonio and corporate donors — committed to making San Antonio a college-going and career-ready community in a single generation.

The film, directed by Adam and Jaye Fenderson, was shown six times to audiences of high school students, teachers and administrators as well as to local business leaders. The directors were at five of the screenings to answer questions.

Wells Fargo Area President Steve Arnold adds: “We’re proud to promote college affordability and awareness in the San Antonio area through the screening of this telling documentary.”

Business Journal photographer Lyndsey Johnson attended the Wednesday, Sept. 5, screening at Alamo Drafthouse Park North and captured the faces of some local business leaders as well as the filmmaker and one of the stars.

Click here to view the slideshow from the event.

Click here to view the First Generation trailer.

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Donna J. Tuttle edits special sections and special reports; oversees social-media operations.