by Teyton M.

There is a brand new program going on at Alamo Heights High School. Well, it’s the Early College High School Program. With the P-TECH (Pathways in Technology Early College High) program, it will help students gain 60 extra college credits at no charge.

“So, this is something starting from our higher academic office run by Dr. Jimmie Walker, who is our assistant superintendent, and they were thinking of different initiatives to offer more coursework and opportunities for our students,” said Ms. Linda Fair, the coordinator of the P-TECH program. Fortunately, thanks to Dr. Jimmie Walker, the amazing assistant superintendent for AHISD, this program has just begun and is going to continue to expand for many years to come.

“This program, I think, is beneficial to students because it offers them not only an opportunity to earn up to 60 college credits while in high school through our partnership with St. Philip’s, but it also helps our students bridge the gap between high school and college,” Ms. Linda Fair stated.

Overall, this entire program is beneficial to all students who sign up because of the amount of credit students get just in high school, which can most definitely help them in the long run when they do end up going to college. It can help them graduate faster. Typically, in college, students spend four years, and if they have 60 college credits from high school, they will graduate and have their bachelor’s degree in just two years!

“We’re building some great successes, and we’re barely in our first implementation year with 98 in our initial cohort, and so we’re really thriving. So we’re looking at nothing but, you know, positive years ahead of us.”

As an early start, this program has just begun to reach an unexpected number of students, making it extremely beneficial for their future. “So our goal is not only to be able to offer that academic coursework and the college-credited hours, but like we said, we want to be able to contribute to society and our workforce.”

Overall, this shows that in the program, Ms. Fair doesn’t only want students to get their extra credit for college but also develop skills that they will use in the real world.

This program is also very good at keeping up with communication with the parents and students in the P-TECH program. “Our parents are a huge component to the success of our students. We are very active in our communication with our parents and our community.” This shows that the P-TECH program is also good at communicating with parents and giving them updates on what is happening within this program, which is great and very beneficial so parents always know what is happening.

“I’m super excited [to be the coordinator]. This is something that I’m very passionate about. I love seeing the impact that it has on not only our students but our community,” said Ms. Linda Fair, who is very excited to be the coordinator for the P-TECH program! She’s very passionate about student success and is happy she is able to be the coordinator.

Overall, the P-TECH program is very beneficial for students because they get to earn 60 extra college credit hours, which means they’re able to graduate college two years earlier! Thanks to St. Philip’s, this was also able to happen for the students. Dr. Jimmie Walker and Ms. Fair are hoping for this program to expand and grow more and more each year.