For the third year in a row, members of the K-12, higher education, and workforce space came together for a half-day policy summit to discuss the issues affecting the post-secondary readiness, access, and success of Latino students in the San Antonio area. This annual summit, hosted by Diplomás, a 16 cross-sector, member collaborative housed at P-16 Plus Council of Great Bexar County, which is currently co-chaired by the San Antonio Chamber and Region 20, comes at a pivotal point in the 85th Texas Legislative Session.
Opening with remarks from University of Texas at San Antonio’s (UTSA) Dr. Joseph Kulhanek, Assistant Vice President for the UTSA Institute for P-20 Initiatives, the summit provided participants with information on the importance of advocacy on educational issues, providing more information on the entire experience of a Latino student, and creating concrete requests of action. Dr. Enrique Aleman, Professor and Chair for Educational Leadership & Policy Studies for UTSA expressed the historical importance of educational advocacy and the need for continued work to ensure the educational gap decreases.
Immediately following this historical perspective, participants were able to hear the student voice. Composed of representatives of the K-12, 2-year, 4-year and doctoral programs within our community, this student panel described in vivid detail the challenges and obstacles faced while reaching their educational goals. Challenges described included lack of information on the college application process, the importance of FAFSA and TASFA, the social and emotional challenges of being a “first-generation college” student, and the daily time-management necessary to keep a good school-work-home balance.
Finally, before engaging in an exercise to identify our community’s policy priorities around this issue, participants were able to get a national perspective on the issue from Deborah Santiago, the Chief Operating Officer for Excelencia in Education. Santiago described the importance of using data as a tool for their work but not making it the solution for the problem. “Public policy is about scale, and scale is about numbers.Often we can lose the faces of those we advocate for when we focus too hard on scale,” said Santiago.
The results of the Policy Summit will be shared with participants and help inform future work and advocacy efforts for the collaborative as the legislative session continue to move forward.
For more information on Diplomás, please visit their webpage.
