Educational

Holy Cross of San Antonio is a valued option for parents who choose a Catholic education for their children. We stand with parents who make this choice although most often this choice is extremely difficult and causes financial stresses.

The educational opportunity at Holy Cross is emphasized by the graduation and college acceptance rates. Holy Cross alumni serve in all levels of society and are contributing citizens of their communities. Friendships developed as students continue throughout their lives thereby giving credence to the attribute often proudly repeated “Holy Cross Family.”

Making Connections is a neighborhood-based initiative aimed at improving the lives of children in San Antonio's Edgwood community. It is a collaborative effort bringing together residents, non-profit organizations, faith-based entities, businesses and government in creative ways to achieve neighborhood transformation and family development.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation (AECF) of Baltimore made a ten-year commitment to co-invest in the Neighborhood Transformation / Family Development Initiative with the residents of the West Side and low-income neighborhoods of four other cities in the US.

The West Side of San Antonio has yet to realize its full economic potential. To do so, our residents need to increase skills and knowledge through workforce training. Once trained, our communities require links to jobs with salaries that will comfortably support our families. MC Partnership supports several strategies in workforce and earnings.

Making Connections Partnership's Work & Earnings Results Area is established to support the overarching goal of ensuring that Edgewood Independent School District (EISD) third grade reading is at the commended level. Work and Earnings seeks to provide the residents of the Edgewood Independent School District with employment opportunities that offer a livable wage and employment benefits which support a livable income.  MC-Partnership defines a livable income inclusive of employment wages, public benefits (food stamps, Earned Income Tax Credit) and work supports (child care, transportation). Living wage is defined by MC-Partnership as the wage obtained by job employment, at or above $9.75 per hour.

We are a school that helps students develop their full potential in an environment that’s diverse, encouraging and stimulating.

Our Lady of the Lake University is a small, Catholic, private university with a deep connection to the history and community of San Antonio. Founded in 1895 by the Congregation of Divine Providence, we have developed a reputation for our personal teaching style and expertise in Mexican American culture. We are also famous for our beautiful, lakeside campus, which mixes historic buildings with a contemporary library, residence halls and technology infrastructure. 

Project QUEST, an innovative job training program in San Antonio, has earned statewide and national attention as a model for local workforce development efforts. Since 1993, Project QUEST has met the needs of San Antonio area businesses by training local residents who would otherwise be on public assistance and not in the San Antonio workforce.

As a winner of a 1995 Innovations Award from the Ford Foundation and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Project QUEST remains a national role model among job training programs because of its ties to businesses and community-based organizations. Organizations from other Texas communities, other states, Mexico and Saudi Arabia have found Project QUEST to be a valid inspiration and benchmark entity for their economic and workforce development efforts.

QUEST was honored as a 2003 winner of The Enterprise Foundation and The J.P. Morgan Chase Foundation Award for Excellence in Workforce Development. This award recognizes nonprofit job training and placement organizations across the country that are using best practices to effectively help individuals find and retain quality jobs.  In 2008, QUEST was among a select group of workforce development organizations to receive workforce grants from the US Department of Labor and QUEST continues to leverage the recognition of their excellence from a growing number of private organizations who share QUEST’s vision for greater community involvement in the innovation and development of education and workforce preparation initiatives.

For more than 100 years, San Antonio Independent School District has been educating some of San Antonio’s most notable citizens – those whose contributions have made the world a better place.  Today, SAISD serves approximately 55,000 students and is the third largest public school system in the Bexar County area. SAISD provides a comprehensive instructional program and related services for students from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, including a college preparatory curriculum, Magnet programs and specialized schools as options for middle and high school students, career and technology education, bilingual education, special education, and a variety extracurricular opportunities.

St. Mary's University, founded in 1852 by Marianist brothers and priests, is the first institution of higher learning in San Antonio and the oldest Catholic university in Texas and the Southwest. Personal attention and powerful academic programs have made St. Mary's, located on 135 acres northwest of downtown San Antonio, a nationally recognized liberal arts institution. With a diverse student population of nearly 4,000 of all faiths and backgrounds, St. Mary's is home to five schools: Humanities and Social Sciences, Bill Greehey School of Business, Science, Engineering and Technology, Graduate, and Law.

The University provides a Catholic education experience that evokes academic excellence while integrating liberal studies, professional preparation and ethical commitment. St. Mary's 192 full-time faculty members, 94 percent of whom hold doctoral or terminal degrees in their fields, are committed to student success in and out of the classroom. St. Mary's has approximately 70 undergraduate and graduate majors and offers over 120 degree programs, which include two doctoral and two law programs. The student/faculty ratio of 13-to-1 permits small classes and promotes active learning.

The Marianists who came to San Antonio in 1852 responded to the call of their superiors to establish an educational institution to regenerate the people of the city. Through their work and the work of those who followed them, St. Mary's University has maintained its reputation as "a noble institution destined to be a great education center of the Southwest."

St. Mary's serves the various communities of San Antonio, the Southwest, the nation and the world through the intellectual, spiritual, moral and professional leadership of its faculty, administration, staff and students.

UTSA's Mission

The University of Texas at San Antonio is dedicated to the advancement of knowledge through research and discovery, teaching and learning, community engagement and public service. As an institution of access and excellence, UTSA embraces multicultural traditions and serves as a center for intellectual and creative resources as well as a catalyst for socioeconomic development–for Texas, the nation and the world.

UTSA's Vision

To be a premier public research university, providing access to educational excellence and preparing citizen leaders for the global environment.

UTSA's Core Values

We encourage an environment of dialogue and discovery, where integrity, excellence, inclusiveness, respect, collaboration and innovation are fostered.

In just over 18 months, San Antonio’s Westside Education and Training Center went from an idea to a functioning organization, one that is helping residents train for and connect to local jobs as well as take college courses that can lead to careers. In its first year, WETC enrolled 1,347 students, three times more than its target.

A first for San Antonio’s West Side, the WETC offers a spectrum of postsecondary educational opportunities for youth and adults. Students can study close to home, choosing from courses that give college credit or place them in a quick, workforce “pipeline” to high-paying jobs. WETC is attracting students from all over San Antonio, but it is especially appealing to young adults and older students who live or work in the West Side area. The renovated 31,000-square-foot building features 18 classrooms, a technical 4 skills assessment lab, a community computer lab, a 2,500-square-foot manufacturing technology lab and the Quest Center, which offers students support services modeled after The Casey Foundation’s Centers for Working Families. After enrolling 1,347 students during its first year, WETC plans to double its enrollment during its second year. It had 2,113 students as of June 2008