PHARR, Texas - When he was just 19 and studying at Princeton University, Thomas R. Garcia went back to his alma mater, PSJA ISD and told the then superintendent, Daniel P. King, that he wanted to give back.
“I said, I want to give back to students now. I do not want to wait until I graduate from college,” Garcia remembers. “I knew what my friends were going through as high school seniors - the same mistakes and issues and systemic barriers I went through as a high school senior applying for college. Not knowing about resources. Even if you knew about them, you couldn’t access them because you did not know how to write a strong essay. Your teachers did not know how to help you.”
Thomas R. GarciaSo, with King’s blessing and encouragement, Garcia started a near-peer mentorship program where he trained 19-23 year olds that had also gone to the best colleges to come back every summer and host summer institutes.
“We taught them how to write college essays, how to apply for financial aid, how to go to-and-thru college as a college student from PSJA. We were able to do things teachers and counselors simply didn’t have the capacity to do.”
This led to the formation of the College Scholarship Leadership Access Program (CSLAP). The 501(c)(3) nonprofit has expanded to serve many school districts across the Rio Grande Valley.
As nonprofit’s website notes: “CSLAP hosts college access events and provides personalized one-on-one sessions for high school students attending schools in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) in South Texas. CSLAP expands opportunities, enhances applications, and grants scholarships. In doing so, CSLAP aims to increase college enrollment rates and form a support system for students going to and through college.”
From 2013-2017, CSLAP hosted summer institutes for rising seniors at PSJA ISD. “We raised awareness about applying to college through workshops, provided mentorship through year-long communication, and provided transition support for graduating seniors. Our curriculum became PSJA's University Scholars Enrichment Course.”
Garcia explained: “In 2019, we became an incorporated nonprofit organization. We have continued our work by partnering with local school districts to teach college access lessons and with nonprofits to uplift our community outside the classroom.”
Garcia provided an example of CSLAP’s success. He brought all the chairs from the English departments at the various PSJA high schools together to discuss the importance of the college essay.
“The regular English courses for seniors, they were not assigning it. We were able to change that, systemically,” Garcia said. “So, when they went to the Go Center for their college applications, they had the essay ready. Before, they would go to the college center, they would do the application and they would say, ‘I do not have the essay, I will come back later.’ And they would never come back. So, that little fix, bringing the high schools together to make the systemic fix, made a huge difference in college enrollment rates and college application rates. That is just one small example of the work we have done because of the fact that we are able to go to all these different schools and bring them together.”
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