The Houston Endowment has announced a three-year, $1.5 million grant in support of a new bachelor’s degree program at San Jacinto College. 

The grant will cover employee and operating costs during the initial two to three years of the Bachelor of Applied Science in Education program, which will open in the spring 2024 semester and have an emphasis in Early Childhood Education (BAS-ECE). The program is open to students who have an associate degree of applied science in early childhood/child development and are working in the industry. San Jacinto College intends to enroll an initial cohort of 50 students and increasing to 125 for the second-year cohort. The college estimates that 225 students will be enrolled in the program by the third year.

The grant is designed to address the need for early childhood teachers. According to a February 2023 report from the Learning Policy Institute, Texas has the largest teacher workforce of any U.S. state, with more than 370,000 teachers in 2021-22, and by 2030 the need for highly qualified early childhood and elementary school teachers in the state will increase by 13 percent. Nearly 3.2 million full-time teachers were employed across the United States last fall, but many local school districts were hit hard by vacancies—there were more than 25,000 job postings in the Houston-Galveston metro area alone.

“Our goal is to help fill the workforce gap that currently exists in early childhood education by providing a new bachelor’s degree for students who are currently working in the education field,” said San Jacinto College chancellor Brenda Hellyer. “The need for qualified early childhood and elementary school teachers and professionals is real. We know that as demographics in our region and state change, there is also an increasing need to attract a more diverse pipeline of teachers. San Jacinto College is committed to working with our education partners to provide them with skilled and trained employees.” 

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