SAN JUAN, July 5 - The second of a two-part series on PSJA ISD will air on the News Hour on PBS at 6 tonight.

Part One, focusing on the school district’s dropout recovery program and early college work, aired yesterday. Part One can be viewed at the Learning Matters website. Click here to watch it.

Arianna Vazquez-Hernandez, PSJA’s public information officer, said it is a great honor for PSJA to have been chosen from across the nation for the PBS feature. She said praise needs to go to PSJA’s “amazing” staff for all their hard work.

“Without their commitment to our students, the district's progress and recent success would not be possible,” Vazquez-Hernandez said. She also thanked parents and community members for their continued support.

PSJA has been winning rave reviews from the education world since Dr. Danny King became superintendent in July 2007. King was keynote speaker at a conference in Washington, D.C. recently that was hosted by the U.S. Department of Education. The conference focused on high school graduation initiatives.

PSJA was featured in Education Week's “Diplomas Count 2012” publication recently. And state Sen. Juan Hinojosa has filed legislation to replicate PSJA’s highly regarded dropout recovery program across the state of Texas.

PSJA has almost 32,000 students. Ninety nine percent of them are Hispanic and 89 percent economically disadvantaged.

Under King’s leadership, PSJA has worked to ensure every single student gets the opportunity of earning at least 12 college hours by high school graduation, with many earning more - up to an Associate’s Degree. By 2010, PSJA had already almost doubled the number of graduates enrolling in college after completing high school. 

King believes PSJA is on course to become a national leader in producing college ready, academically bi-literate high school graduates. 

Anyone that misses the live airing during PBS News Hour at 6 p.m. can watch the story online from Friday at http://learningmatters.tv/.