Vanguard Academy stands out, building brand over past 23 years
By Gregg Wendorf
Advance News Journal
Vanguard Academy Public Charter Schools has been a relatively amazing story to watch pass by the wayside over these past two decades. Unlike a few other charter schools with their annual $14 million travel budgets, corporate jets, million-dollar salaries for the “CEO,” the once tiny Vanguard has built its brand, its name and reputation, if you will, on a relatively simple concept — slow, controlled growth.
When it opened for business in 2001 with 32 students under its wing, no one had a clue how things would go, moving forward. Charter schools in Texas were a relatively new concept at the time, and there were plenty of naysayers.
Slow and steady would be a good way to describe its subsequent growth process, considering it all began inside the Sunday School classrooms at Templo Bethel Church in 2001, six years after the Texas State Legislature approved the state’s charter school law in 1995.
A year later, TEA handed down an edict — either decide you’re going to be a private school that is part of a church, or separate and become a standalone charter school as the new state law intended.
Although Vanguard Academy is no longer hosting classes at Templo Bethel (southwest corner of Veterans Blvd. and Kelly in Pharr) the church and Vanguard Academy have remained partners for the last seven years. After getting started at Templo Bethel the Charter School then built its own portable buildings behind the church. Approximately three years later, Vanguard built its own campus next to the portables, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Today, Vanguard Academy is spread across 10 state-of-the-art campuses. It has three elementary schools and two secondary schools in Pharr; one elementary campus in Alamo, and one secondary school in Alamo; one elementary school in Edinburg, and one secondary school in Edinburg; and one campus in Mission.
The School’s Leadership
Serving as superintendent since 2017, Dr. Narciso Garcia has been in education for 32 years, having served at both Hidalgo and PSJA ISD where Dr. Daniel King was once his mentor.
Three years ago he was named Leader of the Year 2021 by the Texas Public Charter Schools Association (TPCSA). The award honors outstanding Texas administrators for achievements and excellence in charter school administration.
Not bad for a kid who, like so many in the RGV, Hispanic and Anglo, grew up relatively poor and humble.
Planted outside the Edcouch- Elsa area all the way through high school, after working along the farm-migrant trail for most of the summer, Garcia said being born poor isn’t a curse if you learn how to turn it into an advantage.
“My family lacked indoor plumbing until I left for the Army after high school graduation. In fact, I gave my Army sign-on bonus to my dad and told him to use it for some indoor plumbing. When I returned home, it was nice to see that the outhouse was no longer needed.”
According to Garcia, “Charter schools like Vanguard Academy get to work collaboratively with parents to make sure that all our students and young people succeed. Wealthy, middle-class, relatively poor. We place children, young people, and families first, and we give all the honor and the glory to God for His many blessings bestowed upon our Vanguard students, teachers and families.”
Since approximately 90 percent fall below the poverty threshold, because of his upbringing, it’s easy for him to relate.
“I tell them that if they put their minds to it, there is nothing they can’t do.”
Success 2023/2024
This academic year, Vanguard had a young student at Rembrandt Secondary, at its Pharr campus, who has been awarded or offered $2.5 million in scholarships for universities and colleges.
“From different entities,” said Garcia, “different organizations and universities. And so he’s trying to decide which ones to take because there are so many.”
Nice decision to have to make.
“It is,” said Garcia. “And we also have 10 students that have been accepted into Baylor University. We also have another student that, in December, was accepted into Rice University College of Engineering. A fullride, four-year scholarship.”
All told, of the 217 high school seniors at Vanguard, 217 have already accepted $6 million in scholarships.
“Most high schools our size don’t get that much,” said Garcia. “It’s usually large high schools with 600-plus kids who are the ones that are getting over $6 million in scholarships. And for us, we only have 217 seniors, yet $6 million in scholarships have been awarded to them, or accepted by them.”
Of those students at the high school level, according to Narciso Garcia, approximately 80 percent began their student careers at Vanguard, going all the way back to pre-K3, pre-K4.
“It all starts with a firm foundation,” he said. “We believe Vanguard has instilled in our young people a firm foundation since early childhood grade levels.”
No Cherry Picking
One slam against charter schools in general is that they cherry pick their students. Top-rated students to the front of the class. The slackers, pick up your backpack and head on to another school. Don’t care which one, just so you don’t come back here next year. No matter if the student’s problems are related to domestic dysfunctionality, students who are challenged either mentally or physically, charter schools aren’t interested in them.
Why? So that they can artificially inflate test scores, among other reasons, such as the need to spend too many resources on a relatively few deemed too difficult to teach.
“Well, said Garcia, “we all know that not all schools are created equal, and the critics of charter schools in general have always thrown out that accusation, that charter schools cherry- pick their students and so forth. But at Vanguard, and that’s the only charter school about which I have personal knowledge, that’s just not the case.”
When Garcia started at the charter school in 2017, it had approximately 3 percent special- ed students, and right now, Vanguard is approximately a little bit over 8 percent special-education students. “Our special education population has gone from 3 percent to 8 percent. That’s a testament to the trust that parents have in our school system. And we have special education students graduating with college hours and industry-based certifications and things like that. But we don’t cherry pick students. By federal law, we have to conduct a lottery just like everybody else does, so there is really no way we can do that even if we wanted to, but we don’t. Our motto has always been, we are ready and willing to teach any child who shows up at our front door.”
Seven years ago Garcia came to Vanguard to demystify the concept that charter schools cherry pick students.
“I said to myself and the Board of Directors at that time that the only way I would come to Vanguard Academy is if we could reach and teach all students. We believed that if we would build it, they would come, and so students and their parents have.”
Garcia said he is a firm believer in Hebrews 11:1 — Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
“If you believe, you will receive, but if you doubt, you will do without, and thus Vanguard Academy is blessed by holding firm to the values that got the charter school started at Templo Bethel.”
Moving Forward
Vanguard Academy is looking forward to the next school year, and about that, there is no doubt, said Garcia.
“Right now, we have over 1,000 new students applying to our school. So, Lord willing, we can accommodate all 1,000 new students. And we’re really excited about the upcoming school year (2024/2025). So we want to make sure that hopefully we can accept all who turn up, wanting to learn.”
Not bad for a tiny charter that started out with only 32 students in 2001. “If families really want personalized instruction and personalized relationship-building with the children, Vanguard’s their place because we’re not very large, but we really are in tune to the needs of all children. We treat all students practicing the Golden Rule, like we would like our children to be treated. We look out for everyone.”
Today, 23 years after opening its doors to those 32 students, Vanguard’s student population now numbers 6,573.
Of late, what Garcia said he’s most excited about for both the charter, its staff, students, parents, and administrators is the Kinder Readiness Report, recently released by the TEA (Texas Education Agency).
“It provides you with a kinder readiness for your school district. For us, I looked it up and found out that Vanguard is number one in the entire region and near the top across the entire state when it comes to kinder readiness based on that report. When you’re number one in the region, you may have a chance at being named number one in the state when it comes to kinder readiness.”
For Vanguard, said Garcia, that report represents a huge success.
“Because if you set the firm foundation at the bottom, in the early grades, guess what? They’re going to be ready for college in later years. They’re going to be ready for their careers. They’re going to be ready for life. They’re going to be ready for associate degrees. They’re going to be ready to apply to these colleges and these universities.”
In terms of additional growth, Dr. Narciso Garcia said Vanguard is happy where it’s at.
“Right now we don’t have any plans for new growth, at least not in the immediate sense. The Mission campus is already opened. It opened up this year. Right now, we don’t have any plans to open up any other campuses. We want to continue with the controlled growth that we currently have going on.”
Controlled growth, said Garcia, so that Vanguard can really provide everything that it needs for the students and teachers.
“We’re going to limit it to these campuses and continue the growth with what we have.”
Not bad at all for a tiny charter school that began operations in 2000/2001 in a tiny classroom inside a church.
“We’ve been blessed with the parents who have entrusted their children to us, and we’ve been obviously blessed with great teachers, administrators,” said Garcia. “I know that word ‘great’ is often bandied about maybe too much, but how else can you describe the success that Vanguard Academy has had over the years with its relatively moderate, regulated growth? Vanguard continues to partner with Templo Bethel as a state-chartered school, and we open our day with prayer, giving thanks for all that this school district has accomplished over these past two decades. If you can’t describe that as a blessing, a thanksgiving of sort, I don’t know what is.”