Like Daughter, Like Mother

Jada Valdez enrolled at San Antonio College in the fall of 2022. The year before, she sat in on a presentation at her high school on the AlamoPROMISE Program, which allows graduating seniors in Bexar County to attend any of the five Alamo Colleges tuition-free. 

The program lowered financial barriers for Valdez to attend college while allowing her to grow comfortable with higher education. “The Alamo Colleges definitely gave me some time to catch my footing and feel more secure in the college environment,” Valdez says. 

And just a few semesters later, she helped attract a new classmate: her mother, DeAndrea Jordan. 

It wasn’t Jordan’s first time at SAC; she took a few dual-credit classes during her high school years in the ‘90s and attended for a time after she graduated. But back then, family circumstances pulled her out of classes. Now, she hopes her return and earning a degree will expand her options in her current career; she has been working with the same large credit union for more than a decade. 

“My daughter and son, they hear me talk all the time about [the importance of] getting an education,” Jordan says. “Now is the time for me to practice what I preach.”

Valdez and Jordan aren’t the only ones in their family who have attended SAC. Valdez’s brother has also taken classes at the college. “The Alamo Colleges District, the whole school system, I recommend it to everyone,” says Valdez. “My cousin also just started, so it is kind of a family thing at this point.” 

Jordan and Valdez are pursuing different paths at SAC but together their trading tips on classes, professors, and prerequisites. 

Jordan assists Valdez with her writing assignments, and Valdez helps Jordan troubleshoot computer questions, like how to drop classes on SAC’s student software. “Sometimes I’m lost,” Jordan jokes. “I’ve gotten better.”

Initially Jordan — who still works full-time while attending SAC — planned to earn a certification in accounting, but her advisers at SAC recently encouraged Jordan to attend a four-year college. She’s now working toward an Associate Degree in business. SAC classes, Jordan expects, will allow her renewed upward mobility within her chosen career, perhaps helping her transition into accounting or underwriting. When she transfers to a university, Jordan plans to earn a degree in accounting, economics or finance.

Meanwhile, Valdez recently graduated from SAC with an associate degree in social work. She originally enrolled as a sociology major, then explored public administration before ultimately landing on social work — a field that spoke to her long-held passion for advocacy and community impact.

Jordan helped ignite that interest, taking a 13-year-old Valdez to her first phone banking session before the 2016 presidential election. But it was unclear to Valdez how she would translate her passion for advocacy into a career until she arrived at SAC. 

Valdez credits her time at SAC with pulling together the threads of her interest in activism and social issues and helping her weave it into a cohesive vision for the future. While studying government and social work in her classes, Valdez built strong community connections in her free time. 

She served as president of the Black Student Association for two semesters and as the student leader for Texas Rising, a group that advocates for voting rights, reproductive justice and criminal justice reform, among other issues. In addition to a stint as vice president of the Student Government Association, she interned through the City of San Antonio, supporting formerly incarcerated people and their families with reentry; Valdez ran life skills classes to help people reintegrate into civilian life.

That experience with formerly incarcerated people — and the work she witnessed from case managers and social support staff specifically — only fueled her interest in social work. Growing up, Valdez witnessed her own family members’ negative interactions with the criminal justice system, and her more recent experiences solidified her interest in helping to reform what she views as a broken system.  

“Especially with the current state of the country right now, I think there needs to be more people that care, especially within the social work field. Nothing’s perfect, but a lot of institutions are flawed,” she says. “The prison system, I don’t feel is productive.” 

Valdez also recently wrapped up an internship in the district office of Greg Casar, who represents Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives. “It's been really great to see the blend of social work and politics and public policy,” says Valdez. “When I transfer, I plan to double major in both of those fields.”

Like Jordan, Valdez has her sights set on a four-year university. She is waiting to hear back from upwards of ten schools, mostly in Texas, and plans to pursue majors in politics and public policy.