Despite the Texas State Board of Education 2014 mandating that all high schools offer a computer science course, recent data shows that less than half of the high schools in Texas are not offering this content to their students. The most significant barrier to providing this content to the next generation workforce is having sufficient numbers of qualified and certified computer science teachers in all state regions. In response to this need, the 89th Texas Legislature passed the Texas Computer Science Pipeline Initiative (Senate Bill 1, Article III, THECB, Rider 50) to address this critical shortage.
Find a hub near you!
triciaberry@tacc.utexas.edu
WeTeach_CS Certification Prep Hubs help teachers build the knowledge they need to successfully pass the Grades 8-12 Computer Science or EC-12 Technology Applications Texas teacher certification exams.
CS Certification Hub Stipends
Tech Apps Certification Hub Stipends
Hub
The University of Texas at Austin Project Director: Sheryl Roehl
Pathways Available: CS 8-12 Certification Prep; Tech Apps EC-12 Certification Prep
Application Deadline: February 1, 2026
Baylor University Project Director: Greg Speegle
Prairie View A&M University Project Director: Camille Burnett
Application Coming soon.
Region 1 ESC Project Director: Sylvia Escobar
Region 2 ESC Project Director: Derek Villanueva
Pathways Available: CS 8-12 Certification Prep
Application Deadline: January 16, 2026
Region 4 ESC Project Director: Jennifer Wellman
Application Deadline: February 6, 2026
Region 5 ESC Project Director: Janna Smith
Region 20 ESC Project Director: Susan Reeves
Application Deadline: January 23, 2026
Rice University Project Director: Matthew Cushing
Application Deadline: January 14, 2026
Southern Methodist University Project Director: Kenneth Berry
Stephen F. Austin State University Project Director: Jane Long
Application Deadline: February 13, 2026
Texas State University Project Director: Jennifer King
Application Deadline: January 20, 2026
The University of Texas at Arlington Project Director: Greg Hale
The University of Texas at El Paso Project Director: Salamah Salamah
As a part of this enterprise, the WeTeach_CS (WTCS) program, housed in the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at The University of Texas at Austin, is seeking Texas Institutions of Higher Education and Texas Regional Education Service Centers to join the WTCS Secondary Certification Hubs project to recruit and train in-service Texas teachers in the pursuit of adding a teaching certificate by challenging and passing the Computer Science (CS) 8-12 or EC-12 Technology Applications TExES exams with the intent of teaching computer science course(s). At least half of the hub’s participants must be on the CS 8-12 Pathway.
Application Dates:
Grant Period:
Access program guidelines, FAQ, and more.
Access Resources
Application Deadline: November 5, 2025 by 5pm CT Applicants will be notified of their status no later than November 14, 2025.
Grant Period: February 1, 2026 - February 28, 2027 Pre-award costs allowed back to December 1, 2025
Applications have closed
