On paper, the mostly Hispanic kids in Pharr-San Juan-Alamo Independent School District (PSJA), located just miles from the Mexican border, have the odds stacked against them when it comes to academic success. The district is in one of the poorest congressional districts in the country and nearly 90 percent of students are low-income. Most of their parents didn’t go to college. About a quarter of those over 25 in the area didn’t even make it to high school, more than four times the national average. Statistically speaking, district kids are the kinds of students who are less likely to graduate from high school, go to college and earn a degree.