“I wondered if our kids could do this,” he remembers.
That question followed him back to Fredericksburg High School, where Roemer introduced INCubatoredu, Uncharted Learning’s year-long entrepreneurship course. Students would develop their own business ideas with help from entrepreneurs and business leaders in the community.
For Roemer, it meant changing the way he taught a subject he knew well.
During the program’s first year, Roemer says 30 community members came into his classroom to support students as mentors and volunteers.
Students learned about manufacturing and distribution from Chad Meyers, CEO of Core-Javalina Holdings. Atanacio "Tachi" Hinojosa, CEO of Central Texas Electric Cooperative, explored project management. Dan Kemp, CEO of Security State Bank, talked about applying entrepreneurial thinking inside an established company.
As a volunteer, Pedregon shared his own experience trying to scale a business that ultimately failed. Roemer wanted students to hear that side of entrepreneurship, especially since many were used to seeing only extreme success stories on social media.
“They haven’t failed a whole lot,” Roemer said. “And failure is such a huge part of this program and life.”
For Roemer, the community became central to the course.
“The students interacting with the community and learning from the community is exponentially better than this just from this old teacher.”
Fredericksburg’s first cohort included 22 students working in six teams. They spent the year developing business ideas, testing assumptions and revising their plans.
Presenting was part of the work from early on. "They were scared to death,” Roemer said of the first presentations.
Over time, he watched students become more comfortable explaining their ideas and responding to questions.
“The kids kept rising to the occasion,” he said.
Pedregon wants students to think beyond entrepreneurship as a future occupation. “We actually want to challenge the notion that entrepreneur is a job title and really that entrepreneur is a mindset,” he said.
He sees that mindset as useful whether students eventually build companies of their own or bring it to the work they choose.
By spring, the six teams were ready to present the businesses they had spent the year developing.
“We sold out the theater,” Roemer said.
The event awarded $21,000 in seed funding or scholarships. The winning team later condensed its presentation and pitched again at a Gillespie County Economic Development Council meeting.
The day after the competition, Caroline, a student on the winning team, asked Roemer, “Can I be a mentor now for next year's group?”
In one school year, Caroline had gone from learning alongside a mentor to wanting to become one herself.
Roemer is entering his 27th year in education. Through INCubatoredu, Jason gives his students ownership to drive their learning and invites the community into his classroom to create a learning environment that is engaging and dynamic.
He is quick to share credit with the volunteers, mentors and students around him. He also talks openly about what the experience has meant for his own work.
“My education career has really been rejuvenated,” he said.
Much of that comes back to the students.
"Seeing the kids grow as presenters, as teammates, and in their business IQ has been so satisfying," Roemer said.
Fredericksburg is one of many Texas communities using Uncharted Learning programs. Its experience with INCubatoredu shows how entrepreneurship education be a connector between district, community and student.
In Fredericksburg, students gain access to business professionals and entrepreneurs. Local business leaders get to know young people who may one day work, build businesses, or invest their talents in the community themselves.
Caroline’s request to return as a mentor offers an early glimpse of how that can continue. A student benefits from the people who show up for her, then wants to show up for the students who follow.
Over time, that kind of participation can help build a stronger local entrepreneurial ecosystem, with the school as one of the places where relationships begin.
Fredericksburg High School students are engaged in INCubatoredu, Uncharted Learning’s year-long entrepreneurship course in which students develop businesses with support from mentors and community members.
Uncharted Learning also offers entreINCedu, a foundational entrepreneurship curriculum for schools looking for another way to bring entrepreneurship into high school coursework. In Texas, entreINCedu is currently part of the State Board of Education’s 2026 Instructional Materials Review and Approval process for CTE materials.
For districts considering Entrepreneurship I or a more comprehensive entrepreneurship offering like INCubatoredu, Fredericksburg provides a useful view inside one classroom: students doing the work, with a community willing to support them to create their own futures.
This post was adapted from two episodes of The Building Texas Show podcast: