All right.

The time is now 10.02 a.m.

on this Wednesday, December 10th, 2025.

We will now call this meeting of the Education Opportunities Committee to order.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Councilmember Corr.

Councilmember Maki Rodriguez.

Councilmember Mungia.

Present.

Councilmember Castillo.

Chair Galvan.

Here.

Sir, we have a quorum.

Thank you so much.

First item on the agenda is approval of minutes.

Are there any corrections to the minutes?

If not, can I get a motion to uh second or motion and a second to approve the minutes?

Motion to approve.

All those in favor?

Aye.

All those opposed.

Any abstains?

Moving on.

Motion carries.

We also have public comment.

We have one speaker signed up.

Melina Espiritu Asocard on item three.

You have three minutes to speak.

Yes.

You go right into it, Councilman.

Good morning, Chairman Galvan, Councilwoman Castillo, Councilwoman, Councilman McKee Rodriguez.

My name is Melina Spirituasucon, and I'm the proud president of North Side AFT, the union representing the working people who keep Northside ISD running every day.

Thank you for your continued willingness to discuss how sit this uh the city and our public schools can work together.

I especially want to acknowledge Councilman Kis Councilwoman Castillo and Councilman Galvan for always making sure working people have a seat at the table.

At this as this committee meets today, I want to center us on its purpose.

This committee exists to improve student outcomes, expand economic mobility, strengthen community success.

It should bring together leaders, educators, and residents to strategize on access to high quality education from pre-K through post-secondary pathways.

It is also the space where you all confront the root uh factors that shape student success, including housing, health care, transportation, and workforce readiness.

We uh talk about educational opportunity.

We are when we talk about well-being of San Antonio as a whole, we speak about all of those things.

Because of that, it's important to remember that most San Antonio families send their children to our traditional public schools.

Our local ISDs are essential to the city's economic health and to the daily lives of families.

That's why collaboration with public schools districts must remain steady and intentional.

When decisions are made about us without us, the real um impact on students and educators can easily be missed.

Today you will hear about the strong work happening in our early learning programs and through pre-K for SA.

As you review that progress, I ask that you keep in mind how interconnected our systems are.

Even decisions that may seem procedural can create significant ripple effects for students in public schools.

There is one example I want to lift briefly because it relates to that to interconnectness.

There has been growing discussion about shifting municipal elections from May to November odd numbered cycles.

When while I understand the interest in improving civic engagement, a move like that would have real consequences for local ISDs.

Without the city anchoring the May ballot, school districts could see elections costs rise 20 to 40 percent, and in some cases even higher.

Those are resources that should remain focused on classrooms.

Voter turnout for school board elections would also be affected, and these elections are where families choose to choose the leaders who protect our students and advocate for our education, especially in the face of our state leader state leadership.

I mentioned this not to shift focus of today's meeting, but to reinforce why collaboration matters.

When the city and the ISDs move together with purpose, we strengthen the educational pathways that support economic mobility and community stability.

When decisions are made in isolation, unintended challenges arise for the very systems we rely on to educate our children.

As you listen today and reflect on all the progress being made in early childhood education, I urge you to keep our public school districts at the forefront of your decisions.

We are your partners.

We are part of the foundation of San Antonio's long-term success, including the ISDs, and these conversations ensured that every decision moves us closer to giving every child the opportunity they deserve.

Thank you.

All right, thank you so much for your comments.

Uh Madam Clerk, is anybody else send out to speak?

Sounds good.

All right, then we can move forward.

Um one quick note I wanted to mention for the committee was that of course today.

There are some slides there for different programming about uh K 212 and early uh further on in education.

We will have full sessions about those programs as well, but feel free to also comment on them.

Just wanted to be clear, there will be more time, as there always is more time.

Um nonetheless, let's get started.

Uh item number two, um, briefing on early childhood programs in the Department of Human Services.

All right.

Oh, um, for my committee, sorry, really quick.

Do we want to um go through all of them at once, or do you want to take pauses in between?

Another all child care at preschool focused, but all at once?

Sounds good.

All right, go ahead, Melody.

Oh, you want to break the data one?

Yeah, well, all the child care wines are early childhood, we'll put together.

We'll go back to back.

Perfect.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Sorry, go ahead, Melanie.

All right, so good morning, Chair Galvan and committee members.

I'm Melody Woosley, Human Services Director.

And so as background, this briefing provides an overview of the Department of Human Services Early Childhood Initiatives serving children as young as six weeks old all the way through third grade.

Three head start, early Head Start grants, the child care quality initiative centers, emergency and ready-to-work child care efforts, and also covers the nonprofit early education and interventions awarded through the consolidated funding process.

And so in fiscal year 26, the human services budget included over 50 million in grant and general fund resources focused on early childhood.

And we do that in order to improve kindergarten ready readiness and prepare children for education success, to improve the quality of early care and education providers, as well as access to care so that parents can work.

And Head Start and quality early education and care centers are protective.

They offer a safe and healthy learning environment and provide early intervention opportunities for children and families in adverse situations.

The majority of the human services early childhood resources support three federal Head Start and Early Head Start grants, totaling about 43.6 million.

These programs enroll 3300 children, and we are the third largest Head Start program in the country.

We contract with Edgewood and San Antonio ISDs as well as six nonprofit early care and education centers to provide the education and nutrition component in their facilities.

Human services provides on-site family support workers who work with families on parenting skills, on advocating for their children, especially those with disabilities, accessing health services, and goal setting to help parents achieve and improve their own education level and financial stability.

So the city's Head Start and Early Head Start programs are located.

All sites are located within those San Antonio and Edgewood ISD geographic boundaries.

The sites are located in this council districts one, two, three, five, six, and seven, and you can see there the number in each district.

There are seven other Head Start and Early Head Start providers in Barra County, and they operate centers across the balance of the city.

Head start is community informed.

We contract with UTSA to provide a full community assessment every five years and an update annually.

We use this information to make decisions about the types and the locations of services.

The assessment provides context on how our service area is doing compared to the rest of the city and state on poverty household makeup and public assistance uptake.

So for example, the 2024 assessment showed that almost 40% of families living in our service area receive SNAP benefits compared to 16% citywide and 11.5% statewide.

Children living in households below 130% of the poverty level, experiencing homelessness, or receiving public assistance meet eligibility requirements.

But there are not enough slots for all participants and applicants, all applicants who are eligible.

And so we use a point system to prioritize the most vulnerable children and those most likely to struggle in school.

Children with disabilities of any income level are prioritized higher to help prepare them for kindergarten, and because federal regulations require that at least 10% of our enrollment be children with disabilities.

Although we can enroll higher income children with disabilities to reach that 10% threshold, 20% of currently enrolled children in our head start programs are identified, have identified disabilities, but only two children in our programs are over income.

And we assess children at least three times during the program year to measure progress the beginning, the middle, and the end of the year.

Both Edgewood and San Antonio use the circle progress monitoring tool to assess pre-kindergarten.

Assessments are based on the age of the child.

A low or negative change from beginning of year to end of year means they did not reach the level of proficiency expected based on their age at the time of the assessment.

And so while a child's emotional social emotional development may have improved to some degree between the beginning and the end of the year, it is below expected for the child's age.

Also monitors attendance and offers resources and guidance to prevent chronic absenteeism from occurring.

The attendant, our attendance improved from 92% in 2024 to 93% in 2025.

And we also survey parents and guardians at the end of every year to get their opinion on how we're doing and how we can improve.

And we saw a good increase in how parents viewed their child's educational services and teachers in 2025.

Now early Head Start programs use assessment tools called the ELAP and the LAP 3.

ELAP assesses all infants and toddlers in the program birth through 36 months, and LAP 3 assesses only three-year-olds.

And it's all that these tools are also a very effective monitoring tool for children with disabilities in monitoring their progress.

For all children, there are a few areas, language and self-help being two of them, that show less progress from the beginning of the year to the end of the year than expected based on the child's age.

And this is an area that you know where these tools really help us is pointing to the areas that we need to need to make improvement.

We did see improvement from 24 to 25, but the assessments point out that we still need a lot of improvement, and we actively work with providers, teachers, and families on language acquisition and self-help skills.

And an example of that is how a six-month-old might hold a cup.

And that includes health, dental, and wellness services based on their individual identified needs.

We implemented a dual generation approach to support families, which we know is critical to ensuring that children are in a healthy home environment, that they come to school, and that they come to school ready to learn.

Families support includes parenting education and case management as well.

And that helps parents develop and achieve their own goals.

Almost 900 parents completed their high school credential or an associate's degree last year, and we're proud of how many of our parents every year choose to improve their own education level, and our family support teams work to help parents enroll and navigate through education and training systems.

Head start facilitates lead screenings for all enrolled children.

When a child tests high for lead, we help them apply for neighborhood housing and services green and healthy homes initiative.

NHSD is able to provide much needed renovation to families with verified lead whose children have verified lead in their blood and in their homes and that meet income eligibility.

Since we started this partnership, 1.5 million has been invested to improve their homes and improve the safety of the housing that our families live in.

The Texas Workforce Commission requires that each workforce board dedicate a portion of their federal child care scholarship subsidy funds to serve low-income families engaged in work or education and to improve qualities so those families can see their you know their children can thrive.

We currently work with almost 600, and we call them CCS child care centers across the bear across Bear and 12 surrounding counties to provide professional mentoring, business coaching, and financial incentives to achieve Texas Rising Star certification by improving center quality.

Since 2021, our mentoring and coaching teams have assisted hundreds of centers to achieve TRS Texas Rising Star certification.

The number of certified providers increased by 246% since 2021.

Out of 587 CCS centers today, 467 or 75% are Texas Rising Star certified at some level, which is the state's way of recognizing quality.

In addition to ensuring that centers are Texas Rising Star Certified Business Coaches work with centers on recruitment plans.

They work with them to help enrolled children, applications for food reimbursement, and ongoing improvement to reach the higher three and four star rating, which translates to higher reimbursement rates and more revenue to the centers.

This support has resulted in a considerable increase in revenue, especially those in the rural counties.

And this in turn helps center earn more revenue, increase teacher pay, improve curriculum and facilities, as a few examples.

Most referrals to our city cares come from Metro Health staff working to support families who are experiencing domestic violence situations.

And we also partner with Ready to Work and Pre-K for SA to administer the Ready to Work Child Care Initiative.

This innovative partnership provides child care to ready to work participants, helping them get into a quality environment, a quality center so that they can complete their education.

Early education initiatives, including after-school programming for children up to age third up to third grade, kinder readiness, and summer STEM programs for young children so they don't lose their experience that learning gap.

Child abuse prevention and intervention investments support early childhood success to prevent unsafe home environments and neglect from impacting school readiness and learning.

Increasing the number of early Head Start teachers who complete their child development associate credential within a year of hire, and increasing the number of uh CCS Texas Rising STAR providers, and the number that are three and four star centers.

And then finally expanding coordination with ready to work to increase parent education and tamement in our programs.

And so that concludes my presentation, and I'll turn it over to Sarah Burray.

Dr.

Barry.

Good morning, uh committee members.

It's great to see you.

I'm Sarah Beret, and I'm going to share a little bit about pre-K for SA and particularly talk about how pre-K for SA and Head Start are really complementary in programs, both of which are much needed in our community.

So our most people when they think about pre-K for SA think about our education centers and our education centers.

We have four of those that are preschools and one education center that's a pre-K preschool, pre-K through second grade program in Gardendale.

Those are designed to be demonstration sites of what does high-quality early childhood look like.

So our preschools serve currently 1,823 and 4-year-olds and 60 infants and toddlers.

We added infants and toddlers for the first time this fall in response to the need for infant and toddler care in our community.

I'll talk a little bit more about that at the end of my presentation because I'm going to speak on the early learning landscape study that was commissioned by the City of San Antonio.

In our Gardendale Early Learning Program, we serve 250 children in pre-K through second grade.

That's in partnership with Edgewood ISD.

Our enrollment, our bread and butter is serving those children who are low living in low-income families.

Now all families in San Antonio are eligible to apply to pre-K for SA, but we prioritize certain groups, including low-income.

And while children who are eligible for head start are also eligible for pre-K for SA, we have a more expanded definition of low income.

We are trying to serve those families that are in that gap between being eligible for public pre-K or Head Start and being able to afford it in the private sector.

So our low income definition is 85% of state median income.

We also prioritize unhoused individuals, and one percent of our current enrollment are unhoused individuals, and then foster care, children who are either in or have been in foster care, and two percent of our current enrollment are in that category.

The other group that we prioritize that is really important to our community is military families.

There are not enough military child care seats on the installations, and so we want to make sure that we have those available in our community for our military personnel, and currently about 18% of our families are military affiliated.

We also have recently begun to prioritize ready to work.

We started that with our infant and toddler enrollment this fall, and about 40% of our infants and toddlers currently are children of parents participating in ready to work.

As we go into priority enrollment for the coming year, we will prioritize ready to work participants with our preschools as well.

We also offer a sliding scale tuition option, meaning that pre-K for SA is open to any family in San Antonio.

That goes all the way up to full market rate, although those seats are very limited.

We offer prioritized enrollment for COSA employees, and then which is about 5%, and then we serve children with exceptional needs, and about 15% of our children qualify for some kind of therapy services or additional supports.

In next fall, we will be the operating partner for EDUCARE, which is down at the near the Texas AM campus, actually on the campus, and there will be 200 children six weeks to five years down there.

So pre-K for SA is part of its architecture.

We have annual independent evaluation, and those studies have consistently year over year shown that pre-K for SA children come in below the national norm and key indicators, they leave well above the national norm, and those key indicators more than kind of ready.

But then more importantly, we are also studying what happens after they leave the pre-K for SA program, and those studies have shown that they get better reading, better math, better attendance scores.

We'll have a new study coming out next year that looks at our long-term outcomes for children because our most our first group of children, they're not children anymore, they're youth.

They are in high school this year.

The other part besides our education centers is we offer professional learning and grants, and our primary program in the grants and professional learning division is our San Antonio Shared Services Alliance.

The alliance brings together currently 90 independent child care providers into a network with the goal of improving quality, attracting and supporting and maintaining high-quality staff, developing a network of early care that is available to families across the city, helping them to improve financial stability and support all children, including those children that have exceptional needs, because there is a very low percentage of providers currently that are equipped to serve children with exceptional needs.

These goals were actually set by the alliance members themselves.

We started in 2019 with 17 providers and then have grown over the last few years up to up to 90 providers.

We're also actually ready to expand, so we're poised to add more providers to our alliance network.

Oh sorry, I thought there was a map in there that showed the 90 providers cover every part of San Antonio.

So we are in every district, but we are prioritizing as we add new members, those areas that are considered child care deserts.

One of our goals is to eliminate child care deserts in San Antonio.

So we were actively looking at those zip codes and talking with providers about who might be ready to join the alliance.

All of our alliance members are become TRS rated within, and typically within two years, they are three or four star.

We've also seen through our business coaching that we have helped the providers reduce debt, increase the quality of certifications among their staff, as well as increase retention and increase enrollment.

So the early learning landscape analysis, you may recall that the city council asked us a few years ago about what is happening in child care and what do we know about it.

And so pre-K for SA, DHS Ready to Work, and Economic Development commissioned a study by Texas AM San Antonio to look at the early learning landscape in San Antonio or in Bear County.

And some key findings from that is that Bear County has over 1,000, over 132,000 children under the age of five, but operationally we only have child care seats for 40 per 46% of those children.

That's a concern because about 70% of children with families or 70% of families with children under the age of five, both parents or all parents in the household are working, which means we have a gap in the number of seats that are available.

Providers are operating at about 70% of their licensed capacity.

So the state comes in and they say when all child care providers that are licensed, the state will come in and say you can serve X number of children based on your square footage.

But for lots of reasons, the providers may not be operating at that full capacity.

One, they may not want to because even though licensing may say a room is suitable for children, they may say no, it's actually not, and we're not going to, but in many cases, the reason they're not operating at full licensed capacity is because they can't find highly qualified staff or they aren't able to pay the staff in order to open up those seats to bring in more children.

So that is something that we're looking at how do we expand capacity in our existing providers.

But the greatest shortage in that we found through this study is in infant care.

The quality, um only about 30% of providers offering infant care are rated for quality.

And at any one time, only about 17% of openings in Bear County are for infants, and of those, only 3% are in quality-rated centers.

And what that means is if you are the parent of an infant, the chances of you finding a high quality center when you need it are very slim, and it's and it's very challenging, which is one of the reasons that pre-K4SA has begun to expand to serve infants toddlers because that's a critical need, particularly in South Bear County.

The other important finding was that non-traditional hours, less than 1% of sites offer non-traditional hours.

Those are the hours before 7 a.m.

or 6 a.m.

and after 7 p.m.

And of course, that's critical.

We have a large military community that needs hours before that, but also our health care community needs hours before that, and our manufacturing community needs hours that are before and after the traditional hours.

And so this will be a focus of our work is how do we create more centers and create the capacity for more centers to be able to fill those non-traditional hours cares.

What the study also showed about workforce affordability and quality challenges is that only 37% of infants and toddler infant teachers have specialized training and the turnover remains high.

This is one of the reasons that pre-K4SA has focused on the teachers for TOTTS program over the last few years, which provides a CDA and stipends to infant toddler teachers who remain in the post, and we've recently received a grant from Early Matter San Antonio to expand that program, so we're very excited about that.

Only 29% of licensed providers participate in Texas Rising Star, although this is that's what was found in the survey or in the study, but we're happy to report that it's much higher than that now.

Affordability is a major barrier.

Infant tuition ranges from 861 to over 1,100 a month and can reach up to more than $2,000 a month.

Providing high quality infant toddler care is very expensive, and families just you can't charge families enough to cover all of those costs.

So again, families needing in the care non-traditional hours or specialized supports, such as military um families and families with children with special needs face the greatest barriers in finding high quality child care.

What's ahead for pre-K for SA?

Um so in 2026, we are working with affordable housing um partners to figure out how can we help to bring high quality early learning into affording housing developments to one help them meet the um the tax credit that's available for high quality pre-K, but we're helping them to understand that high quality pre-K alone is not sufficient.

We really need to pair that with what's happening with children before the age of four.

Um we have also initiated Operation Extended Watch, which is to help increase the availability of providers that are military child care in your neighborhood certified programs, which means that'll increase the number of seats available to our military families, and in particular those operators that will provide before and after traditional hour care and weekend care.

I'm also happy to report that all of our pre-K for SA sites are now military child care in your neighborhood certified.

One of our goals is to help the federal government understand that we when they're looking at military installations, the amount of child care available, we should be counting those military child care in your neighborhood seats because if we did that, San Antonio would go from the bottom of the list as having the greatest gap to close to the top of the list and having the greatest availability.

So it's one of the areas of policy that I'll be focusing on this year.

Um we also, as I mentioned, have our long-term outcome study will come out, educare opening in the fall.

In 2027, we're gonna pilot summer programming for preschoolers.

80% of our families in the survey last year indicated they would be interested in continuing to have summer programming for preschool.

So we're beginning to look at what that might look like and how we can meet that need for families who need year-round care.

And then in 2028, um, we're hoping to be have a reauthorization election on the ballot, um, and that they're just for your information, there's up to a 20-year authorization period permitted, and so we're hoping to be able to have those conversations soon to find out whether we will have pre-K for SA on the ballot for another authorization period.

That's it.

Great.

Thank you so much.

And then I think we have our last presentation on the kind of uh child care, early childhood focus uh from the library.

So good morning, Mr.

Chair, uh committee members and assistant city manager.

So I'm Dale McNeill, one of the assistant directors at the San Antonio Public Library, here to tell you a little bit about what the library does specifically for the age group of children that you're speaking about today.

So a couple things I want to say about the public library here in San Antonio.

One is that our services are free and they're always free and they're always open to everyone.

That would be our values anyway, but it's also required in state statute.

Um we highly value the private confidential relationship we have with our customers.

So that's private and um, and again, part of that privacy is in state statute.

We don't have the kind of of um data that necessarily that like pre-K for SA or Head Start have about the children and their parents, but I think that the services work together just extraordinarily well.

We serve all council districts, all of Beck County through annual agreement with Bear County.

Um each council district has more than one public library in that council district, and every library provides services for young children.

So I wanted to talk a little bit about the the things that we do that are focused on young children.

Of course, we serve people of all ages, you know, school age, high school, college, and adults and older or older adults.

One thing I want to mention is that we have the resources that you visit physically, of course, but then we have virtual resources as well.

One that I think is particularly useful for pre for um elementary school age children and their parents and responsible adults is a live homework help where the child or the parent can be connected to a tutor, get help with whatever homework they they're needing help with.

I think a lot of parents and responsible adults find that extraordinarily helpful for math.

I don't know, even if you try to help a kindergartner with math, it's it's not necessarily as it as it was when you were in school.

Each one of our branches has at least weekly programs for young children, especially for the preschool age and also for infants and toddlers, with a real focus on the pre-literate activities of singing, using rhyme, and reading aloud books and child-directed play.

These are built on the idea of every child ready to read.

These are principles developed by the public library association and the association of library service to children.

So there's research backing up that these ideas are useful, and that they especially the talking, singing, reading, writing, and child-directed play, strengthen those neural pathways, they build confidence, they're useful for social skills, and then they connect the child and their responsible adult to the resources of the library and to other city resources and help the parent in their role as teacher.

We really think it's important that children experience the joy of learning and enjoy coming to the library with whatever adult or older sibling that they that they come with.

We want them to see how it can be pleasurable to read aloud, the delight in discovering a story, and of course, as any of you with young children are familiar, the delight in repetition, and there's a lot of learning, of course, that happens in uh in repetition.

One of the things that we found that this really helps children develop that executive function, self-regulation, emotional regulation, and by having the small the 30 minutes or 45 minutes at the library, it's a little bite that's a little easier to take, you know, than a whole day or half a day program.

And and again, this isn't instead of, but it's along with the other resources that parents have, city resources and others.

I want to especially focus on Little Red Wagon.

I think a lot of you are familiar with it.

We've had the program of Little Red Wagon for more than 20 years now at the San Antonio Public Library.

It was at the beginning, I think pretty much unique.

I think many libraries now have copied it.

But this is a group of library staff who focus entirely on early literacy.

That's just literally all they do.

They may do it in some ways that may or may not be exactly what you would expect because a lot of it they do with the very young children, but they also work with the parents, responsible adults, and so there's a child and a parent focus as well.

We do this with um with just seven people.

That's the staffing, and that's a picture of the staff.

I really wanted you all to see them because they're exceptional at what they do.

And you may have seen them in a city park, you may have seen them in your neighborhood with their van, where you generally don't see them is in the library.

They spend almost all of their time out in the community.

Part of their time there at Pre-K for SA.

We work closely together, so they may be working together to demonstrate maybe child develop uh child-centered and child-directed play, for example.

The in addition, as I said, to working with children, they work with parents on incorporating those ideas of talking, singing, reading, writing, and playing into things they do at home every day with materials that are available in their home.

You don't have to go buy something expensive, you don't have to sign up for something.

You can just use the materials that you have at home.

We emphasize having a bedtime chart that includes sharing books and kind of just remember to do these things, you know, at the end of the day.

And then also this program provides a free brand new book for each child to take home and keep.

There's a value in borrowing books, but there's a value in having books in your home as well.

I just wanted to share this quote from a parent who went to one of the workshops.

And hopefully you all don't think the library is dull and uninviting, but we know that people do, right?

And I think that that experiencing what Little Red Wagon can do, and they can make that connection, you know, out in the community and bring the person into the library is really exciting for us.

Another aspect of Little Red Wagon that you may not be familiar with is that we have a special focus and program for parents who are themselves still in high school.

So we of course the public schools are working with those school age parents to for them to graduate from high school, but they can't really focus on their role as a parent.

So our little red wagon staff interact with those high school students who are parents of how to be parents.

What you're seeing here is them learning to make toys with again things they have at home that will help with child directed play.

It's inexpensive, it's fun, and there's a lot of child development that can happen with the motor skills, and again, also emotional regulation.

As you know, if you're making something, you know you have to learn emotional regulation.

At least I do.

I get frustrated.

This really is focusing on the child directed play aspect of what we do.

We know that this is extremely important, and this kind of child directed play.

I think for like my generation, it sort of happened naturally in the yard on the street in the playground.

But what we see now is that we need to create those opportunities for children.

A lot of children this age aren't, and we can all understand the reasons why.

They're not just playing in the yard.

They're not walking to the park as awesome as the park resources are, and we work very closely with the parks department as well.

So that's not nothing against the park, but I think most parents of a preschool child are not going to say, hey, walk to the park and see who you find there.

Like that's just not a thing anyone's gonna do, which my parents did do.

Different time.

I don't know that it was a good idea in the 60s either, frankly.

Um, here just is another quote from a parent, you know, talking about meeting the library with Little Red Wagon and then now coming to the physical building every week.

We also have a few just big events.

Some of you I know because I've I've seen you there, have been at events like the Baby Super Saturday and the International Day of Play when we have literally hundreds of parents and young children, you know, usually in the central library, we've been in parks as well.

And I think another thing that that one might not easily think of is a lot of parents of young children feel socially isolated.

I think for many parents of young children, their peer group may not also have young children.

So a thing that happens at these events and also at Little Red Wagon events and at the story time in the libraries is that these parents are able to meet each other and make many real connections that uh have led to long long-term friendships that we're aware of.

So probably others that we're not aware of.

In our libraries, we have early literacy programs as well.

We do have, and one of the quotes here talks about snacks.

Um, along with Parks Department, along with DHS and other city departments, we we we know that children need food, and so we are looking always at how we can provide that food through partnerships with the food bank, through school districts, and other ways.

And then we do show parents again how to play.

Um, just to give to just give you an idea in the last fiscal year that the number of programs that we had, how many people attended, the new books that children receive to take to take home, the school campuses that we visited, and then those those workshops that we have for the high school age parents.

And again, that's with seven staff.

Each location has a children's librarian.

We don't have any branch library in San Antonio that does not have a children's librarian, and um you know, they have a background in providing these resources and guidance for young children.

They provide programs for the preschool age and then also for school age children as well.

We have little computers that are specifically for young children to learn and to have fun.

I think I think having fun at the library is a really important part of what we want people to do.

Because learning really should be fun.

And for some people, I think that just comes naturally.

And for others, it's something like this awe, it's called awe computer that oh, it's like something adults doing, but it's just for me, it's fun.

They're not connected to the internet, by the way.

They're they're full, they're fully self-contained.

You're not going out into the wide wild world.

Um and then we also in some neighborhoods, plenty of people come into the library, and we we're we're great.

In some other neighborhoods, we the children's librarian goes out into the neighborhood, visits child care centers, visits um faith communities and so on to provide those services where the children actually are.

So if they're not able, if we offer a service in the library and people don't really come, we go out in the community uh in the neighborhood nearby to provide that.

These programs are tailored to the developmental ages, developmental steps of uh of the children who are taking part in them.

I just wanted to mention again here.

This kind of shows you the staffing we have that's specifically dedicated to serving children, so that just gives you a general idea.

We have 30 locations.

One of those locations is the little portal at the Briscoe Western Art Museum.

So it's kind of more like 29 locations that are more what you think of as a library.

So of those, then we do have that uh level of staffing, and again, that's more than one library in each council district in those libraries.

We do have these um these kinds of programs, programs specifically for babies, programs specifically for the toddlers, and then as you can see for preschools, and then um also with the whole family together, the older siblings, grandma if she wants to come, grandpa, aunt, uncle, because we know that really is important for the family to be together, and the librarian is both providing the program and also demonstrating and modeling, you know, what adults can do with the child at home.

And this is really just making the point I made before that we go out into the community to schools to childhood uh centers, and we can bring books as well.

This is just giving a general idea again in our last fiscal year.

The number of um I don't want to say the number of people uh served because we're just counting the number of people who came, right?

So the same child may come every week or more than once a week.

Um, and again, that has to do with us not uh getting into your business.

We don't ask your income, we don't ask who you know, we just let you come and have fun at the library and learn um at the same time.

And that was really what I wanted to say today.

Thank you.

And I believe there's one additional presentation.

Is that uh I think we're gonna for the moment for the moment.

Yes, but we'll talk all the programming first before we get into the kind of mapping.

But thank you all so much for each of your presentations.

Um I won't leave this point too long, but I always appreciate of the kind of overlap that each of these programs have with one another.

I know my team and I've been working very closely with Dale and folks uh from parks and DHS severely the last couple weeks.

Uh, we're talking about some things going on at Edgewood, and so I want to say thank you all for, of course, not only being uh extremely helpful to our offices, but the work you do every single day in our communities, not just siloing out, but all together for the same purpose.

So uh getting into that, uh, the actual conversation, uh, council colleagues, or anyone who wants to start with yeah, Council Ricastillo.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Melody, Dr.

Bray and Dell for the presentations as well as for the work of your uh respective departments.

That's really important work that you all and your teams have taken on.

Uh, a couple of questions that I do have in um some data that I would like to see uh in terms of the demographics of Head Start.

Uh Melody, would it be possible to receive the trends in terms of the children born to teen mothers?

I see that it's cited as 30% higher uh than Bear County and state.

Um so I'm curious if you can if you have the data for the last five years you can share with our team offline.

Uh I'd like to see that.

Um regarding the families, the 15% experiencing homelessness, uh, is DHS tracking uh if it there if these are referrals from specific uh uh homeless providers, and and typically what's the trend if they are tracked?

We should have um some background on if they were referred, if they they came to the program because they saw an advertisement or marketing materials.

So we'll we'll look at that.

All right, thank you for that.

And then regarding the Head Start results with social and emotional development, uh, there's we we see that there's a decline.

Uh is Head Start play-based or is there like a playtime that's within Head Start?

Sure, that um it's age appropriate.

Um, there's a uh learning and a kinder ready framework that that dictates what's uh what goes on during the day, but definitely play-based.

Right, and I I think the value of Head Start uh is and both pre-K for essays in terms of the wraparound services with wellness, family support, and parent education.

Uh what percentage, and sorry if I missed it, uh, are being connected to ready to work, and then within that data, do we know which uh program uh parents are interested in?

And I don't know if that's as far as the demand occupation.

I don't have that, but let's see.

I think last year we had um 55 parents that um I think in 24 from ready to work that were co-enrolled, and then we had a 15% increase, and we're looking to increase that more.

Great, that's good to hear.

In terms of the goals for fiscal year 26 and um uh working with the families to move into permanent supportive housing.

Has the team developed what that looks like, or what what are y'all envision um the the layout looks for that for implementing for implementation?

Right.

So they work with over the last um years, they've worked with our homeless services division um the community hotline to access um housing opportunities.

Uh now they'll continue to work with the the new department to prioritize Head Start families that need care.

Great.

Thank you, Melody.

Those are all my questions.

Uh in terms of pre-K for SA, um, thank you, Dr.

Bray, for the presentation again.

Um I know with the with uh Head Start, it was cited that they use ELAP and LAP 3 in terms of assessment tools.

What is uh pre-K for SA use as an assessment tool?

So pre-K for SA uses both um authentic assessment.

So in the classrooms, we use gold, which is the student outcome authentic assessment, um, and then we also use class, which is a measure of instructional quality, which is done by certified observers, but then we also do on-demand assessments using the Woodcock Johnson for the um PPVT.

Actually, there's a new um vocabulary test that escapes me, the name of it.

Um, and then we use the DESA and the DECA to measure social emotional learning.

Great, thank you for that.

And then in terms of the relationship that y'all intend to continue to foster with affordable housing projects, uh, there's a lot of value there.

I know in D5 we have Monwell Village that's very interested in having a partnership with pre-K for SA or some type of access to child care on their property.

And what's great about uh this uh proposed project is that it's it's housing for all levels with a focus on seniors, but what we know in district five in particular is we have a lot of grandparents taking care of grandchildren, uh so there's just a lot of value and opportunity.

So looking forward to that partnership.

Uh last comment in terms of the affordability as a major barrier, I feel like uh the cost per month should be something we have in every restroom.

Fired everywhere.

Yes, two thousand dollars uh a month.

Uh that is wild.

Yeah, um, but I think that demonstrates the importance of the programs of uh both uh that you and Melody have taken on.

Um I had a conversation with the constituent yesterday that was talking about housing affordability, but she also highlighted the intersection of child care.

She's like, you know, I'm this age and I really want a child, but like I my rent is too damn high.

Um so I just really grateful for uh the work that y'all take on there.

Uh thank you, Dr.

Bray.

And lastly, Dale, just want to thank you and your team.

Uh, you're well aware, District 5, our constituent services office, uh, are now both in our public library spaces, and what we love is when we hear the program, and you could hear the kids laughing, uh having a good time in the parents as well when there's uh the youth programming taking place.

Um so just really grateful for that work.

And uh as someone who grew up going to our public libraries after school, walking from elementary school, I know those numbers aren't tracked, um, but with our field offices at Cluns Garden, we continue to still see the same trend of our elementary kids.

They may not be connected to an after school program, but they are connected uh to the library and utilizing uh the amenities there.

So just really grateful for uh the work of of you and um the public library staff.

Thank you.

All right, thank you, Dale.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilman Castillo.

Council Member Bumkey.

Yes, thank you very much.

We'll start with um item number two.

So uh and thank you for the Head Start training that I did.

I got to learn a lot more about Head Start with you and Rebecca the other day, so thank you for that.

Um but quick question.

So this is the city-sponsored head start, and it's going to very specific schools and districts, but just to be clear, all the other districts receive Head Start through another former fashion, correct?

Either through the school districts.

So for example, South Sand is their own fiscal agent, has a direct grant from Office of Head Start and provide the service in their schools, and then you might have uh Avance provides it a nonprofit program provides the programs in there in different centers.

So there's a couple different ways.

Okay, but every school district has Head Start programs.

It has slots for Head Start.

And my other question is the other, you know, ones we were just talking about.

Um do the families in those other Head Start programs have similar access to other programs that you all leverage with the other city programming that you do.

So as far as the ones I mentioned specifically, green and healthy homes, I they would have access um if they applied came and applied through the program if they're aware of it.

Right, yeah.

Um there may not be as much awareness as we have simply because it's a sister department.

Yeah, absolutely.

But it is something we can um work with those.

We have a consortium of the Head Start providers, it could be a topic at a one of those.

Yeah, I think so.

Just because I I don't know what the awareness is of those families to these programs.

I'm very thankful that these folks have that ready available information.

But I want to make sure that the other school districts that are getting head start another way, those families are just as aware of the program and available to them.

Um so there's a way we can be helpful with that too.

I think that's important.

That's a good point.

I do know that Metro Health uh works with at least Avance on their dental care and vaccinations.

So there are um a couple of Head Start agencies that are working with with health.

Okay, great, awesome.

Appreciate that.

Uh okay, and then I'll go to item number three.

Um, Dr.

Baret, thank you very much for that.

Do you all have uh a map of the child care deserts in San Antonio?

We do, and there's actually children at risk puts out a map.

It's and I can actually send you a link, it can be queried in a lot of different ways by um quality desert, just straight desert, you know, different areas, and so yes, we do have that.

Yeah, if you could send that to us, I think that'd be really helpful.

Thank you.

And uh first, I just want to say the educatorship that y'all are working on with AM is is incredible, I think.

And you know, there's that building, I think it's already been constructed or it's being constructed now on their campus.

And so I know there's gonna be a really good partnership there, especially with Southwest ISD.

And you know, talking to Alex, we were a couple months back talking about all the advanced manufacturing jobs on that side of town and the hours of people work there, and it's a really a hub, but that it doesn't exist anywhere else in the country, and I'm sure that area has a extreme lack of child care opportunities there.

So that's gonna be uh really beneficial.

And I think there's gonna be some crossover with the teacher students trying to get teaching certificates right through AM.

So that's a really good partnership that'll be coming on the far south side.

Okay, yeah, and we are excited because it's the first um one of our centers that we're going to have extended hours care, and so we'll figure we're gonna try and figure out how much is needed because nobody really we know there's some need, but we don't know quite how much and at what hours, and so that's educators a place we're gonna work to begin to figure that out so we can replicate that in other um places that's needed as well in the city.

That's great.

I know that you know Toyota has different shifts that they have now, and then JCB's gonna come online also.

So I think kind of looking at what currently the hours are for people, I think that'll be really helpful for them too.

And it's important too because a lot of folks think that all families would want um care near their workplace, but that's not the way that families always make decisions.

Sometimes they want it near home, and so we're gonna learn about what the need is.

Great, that's awesome.

Appreciate that.

Um, and then oh, real quick, I do support the efforts.

I know you're in talks right now about the relocation of the I'm not sure what you call that center over there by 90 if it's the West Center.

The West Center.

West Center.

Uh very clever names, north south east, west.

Right, yeah.

That's very good.

Uh so I'm very supportive of the conversation you're having with Port to try to see what opportunities exist with them.

And you know, that of course they've identified the extreme gap with military families that exists right there uh on Lackland Air Force Base.

So I think that's a really unique opportunity to um get a lot of folks that work in the area, military families and uh you know Boeing folks and Port folks and everybody else in the neighborhood of Thompson and for South Santa area, also.

So I think that's a really good opportunity.

Yes, thank you very much.

And so item number four.

Thank you, Dale, for your presentation.

I think y'all have some great programs, and as the councilman mentioned, my middle school is right next to another uh library, and it really was an unofficial daycare for after school.

Sure.

Uh, because you know we use the computers back then, you know, PC games were very popular, and we would just hang out there until our parents picked us up with a library closed, and so I think um, you know, our librarians are doing the Lord's work and they don't even know it when they sign up for that, right?

Um, and so I think for me, what I if you can go to slide number three on this presentation.

I think what would be helpful to show us next time too is really this map just zoomed out.

Um so I know this is where the libraries are, but I'm trying to make a point about the geographic nature of the city, right?

So the most southern library you have there's in my district, Cortez library, it's a great library.

Um, we have a lot of the district that goes beyond that south, and so if you zoom out, I want everybody, all my colleagues to see the entire 1604 map and where the libraries are because there is is a huge gap on the far south side and southeast side of San Antonio.

So I just want everybody else to be aware of that, um, especially those that have libraries on 1604.

Um so that would be really good.

Sure.

And then um, for me also, I think some of the programming um, and I understand the data, but if you could also let us know which you know um where those numbers are in in regards to our council districts or our library branches, I think would be very helpful to us.

Uh, because if there is you know lower participation in my district, I want my staff working to try to get more people to our libraries.

Uh, and I think my other colleagues would appreciate that too, just to know where our busy branches are, where we need to do more work.

Um, I think it's also helps me understand, right?

Because I have Johnston um library and Cortez, very small footprint, very busy libraries, but there is no real space to do activities outside of the library because it's really limited, right?

And so, as I look for bond opportunities, I want to know, right, if there's opportunities next to those libraries that can expand a little bit or add something, or if there's a park or school nearby that could we could really utilize some of that outdoor activity, um, that would be helpful for us to know also.

Of course, we absolutely have um metrics and by library and easily combined to council districts, so that's something easy for us to provide.

Awesome.

I appreciate that.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember.

And I uh really appreciate those last comments about that.

I think that'll come up a little bit more through the Dallas uh community resource map of just kind of identifying right what things we don't have in certain place, what things we do, and where can we bridge them together?

So great point.

Council Record.

Thank you so much.

Um, and I'll go backwards since Councilman Mungia just ended off with the library system.

Um I heard and and I know Councilman Castillo was there.

I heard the Left Palmas opening was super exciting this weekend, and that it was beautiful.

So congratulations to you all and to councilwoman.

You know that she's advocating for that a lot.

Um, just start one question around that specifically.

Also, um, do we triangulate data with like figuring out who is using our libraries in comparison to whether they're in head start programs or is there any way to get information like that?

We we we don't have a way to do that.

I think it's something we could talk about together because the other departments may, so I just want to add that um pre-KFRSA intentionally does not have libraries in our schools because we believe that we should be connecting families to a lifelong resource, which is our public libraries, and they're a great partner.

So all of our children in pre-K for SA um work and the families have access to that.

We help them get library cards and all those sorts of things.

But um, I don't know.

We haven't, I don't necessarily tracked whether they go to the library uh after other times um formally, but we could put that on our family survey this year.

That's what I was gonna ask.

Like it might be good to even if it's just self-reporting to be able to see which families, either if they're a pre-K for SA or a head start, are actually using our C programs at the library, and even if they're self-reporting, like yeah, go to the Wagon program or go to story time, that way we can see um multiplying effects, right?

If kids at pre-K for SA are receiving more of those services, and maybe had that's just an example, but trying to basically see who is uh getting multiple forms of touch points from us.

Yeah, absolutely.

The programs that have enrollment, like Head Start or Pre-K for SA, they I think we could think together about a way to like you say, at least just ask.

Yeah, that'd be awesome.

And and just along with the data usage, right?

What um if we could even just better understand, like from my communities where families are going more, like what the breakdown of time and attendance or anything like that.

I don't know that I've ever seen that, but I'm sure you guys have shown shown the board.

But just so we understand where our the libraries in our districts are getting the most amount of usage, um, i.e., does central library see a huge uptick on Tuesday nights when we have free parking downtown?

Things like that, it'll help us at least see like where folks are going.

I know I have gotten a couple of requests for um San Pedro library to be open earlier, but is there really uh showing demand for that?

So I know that's like a larger, not necessarily specifically.

I don't know.

We can think about what we have.

I don't I don't really know what we might have, but you know, there might be something.

Okay, thank you so much.

I appreciate that.

Um sorry, the last thing I have is do we also have ways to track uh children's books that are being used digitally and where they're where those books are being used, like um can we uh track home addresses and how many children's books are being uh used digitally to those addresses?

That might be possible.

I know we have some ways to connect digital use with um with where the library card was issued, I I think so that's something we can definitely see that if we can if we can do that.

I we do have um we map um where more than half of the people in a census tract which library they use, and I know there's some digital use that's wrapped into that, so it it it may be that that certainly may be possible.

Okay, the reason why I'm asking is because we know digital um loans make it very easy for families to get access to books and resources, and so I'm trying to see where those uh services are being used more through data.

So that was the reason why um I was seeing what we could get and leading into our next conversation of like what we're tracking, right?

For the explore component.

Okay, thank you so much.

And then uh Dr.

Bray, thank you for your presentation.

Did are you guys using M class from Amplify or a different class assessment to the question that Councilman Castillo asked?

So M class is what we use in in Edgewood because that's what class is the uh classroom assessment scoring system, which is a um national standard early learning um assessment that measures the quality of instruction going on in the classroom.

Head start uses it as well.

Right, right.

And you do you guys use circle?

We don't use circle.

Yeah, okay, and um the only other question that I had for you guys is how have you lately you've been the topic of town with our affordable housing developers?

Because now that we included y'all in the rubric, everyone's like, we need pre-K for SA at our site.

And so I've had three separate developers be like, we're gonna have pre-K for S.

I was like, really?

Um that's a lot of growth in a year.

So um my question is just how are you guys uh determined, like what are you using?

I know you've been very strategic about where you're growing and how.

And Councilmember Mungia mentioned the growth at uh Port SA, and we were all talking to them, and we we support that obviously um with that base there, but then there's also needs in all a lot of other parts of communities where folks are thinking housing, like mentioned.

So, how are you uh figuring out like what considerations are you thinking about when you're determining where you're gonna go and how?

Yeah, so a couple things.

One is that pre-K for SA is a capacity-building organization.

It is not the goal of pre-K for SA to be on every corner.

That is not so with every um affordable housing partner, we have talked about what is the need, what are you trying to do, and what might that look like?

So it could look like everything from a micro pre-K for SA site that is completely operated by us if again it fits into where we need to be serving families to us helping a um provider that we partner with, open up a site that we will help to oversee and and and make sure that it's quality in the same way that we would with any of their other sites to helping the housing developer if they have a provider they want to work with or some other form that we can figure out how do we provide support to that indirectly that's not really a pre-K for SA site.

We have said we are agnostic, we are not getting into the decision of what affordable housing development should be built or shouldn't be built.

We will give everybody the same letter saying we're willing to to work with them and figure out what makes sense.

It's important to us that it makes sense for the community that is being served, and so it looks can look a lot of different ways.

That's great.

I love that.

Um and then the dashboard that you're talking about, I just looked it up, and you'll be you won't be surprised at where the child care desets are.

Um it's like west and south.

Yeah, it's very predictable.

It's very predictable.

Uh yes, yes.

I have a little piece of the West, but yeah, uh and it's even more depressing when you look at quality deserts.

But you're right.

Um, but that would that was gonna be my next component because the children at risk the dashboard only includes um elementary A through F ratings, it doesn't show any other quality in terms of TRS.

And I thought I don't know, maybe I made this up, but I thought we were working on one locally where you could go click on a provider to see what their standard was for TRS.

We are working on a search tool that's so that has been a we we're in the process of procuring a vendor to be able to put that together, and so we are actually reviewing proposals now.

Okay, and hopefully that will be out next year.

And it's not just for it's really a family tool so that they can see where our providers are available, hopefully with real-time data or current data, so I can say, do you have an opening?

What hours do you have?

Do you take military?

All the different things that are really important to our families to select child care.

That would be helpful because I searched best child care, early child care in San Antonio, and it's like Primrose School.

It's there's nothing out there for families.

I I can't tell you how many questions I get a month from different people, just that I know they're like, where should I send my child to child care?

I'm like, oh my gosh, that's the same thing.

Well, and the other thing on that might be like helpful, because like even for me, I always get confused between what the difference between TRS two, three, and four are correct.

And so, and like if I if it's confusing for folks that are in the field, I think we to figure out a way for folks to say, like, okay, this is what you should look at as a bare minimum, and this is separate cost.

And then you've got NACE accreditation, which isn't TRS, you've got other national credit, it's very confusing.

Yeah, um, it's no wonder that family service is like I'll go there.

They have to do that.

And then sometimes I wonder like, is that person not nationally accredited just because of the cost of it, or because they don't actually aren't at that quality.

So and that the last thing there's a child care that was between uh district five and and mine that recently got shut down, and it was so super bummed about it because they were trying to do their best.

But I just wanted to echo what the comments that were being said is that like our child care facilities struggle so much and they're really really trying to do their best.

But I just want to double down on that effort of like how do we continue to help support them because they were they're they're in such desperate need.

Yeah, um, and then the last thing just for thank you, Dr.

Bray.

And the last thing, Melody, just a couple really quick questions for you for the ready to work money.

I know that that was an added uh benefit that we included.

Are did we already I feel like we've been depleting those funds pretty quickly?

Did I um it was a little bit of a slow start, but I think over the last year we've spent about 195,000.

That was what was on there.

Is that what's in budgeted for it?

Or is we have no budget uh I started out at about a million dollars.

Oh interesting, but for the the years forward also.

Do you know why we haven't what like what the barrier is there?

Well, I I think the first barrier was really putting together a system that included workforce solutions Alamo, um pre-KSA helping parents identify the the center of choice quality centers, and then um you know us processing in coordination with so it was just the workforce.

Right, and then also just getting the word out to to parents that it was available and ensuring that they were uh participating and ready to work, that they were income eligible and that they were willing to get themselves on the wait list for longer term child care through CCS.

That's a requirement.

I don't know.

I feel like I've heard that it's such a barrier, so I'm just kind of shocked to see that folk families aren't using it.

So I'd love to better understand how we can increase that.

And I don't know if Dr.

Bruy, if you want to add anything to that.

Yeah, we thought when we started it, we thought we were gonna be inundated.

And and so we thought we were gonna be inundated, and so we um anticipated having to add additional enrollment people, and that just didn't happen.

Part of it is that the referral has to come from the case manager, which um who is working with the ready to work participant, and that's I think there was a lot of there was a slow start there, is helping the case managers understand that you really need to enroll the folks and move them along, and um, I think we're refining that, so we'll see increases.

It would be great, and uh I know Mike's I don't think Mike's here, but the next time um we get a report on ready to work to be able to overlay uh some kind of way to see who is actually receiving the benefit for the child care.

I don't know, like the dashboard doesn't obviously show that I don't know how if that's per per, I don't know how we could show that in a way that would help us understand if there are gaps in usage for it.

Yeah, we can definitely track which participants, like the areas um geographically where participants are taking advantage of that support and which not which of the um prime partners are are doing because we actually talk to them as well to figure out what is what is the issue.

We hear that this is such a barrier, what's the disconnect?

And we've gotten just um qualitatively, we've gotten some feedback about um parents' parents' response to um I want to keep both of my children in the same child care center, and there may be a seat for one but not the other, and very, very anecdotal situations.

Um and and I think all of that has contributed to some of the barriers that we're navigating through, but um we it does seem like it's starting to pick up now.

Yeah, and maybe a specific marketing campaign to like either single moms or just uh caregivers that's focused on like ready to work with child care so that we can change that narrative in case that is a um a specific barrier.

Thanks, Dr.

The last question, Mal, was do we um I know Head Start does not require it, but have we ever considered doing and and we can get feedback if we need to about third grade meeting scores for kids that have gone through Head Start and our Head Start specifically?

So it is something that we are working through and have been working through with the school districts to provide that data.

We would need with Edgewood, um we we know that Head Start kids do better than non-head start kids.

Um but Edgewoods is a good control group.

So non-Head Start kids are are similar in income.

They have a higher free and reduced lunch per 100%.

Um San Antonio ISD is comprised of a number of different um areas that are higher income, above income, and so we with SISD to make that comparison, we would need to create a control group.

Got it.

Okay.

All right.

Um can you guys send us that third grade data for Edgewood?

I don't think I've ever seen that one.

Sure.

If you haven't sure.

And uh Rebecca reminded me that one of the reasons um we've been slow to enroll and ready to work is that um a lot of the parents want to use home care.

So they want a relative self-arranged care, and we don't we don't pay for them.

Okay, so thank you, Chair.

Yeah.

Thank you all.

Uh I know Kazor Castillo, you had some questions you're gonna jump in.

Just a comment.

Uh, a couple of folks uh mentioned the partnership with pre-K4SA and Port San Antonio just wanted to express the the need and support for that initiative as well.

Thank you so much.

I have a billion questions, but I'm not gonna do all that to take another hour on this particular one.

But I have I'm gonna pick some people in and I'll send some out uh to talk about offline, and then we can get to the next presentation.

Uh, just want to be cycle everyone's time.

Um I really appreciate the conversation about I I can't remember exactly who said maybe it was Councilman Muggia a little bit about the kind of coordination with Head Start and Pre-K4SA and the larger kind of conversations too beyond uh the ones that we don't oversee, but the other head site providers uh in our community, how can we better align them?

It's something that uh I thought about a lot uh while serving on the cab uh so far, being appointed to that, is trying to understand, okay.

Well, we're doing a lot of work, of course, with ours, but how do we make sure that we're having this kind of integration with the other head start providers in a more formal way, right?

So not only understand how way we're moving together on achieving the results that we're looking for, um, but also seeing what overlap there is for some of the programming we have other places, parks, libraries, et cetera.

Um, and then of course the kind of records point too about how can we track the data going forward, right?

How are we seeing the attendance rate continuing on uh through elementary school, middle school, high school, et cetera?

Um, are we not?

What are the things that we need to do to get that done?

I'm interested to see, I guess, how can we formalize those relationships a bit more and so we can continue talking about that um with our partners as well.

But I would like to see how we can do that.

Um just wanted to kind of do that comment there, I guess.

Um I wanted to also ask about not those.

I see for some of the the work about the uh I think it was with DHS doing the TRS kind of certification processes or support with that.

Um, what's the kind of difference or even similarities between the work y'all do along with pre-K4SA's uh shared service alliance?

Is there a little overlap there or what does that look like?

Um there's there's probably some overlap, and I think the biggest difference is that we only work with providers that accept the CCS subsidies.

I see um Sarah and Pre-K for SA work with all providers in the city of San Antonio, and we also work with providers that are in the 12 surrounding rural counties.

Sorry, go ahead.

Let me clarify.

We only work with CCS providers also, but we only work within Bear County, and so that I mean they're working in the 13, 16, 14, 50 county region that's rural, which is actually very, very needed.

Are and because many of our families who work in San Antonio live in those areas, um, I think focusing on how do we reach some of the child care providers out in those more rural areas is really critical to even what's happening in Bear County.

Got it.

Okay.

Are you all working with similar organizations as well then?

Or is it are y'all kind of splitting the kind of focus there?

What what's the kind of strategy for that?

Just trying to understand, I guess, where the capacity building is being taking place.

So the goal is that providers are either working with us or they're working with another group, whether it's DHS.

Because of the funding streams, that doesn't always happen.

Um, but it certainly is there's not enough to go around as it is, and so how do we align so that providers are working with one?

It's also better in terms of the approach and you just the continuity and all those things to make sense.

You don't have a bunch of people coming into your center, but it remains a um continuing work in progress to be able to align that because of course the providers are like, no, I want it all if I'm eligible for that and that and that and that and that and that, you know, and so being able to help them understand that really we need to be more strategic about that.

Got it.

I think that'd be helpful just because I know I talked to some child care providers in district six and they're kind of asking about like where do we really like fit into this kind of whole mold, right?

How do we jump into the shared service alliance or is it somewhere else?

Same thing with Head Start providers, right?

That are not part of the city.

How do we kind of again formalize this relationship?

I guess I wouldn't be interested in seeing what kind of ways that we can make it a bit more centralized, uh, even if it isn't, right?

That we find it that the folks are maybe looking for the full buffet of everything.

Then okay, we at least know that you can come here first, figure out what's going on and go on to the next place, or stay with us and continue working in that direction.

Um I think it'd be helpful for us to understand a bit more, or for me at least to better understand how we're doing that.

Um to again kind of see how we're facilitating this work.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Um, of course, also very interested in the ready to work uh component there too.

Um yeah, I think it'd be great really interesting to see if we could get even just a report offline as well about where we're seeing it right now if it's qualitative.

Um that'd be helpful.

Uh definitely agree with the head start participation or even other programs that we have to see how they're aligning with the program at the library or with a parks department or with other human services needs and HSD programs as well.

Just would be interested to see how many we're able to multiply there.

Um this isn't a question for the folks here, I think it's more for ready to work, but we're gonna talk a little bit about the capacity building.

Are we also doing capacity building or training certifications with ready to work for uh early health start or pre-K teachers or child early child care educators?

There the education, there's specific occupations that are within the ready to work portfolio.

I think um the child development associate is at the CDA.

I think the challenge with that one um has been wages, right?

We need to make sure that they they still qualify at the wage level for ready to work and what does that look like in tandem with the with the teachers for taughts?

Is it are they working together?

Is there are we able to move between them?

Um so within the ready to work, I guess what I'll say is that um we are trying to help folks move into the associates um or the the bachelor's degree um because that will help that get them into um longer term better wages.

The CDA is a certificate that has to be renewed every two years, right?

And so it's an entry into it, and you can um transfer some of those hours into your associates.

Um one of the challenges, quite frankly, is that the associates in early childhood is considered a um technical degree, and so some of the hours don't transfer into an academic degree.

So there's we're working with Tech C and M to do some alignment work and all those, but the Teachers for TOTs is a specific program that is helping teacher infant teachers, infant toddler teachers get their CDA.

Um they get $500 after they complete the course and get their certification, they get $500 once they've stayed in post for six months, and then another $500 if they stay in post for a year.

And we've seen that very successful to retain our infant and toddler teachers and increase the quality of instruction in those classrooms.

Got it, and I think that's something that I'm trying to figure out other ways that we can kind of use that model to expand further.

And over data work we're doing a whole bunch of things there.

Yeah, but I'd be interested to see how we can do that because that's something that I personally have witnessed with my my mom.

Uh continuously redoing her CDA but still struggling to get the associate's degree, right?

You're staying stuck in that kind of mode.

Well, you can still do the pre-K work, you're never able to go further in the income that you definitely definitely need our working doing, but in the lesser degree in a way.

Um so anyway, so I I'm interested to see how we can continue to do that for people across our city um with ready to work and/or any kind of workforce partnerships as well.

Um I'm gonna pause there for myself, and I will come back around to other things as we go forward.

But uh instead of time, uh we can move into uh item five good morning.

I sitting all the way in the back.

So how to get myself up here.

Well, good morning, Chair and community members.

I'm Rebecca Flores.

I'm the education program administrator for the Department of Human Services.

Um, this morning we heard a lot of great work that's happening here in San Antonio, but I'm gonna take our attention up north to Dallas to give y'all kind of a high-level overview of the community resource explorer, which I'll explain what it is in my presentation.

Um then discuss how the community uses this tool and some limitations of the model, and then I'll give an overview of the census block group tools that the Texas Education Agency requires of all school districts and has some elements similar to the Dallas Community Resource Explorer.

The Child Poverty Action Lab or CPAL as they call it, develop this tool.

This is an organization, um, it's a nonprofit, and they support the data efforts of the city and the Dallas Independent School District.

The tool is essentially designed to better understand what assets are available in school communities and neighborhoods, and some key data elements that impact well-being and school readiness.

The tool is free and it's available for the community to use when they're making funding decisions, determining where programs should go and where community resources should be built in order to ensure that all Dallas neighborhoods have access to resource resources for their children and families.

Um it basically assesses where community resources like parks, libraries, grocery stores, child care centers reside within a two-mile radius of every Dallas ISD school, and conversely, it also looks at business vacancies, home vacancies, payday lending, and cash advanced businesses and other factors that may negatively impact children and their families.

Using that information, CPAL created a community resource index, which can pair the resources, both positive and negative, that reside within a two-mile radius to other campuses, other campus communities in Dallas ISD.

In addition to the community resource index, it also has indices for every Dallas ISD school in the following categories community, economics, education, family, and health.

All the data elements they collect determine the index score for each of the category that is shown here.

Um it is quite sophisticated, and I must admit I totally nerded out when I first started using the tool.

Um, and we are now gonna show you a little preview of the tool.

Anina Vallalta will be helping us.

She's gonna be my vanna for today.

She's a senior business analyst with DHS and just an invaluable member in our team.

So here we are.

So we're in.

You could either search by a high school feeder pattern or you could also search by a specific school.

Um so we're just gonna do a school today.

So it kind of zooms in.

And there were earlier alliterations in Dr.

Kore can probably chime in.

They used to have map out where like the libraries and parks and communities, so you could also see that within the two-mile radius.

It's no longer available here.

Um, but basically a lot of the information.

If you double-click on the school thingy.

So it pulls up uh a PDF, you can print it, but it gives you just tons of information around what the what the community is around the school.

So it gives you some general um information on residents in the community.

It goes down to the community resource index.

So this particular campus, as you can see, it's kind of uh in terms of resources on the below average or slightly below average compared to other campus communities in Dallas, ISD.

Keep scrolling down.

Then it goes into economics.

So it gives you the overall economic index.

But what I love is that for each data element, it also tells you where that community resides to and where they score.

So again, you could kind of see the positives and some of the negative indicators that they track.

Education, same thing.

Um, if you want to keep going down, then we have family, community, and then the last but not least is some health indicators.

Um, there are many more features of this tool, but we just wanted to give you a very high-level overview of it, and we definitely encourage y'all to explore on your own.

Um, this tool is created so investment decisions and resource allocations made by local governmental entities, nonprofits, foundations, and others can have the greatest impact and use the data to better align what they're hoping to achieve.

One example of how this tool has been used is with the Dallas ISD and their 2021 bond.

The plan included creating these community hubs located in or near schools that lacked many of the basic assets found in their school communities.

Currently, two of the four hubs are open, and they offer services that are unique to each community.

And a lot of those services that they offer are kind of they pull that data from this resource of what they should, what services should be at each of the hubs.

Although there's some overlap in both of the hubs that are open now, they offer mental health support.

One of the hubs, for example, which had a very low employment rate, they offer job training programs.

Another community that had didn't have a lot of parks or access to kind of wellness activities, they offer it there at the hub.

Based on my research and discussions with the GHS data team who are familiar with this tool, we have identified some limitations that we thought we should mention.

Obviously, communities change.

For example, some stores close, some libraries close for renovations.

And in order for this tool to be accurate, there are some ongoing costs that it must uh you must have in order to keep it up to date.

This is very similar to the challenge of keeping sacred, which is the San Antonio era database of community resources up to date.

They dedicate staff every day just to ensure that the information they share in the database is accurate, and even with those efforts, there's always something that is a bit out of date.

The second limitation, this is a little bit more technical, but if you remember your stats one-on-one class, it may sound familiar.

And then we also have some data experts in the back that can have do a little tutorial for us at the end.

Um but the census data comes in tracks that they design, and when you analyze the data from a different geographic area, so you kind of pivot and make your own, um, you lose some of the accuracy.

You basically increase the margin of error on your data.

Um they also use different data sets from different sources to create the indices, so they get it from the Census Bureau, Dallas, some they get from third party vendors that they actually buy, and a few of the data they actually collect themselves.

So each organization has their processes for data collection and analysis, and this may create some noise and um accuracy of the data.

The data sets are also coming from different years, so you may get the number of adults in 2022, but then you're comparing them to uh data that how much they spend on fruit and vegetables in 2024.

So sometimes there's again some inaccuracy there.

Um, right now there's no way to change any of the indices or the data elements used.

So if you want to create a community index based on let's just say you want to improve early education, um, there's no way to do this.

CPAL, in fact, stated that this was an area that they want to future develop for this tool here in Dallas.

As y'all continue to think about the Dallas tool, I also thought it was important for y'all to know that school districts in Texas are required to report to the Texas Education Agency a census block group for every economically disadvantaged student in their district.

Um state funding for these students is based on which block group the student is assigned.

Um TEA uses five block groups that are based on medium household income, home ownership, percentage of single families, um, and then level of adult education.

Um, and that kind of concludes my presentation, and here's just a quick summary highlighting the main points that I covered today.

Um, but I just wanted to highlight one in particular that if um you know we continue to think about a new resource tool, we do recommend that it align with what school districts are currently doing.

And thank you, and I am open to any questions.

Thank you so much, Rebecca.

Before I go around the room, I wanted to just note really quick.

Uh I think it was Thanksgiving break.

Uh I had some friends in town, uh, and one of them is doing their masters on doing some data analytics.

And she's like, I don't know what to do with it, but I really want to do something with it.

She's a teacher as well, and I said, Well, don't worry, there's an educational opportunities committee that we are asking for tons of data for.

And so you will have it off somewhere.

Yes.

People are asking for more data.

So, anywho, thank you for all the work the data folks are doing in the back and every single day.

In the department and throughout all of our departments.

And we can get all that map that you wanted to the libraries could be part of this too.

See, there we go.

More things.

Uh, who'd like to start?

Any questions?

That's our core.

Thank you so much, Chair, and thank you for agendizing this.

I know we talked about it last time, so I really appreciate that you brought it.

Um, I know Julia is here too, and I just thought if would you mind just coming up and sharing a little bit?

So Julia's, I think I told you guys with the Bear County Education Coalition, and we actually invited her to our office a couple weeks ago, and Sarah from your team was there, and we had some other groups interested in what it could look like if we did something here.

And she's been working a lot more on this than I have, and was the one that brought it to my attention.

So I just thought she could speak for a few minutes about it.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you so much.

Um, councilwoman.

Um it I think this is a an exciting opportunity for us to talk about where the overlap is between um school districts and what we are responsible for and what the city and the county is responsible for and how we work together to make communities around schools the best for all children.

Um, so any amount of data that we can look at to say where are sidewalks that we can look at or where are projects that are being invested in.

So we're centering on asset language as well as areas that we can pay more investment and attention to.

Um, I think it would be a great opportunity for us to look at as a city so we know where we can pay attention to and care for um children and families.

Thank you so much for your comments.

Yeah, she has a list of all the indicators and how where they are the data is captured from.

So I can I think I have it in my inbox and I can share it with the committee.

Absolutely.

And some of them are like set like debt data that we could get from census, data that we can get from other red ready sources, and some of them right, yeah, and then some of them we would have to actually work through our community to figure out like i.e.

if we wanted to do street lights around schools, we'd have to take that from our city city database.

Um, but some of the things that we've talked about in our previous meetings is like who where do we house this?

Like who is this a city resource, is this an external resource?

Initially, when we had these conversations and Rebecca was in them too, we were like the innovation department.

And so that I think is something we have to determine too, like if we want to put some energy in it.

I think there is an opportunity for uh nonprofits that might be interested in helping support funding, and so there was a uh there was there might be a way that we could do it as a collaborative where we don't have to pay for standing it up on its own, um partnering with organizations that are already doing the work, and so it might be better in that way, and that we don't have to be the ones responsible for the data management, like that was said, that's a big thing that we have to continuously update.

And then I also do think it's important.

This is great, but I think we could modify it for our community, and and Dr.

Guy's here, and we've been working on story maps of like how you can tell a story with it, and I think that's a cool component that we could add to make it make the data more um accessible for our residents, and then the last thing is like trying to use it to get information.

So we explored the idea of like uh asking folks who are going to the site to say, would you support and investing around this area for um XYZ, like more um metro health services for here or more, and I always go back to infrastructure, but like more sidewalks for this area, so we could use it as an interactive tool that could help us for our bond um bond as well.

I think so.

I don't know if there's anything else that you would want to add there.

No, I think um as we've seen over the last um several years, families have said that they believe that the city and the county play a really um important role and the lives and well-beings of family.

We've appreciated especially this community prioritizing this conversation.

Um, and this is a way that I think um uh all of the entities can work together uh to prioritize the things that we know that impact the classroom.

Um, it's always uh a large question of how does the city impact the work in going inside the classroom.

We've seen plenty of examples today happening um in uh early childhood and ready to work.

Um, but for our K-12 spaces that are under incredible pressure, um, critically underfunded, um, especially after this last legislative session, this is a way that the city can really wrap their arms around the communities that exist around campuses and have a direct impact um on the health and well-being of students and teachers and families.

So thank you again.

Yeah.

The last thing I'll say is like given our district our city is a little different than Dallas, which I know we're gonna get into a lot this afternoon, too.

But um, we uh they have like one district on here, and it was focused on Dallas ISD.

And I think uh too, Julia Julia mentioned city and county, like I think it would be great to focus it where you could say districts and overlap all of the public schools, and then maybe even county where we could go out to the county as well if they want to partner on it.

But I think the last thing I would say is it would be wonderful if we could have an overlay, like a G, because we use Arc GIS for a lot of our dashboards, just an overlay that shows a school, like you know how when you can click, there's always a filter to say around our in our district, like it would be great to say if we could just create a an overlay for our schools so that we could on all of our dashboards, whether it's our um our poverty dashboard or our small business dashboard, we could always click okay, show me all the public schools and what do you see around the public schools as well because that would be it would help us see the data that we look at in EDD economic workforce development differently or planning differently.

Um, because that would be it would help us see the data that we look at in EDD economic workforce development differently or planning differently.

And so those are my thoughts, but I I would love for us to take this on as something that we consider as a committee maybe looking at indicators and then seeing how we could um give it legs and push it forward.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilman Rakor.

Councilman Gill.

Thank you.

And thank you to Councilman McCor for bringing this item up and talking about I think it's really important.

And I think all this data is really um great data that we need to have.

Um I do think right off the bat, I think it should be housed outside of the city, with of course city supports and and data and and funding if it gets to that.

But you know, I don't remember the exact context, but I mean we did have SA 2020 that we were contracting with, they were doing similar data tracking.

We said we're not gonna fund it anymore.

I don't then they didn't really exist after that, unfortunately.

Um so I don't and I think it's also if we're gonna include the county in it, which is very important.

I think it's better for our nonprofits um to be requesting that data, because if we go to the county and say we want this information, I think it'll be easier if a nonprofit external party asks the county for that, especially for us too, um, just to share that information.

And this is something you talked about, Councilman Corps that my predecessor talked about, which was sort of a map of different maps, right?

That you could overlay all the data we have, right?

The status of poverty report, the status of women in San Antonio, um housing, um, even throwing in our our other vulnerable populations with seniors and and houseless individuals, I think could really show what areas of investment we need, right?

And get to a um an equity map.

Um probably a little bit of greater detail than our current equity map.

The other thing that I'll say is that um my focus, of course, would be on the outcomes of this data, right?

This is a sort of an input and output process.

What would the outcome be?

And if we're still in a very equal distribution of resources at the city level, um we're not gonna get to get to these pockets of areas without having a true equity conversation of distribution of resources.

So ultimately, all of us vote on the budget, right?

And right now we're more or less equally given same street money, the same sidewalk money.

And so that is going to mean less in some other areas that just don't need as much.

Then that's obviously a tough conversation for some of our colleagues that are not going to have these severe areas of investment that that are required.

So I think the data is important to have, and it's great, and we should collect this data and have it for residents, especially for all school districts.

But I think ultimately the outcome that's needed is greater investment in those areas.

And so that's what I think we want to focus on too, and make sure that it yields something.

We don't want just the data just to read it and look at it and say, oh, that's unfortunate, but really to drive home the need that some areas of our town needs so much more help and resources than other parts of town, and that's gonna mean tough conversations on distribution.

So I think we could get to a better point in that conversation with this data showing you know certain parts of school districts is important.

I think you know, very important for a school district like Northside, right?

That goes from my district all the way up to district eight, right?

It's it's huge district.

They have a lot of concerns, right?

Different parts of that community need different needs, have different needs, and I think that's important tool for Northside.

You know, school district South San, the entire district needs help, right?

It's not really gonna be a uh some have more and some don't in that area.

So I think it's gonna be good to be able to look at this countywide, but again, focus on outcome-based and how we're gonna deliver resources to the areas that need it the most.

So those are my two cents.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Councilman.

Really quick on that point too.

I think it's uh something I was thinking when Council Record was talking about it and kind of go through the kind of overlays.

I'd be interested to see too if we were to make it, or whoever makes it, um, if there's even ways to do it by school.

And I mean, that's what obviously Dallas had too, but uh with those partnerships that hopefully we formalize with school districts.

I think it's critical, right?

I think about our SA parks program that is meant to do the after-school programming uh with school districts.

Uh I assume that the school in my district uh with Edgewood had it, but it because Edgewood has the formalized formal partnership, but my that school didn't, right?

And so trying to understand too, how are we checking the boxes to your point about outcomes to actually get to where oh each one has it, each one has this so that way we know our resources are going to where it needs to go, not just maybe half the district or certain parts, but because of real reasons, right?

On the same page, yeah.

If I could just add one small point too, if we are successful with this data, I think what also is important to add in there is where uh schools have closed.

So tracking, you know, these schools have closed in these areas is also an important tool to say, like just because there's no if we just look at schools in general, we're we're missing the picture of schools that have had to close because of lack of investment, lack of students, lack of you know things in that area.

So I think we should also put that in there to show that these are also areas that need to continue to be invested in as well.

Thank you.

Council Ricos Steel.

Thank you, Sharon.

Thank you, Rebecca, for the presentation.

Uh looking at some of the metrics and subcategories that are listed on the documents seeing uh in terms of community evictions, juvenile violent crime, and adult incarceration.

Uh these metrics make me think about an initiative by Dr.

Kelly Nairo Hernandez of UCLA.

Uh she established uh something similar, but what her initiative was called was million dollar hoods, and it looked at in terms of police presence incarceration uh within specific areas of LA.

And when we looked at uh the investment in schools, infrastructure, parks, and libraries uh in comparison to the amount of uh police presence, it was it was very drastic, right?

We saw a high concentration of millions uh uh in police presence versus uh education, so on and so forth.

Uh and that helped shape some of the the critical response teams in LA using that data uh to tell that story.

So I think there's a lot of value uh in having this tool.

Um my question for staff is are you all looking for direction in terms of uh should we work with the nonprofit or should it be uh with the city of San Antonio?

So our plan was to get your feedback on this tool, um, and because it was specifically requested to do a deeper dive on it.

Um, in the coming months, we actually have a couple different tools internally that include a lot of this already.

So um based on your feedback today, we wanted to potentially refine some of those and show you in a in a couple months, probably not in January, but maybe in February, show you what we have internally.

Okay, so that you can really decide at that point if we just keep tweaking what we've got, or if it it's it's not quite getting you what you were hoping to accomplish.

Okay, and with that, I look forward to seeing uh in terms of what we have internally.

All right, thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Just a couple quick things.

Um we'll think of the conversation here and thank you to everybody who presented today.

Um I definitely would be interested as well to see how we can kind of do, I think more of it in-house personally.

I think it'd be interesting to see because given it so many so much of our information that we utilize, but I still want to lead on some of our partners, including uh is it Urban Education Institute with UTSA, and seeing how they can kind of align maybe support in some ways.

I'd just be interested to see what kind of what things we would gain and lose if we had both of them uh side by side of what's a proposal here, right?

If it's in-house versus externally, um what things we need to share.

Because I think to Councilman Gia's point about former organizations that we used to fund, I think it's also my concern about that we fund an organization externally and then if we lose it, then we lost all the data as well versus having it in-house.

But of course that comes with staffing costs.

And I know Eric was here briefly as well, so I think we were having a good conversation.

Um I'll close it there.

Thank you all for the conversation, and thank you uh to all the departments who are doing all the hard work.

And at 11 50 a.m., we will officially join this meeting.