All right, ready to go.

Time is now 10.03 a.m.

on February 6, 2026, and the Education Opportunities Committee meeting is called to order.

Madam Clerk, please call the role.

Councilmember Corps.

Councilmember McKee Rodriguez.

Councilmember Mungia.

President.

Councilmember Castillo.

Chair Galvon.

Here.

Chair, we have quorum.

Thank you so much.

All right, first item agenda is approval of minutes.

Are there any corrections to the minutes?

Motion to approve.

All right, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, any abstentions, moving on.

All right.

Um, we don't have any members of the public decided to speak, right?

Great.

Um then item number two will be our first item to go through, which is the opportunity youth programs uh by DHS.

Rebecca Flores to the podium.

Good morning.

Morning.

I had to write notes because if I didn't, I'll be here for like three hours and just talk and talk and talk because I can talk about this forever in my sleep.

So good morning, um, chair and council members.

Good morning, Chair and I think I'm taller than I am.

Good morning, Chair and Council members.

I'm Rebecca Flores, and I probably oversee the Children and Youth Success Team with the Department of Human Services.

Um, we operate 10 city programs and four city commissions, and our programming runs from uh six weeks all the way to 24 years of age.

Um, today we will be focusing on the city's investments to support opportunity youth.

Um, we will share some data on what has been guiding our investments, the strategies we have adopted to better support youth, and highlight some of the work we are doing in partnership with national networks.

And although the committee knows um the definition of an opportunity youth, for those listening who may not, the definition defines an opportunity youth as someone between the ages of 16 to 24 years for 24 years of age who is not working and not in school, so they have to be both not working nor in school.

Um we used to call them disengaged youth, and in fact, when you look at the census data, they still use that term.

But those of us who work with children and youth, we know words matter.

So basically, we've tried to reframe the narrative from a deficit-based model to one of potential.

And to quote the Aspen Institute's Forum for Community Solutions, the term opportunity youth highlights the belief that investing in a group of young adults offers a significant opportunity for the nation to boost the economy, reduce poverty, and build a stronger workforce.

For those who want to know a bit of history of how we started to invest in opportunity youth, it goes back to 2017, and the former presiding judge of our municipal court, John Bull.

He made a comment to Andrew Moore, who is the director of youth and young adult connections for the National League of Cities about always seeing youth around the age of 19 in his courts who were neither working nor enrolled in school.

Andy replied, those are opportunity youth.

And that one little comment started us down this path when we realized that one, except for one investment in a gang prevention program.

At that time, the city's investments uh centered around those uh youth investments centered around those who are enrolled in school.

There essentially was nothing for those who had already been disconnected, and two, as council was revisiting the youth curfew ordinance and began discussions on how to decriminalize it.

We realized our courts and law enforcement had very few asset-based options available to them.

We also discovered that San Antonio community had around 36,000 opportunity youth, around 13 percent of the youth between the ages of 16 or 24.

Historically, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio have had disconnection rates between 13 and 15 percent, which is slightly higher than the state's average, and Texas has a higher average of disconnected youth compared to the nation.

And since we do compete with our neighbors up north, I wanted to note that we have more than double the amount of disconnected youth compared to Austin.

Austin has seven percent, and again, we're about 13, 14 percent.

And you can see from this map that all the city's disconnection rate averages around 13 percent.

It is not evenly distributed across the city.

Although it is hard to make out on the screen, we do have some zip codes in San Antonio with disconnection rates in the low 20 percent.

And after hearing from other communities who have decreased their percentage of opportunity youth, the city created the next level youth opportunity center, which opened in 2019.

The center is located in Council District One in the Frank Garrett Multi-service center and the 07 zip code.

The city, communities and schools, and goodwill San Antonio all have staff at the center.

One thing we pride ourselves on is that when youth come to the center, they do not know who's Goodwill, who's a city, or who is communities in school.

They are all next level.

And this slide shows kind of representation of kind of the duties of each of our organizations at next level.

And here's the budget for next level.

And I want to highlight that in 2020, United Way began investing in next level.

Their funds primarily support the clinicians we have on staff so participants can access free mental health support and also provide funds for coaches to help decrease barriers to youth working on their personal next level.

We can purchase bus passes, help when participants are getting evicted, and other things that are causing youth to not be able to go back to school or a job.

One of the commitments we made from the onset of next level was to serve some of the community's most challenging youth.

And as you can see from these data points, we continue to meet this commitment.

More than half of next level participants do not have a high school credential, and almost a quarter dropped out before the ninth grade, before the ninth grade.

That means we have youth who dropped out in fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth grade.

I just want that to sink in because as a former educator, I don't know how that is possible that somebody is dropping out of fifth grade, but we do have that in our community.

From the onset of next level, we have also we have some other stats on who we serve.

About 15%, sometimes we go higher, have been involved in the justice system.

We work closely with Bear County as well as the municipal court.

About 13% are experiencing homelessness or unstable housing.

A lot of our youth are uh couch surfing, basically.

Um, and about 16% are or were in the foster care system.

And some of them are kind of they're in the foster care, they're in the justice, they were in justice, and they're homeless.

So there's some overlap of some of these uh stats of kids.

Um as I said before, um, you know, we started off with a lot of work partnering with our former presiding judge John Bull, and we've continued to partner with the municipal court, and we would like to thank Presiding Judge Carla Blade for inviting us to participate in the SA Road Ready Docket and other outreach events focused on youth.

Um, so we have had 40 for this fiscal year, we have had 45 court referrals, and out of those 45, about 15 percent are currently enrolled and working on their education or workforce plans, and we're still working on the other participants who have been referred to uh enroll in our our program.

Before I highlight some key outcomes of next level, I want to share something we learned from Andy Moore from the National League of Cities, who essentially is one of the country's experts in this subject matter.

When we were trying to figure out what success looked like, Andy put it into perspective for us.

He said, if you do outreach to 100 youth, 50 enroll, 50 will enroll in your program.

Then from that 50, 25 will enroll in school and get employed.

Essentially re-engaging some of our community's most vulnerable youth means that we lose about 50 percent at every step.

Um, to put that into perspective, that most folks can understand.

Working with opportunity youth is like working with the chronically unhoused.

They've been homeless for years, and it takes more time and effort to support them.

It's the same with opportunity youth.

Many of them have been disconnected for years, um, and we are literally for some of our kids, um, the only outcome, our only resource that they have to better their lives outcomes.

Um, as you can see, uh FY25, um, we did serve about 555 youth.

Um, that also included we had some funding from Northside Independent School District at that time, and we were running a center out of their family engagement center.

Um, that grant has ended, so if you're wondering why the decrease in the number of youth served, I just wanted to point that out.

Um outcomes we look at again how many are achieving their basic needs.

We look at how many re-enroll in high school or get their uh high school equivalency.

As I said, the vast majority of our youth come to us without that.

Um, and then we also work with our youth enrolling them into post-secondary and vocational training.

And then we look at how many have attained the high school equivalency, diploma, employment, andor entering military, entering the military.

So when you compare our outcomes to other re-engagement centers across the country, we're actually exceeding many of the outcomes from others.

So we're we're very proud of the work that we're doing along with our partners, United Way, Communities and Schools, and Goodwill.

Through the city's delegate agency funding, we also support three other programs, Healy Murphy, Seaton Home, and the YWCA of San Antonio.

They have their reset program is probably the newest one on the block, but if you haven't gone to see it, it's pretty phenomenal.

They're working primarily with or all exclusively with young women.

We also received two grants from the Aspen Institute during the pandemic, and that helped us establish the San Antonio Opportunity Youth Collaborative.

We have about 40 nonprofits participating in the collaborative, and our big thing that we've been working on is like defining what does success look like for San Antonio.

So we developed eight metrics to measure success united way, and starting with our next round of delegate agency funding, councils expected to award in May.

Both organizations will utilize the same metrics for organizations working with opportunity youth.

This will give us better data on what is working and what needs to be improved in our community.

We were also awarded a one-time grant from the Trollis Foundation to help us with improving our data and training for staff that work in organizations supporting opportunity youth.

We've been constantly hearing that you know this young person wants to go back to school, wants a job, but they don't have an ID, and it is very difficult on how to get it when they don't have a birth certificate, they're not talking to their parents.

So through the collaborative, our grant funded staff is actually developing some protocols for all organizations in San Antonio that are working with youth.

And it literally will just be a guide on if you want to get a youth an ID, here are some steps, here are the resources.

If you have an unhoused youth, here are the steps, here are the resources.

Again, we're just trying to improve that quality and making sure that when youth come to our organizations, particularly those that are funded with city funds, that they have the same high quality services that we are we are providing our participants at next level.

And again, as I said, we have about 40 community partners that have been coming to the meetings, and we're developing constantly agendas on issues that they are facing that we need like a community-wide response on how to develop proper supports for our youth.

I also wanted to highlight some national networks and recognition that we have gotten for our work with disengaged youth.

We are part of the National Eagle Cities Reengagement Network, and we are frequently asked to provide technical assistance to communities interested in re-engagement centers.

We have provided technical assistance to WAICO, El Paso, Corpus Christi, Little Rock, and about five other organizations or five other cities.

As I stated earlier, we have been recipients of two grants from them.

And similar to NLC, Aspen frequently asks us to provide technical assistance.

We always get asked to present at the national conferences.

And then our next level participants are also involved in their young adult leadership council.

So this is a gives our opportunity for our youth to be exposed and to meet youth from throughout the country.

And along with our former mayor, we helped develop the mayor's challenge initiative on how to get more young adults employed, and we helped them draft that first document.

And we were awarded the Visionary Award as a youth champion community in 2024.

And I'm also proud to note that in 2023 we were the All-America City.

We won it for thriving communities through youth engagement, and a lot of our application focused on the work that we were doing at next level and also the youth voice work in San Antonio.

Kind of just some high level next steps.

I had mentioned earlier that we are going through our delegate agency process.

So we will be identifying some high performing delegate agency partners through the consolidated funding evaluation process.

Again, United Way and our community partners and the city, we are working on the same performance metrics.

So we're going to continue to monitor the implementation of that.

Working with the San Antonio Opportunity Youth Collaborative and those 40 organizations that are working with andor interested in working and supporting Opportunity Youth.

And we will be seeking additional resources to expand next level, similar to our partnership with Northside.

And also through the San Antonio Opportunity Youth Collaborative.

As I stated, we received just a one-year grant.

And so we are anxious to continue that great work that we're doing there.

And that is it for my presentation.

Thank you so much, Rebecca.

I know we have a bunch of presentations today, kind of related to all this kind of work.

Do for the folks in the community.

Do we want to kind of go through all the presentations and then go through the comments afterwards?

Okay.

Thanks, Arch Rebecca.

We'll go on to the presentation number three.

Oh no, sorry, uh Juanile Services, an opportunity youth focused program provided by municipal courts.

So if we can have cool.

Hi, good morning.

My name is Katie Kepler.

I am the court manager over the juvenile section at the municipal court.

And before I start, I just want to take a moment to acknowledge we have Judge Corisa Chavaria here.

Oh, thank you.

I'm taller.

She is our juvenile judge as well.

So in the juvenile services, we have two areas of focus.

We have our court and then we have our truancy prevention and intervention program.

In our juvenile court, we see youth defendants that receive citations, class C misdemeanors of between the age of 10 and 16 at the time of the violation.

And there are several pathways that they may go through when they when they attend court.

In January 2025, the state passed the youth diversion program, which allows youth to have their case dismissed the day that they attend court.

So if they agree to participate in the program, they come in, they speak with the judge, and the case is dismissed.

And then our youth diversion coordinator, which we were able to hire last year, she oversees the program and provides case management to all of those youth.

And she guides them through a youth diversion is created to address underlying issues and ultimately try to reduce recidivism by addressing those underlying issues.

She provides case management for the time that they are on that agreement, and if all requirements are met, the case stays dismissed, and at the age of 18, it's automatically expunged for them.

They don't have to fill out any paperwork or uh pay any additional fees or anything.

We take care of that for them.

So there's a lot of benefits to that.

We also have our teen court program, which I'm sure you guys have heard presentations on before.

We love our teen core program.

It's also a diversionary program where they have their case processed by youth volunteers in the community.

So those youth fill in for uh court roles, they can fill in for the judge, the jury, the prosecution and defense, and they actually read the police reports and then process.

Uh, and then we have our community service.

So many youth that come in, they may be assigned community service either in lieu of paying fees or as part of their requirement to give back to the community uh for citations such as theft uh or or graffiti or things along that line.

Um, so we found over time that many youth couldn't find where to do community service on certain ages, they had to have parents with them.

Parents weren't able to take the time off or find child care to go with them, and they could end up with convictions for not completing that.

So we reached out and tried to find opportunities to go with them and we go with them for them to complete that community service.

In the summertime, we do it with uh parks and recs.

They are awesome and provide all of the tools and resources, and they're able to complete their hours.

We add an educational component to it as well to try to expose them to different opportunities or experiences that they maybe wouldn't in their uh everyday life or living here in San Antonio their whole life.

They may have never been to the Whitty Museum.

Uh so we try to do those things, and like I said, Parks and Rug has been a huge partner in there.

We have expanded it year-round to try to find other opportunities as well so we can partner with them, and we may not be able to go with them on all of those, but we do have partners that we let them know the kiddos are gonna go, and they'll let us know that they attended so we can get them the credit for their community service hours and have their case either dismissed or or stay uh dismissed there.

Um sorry, I just want to touch on that with our youth diversion.

Uh we have all of our numbers there.

So far, the case the program just started last year, so uh we are finally having some cases close out as of right now.

79% of the cases uh that have closed or have been closed successfully.

Um many are still open, so those numbers are still pending as they start to close out.

Um, and for last year, our teen court also finished uh 77% of those cases that were closed were closed successfully as well.

Our truancy prevention and intervention, uh, that's a big bulk of what we do.

We have 11 case managers, uh, JCMs that work directly with the school districts.

We work with 11 public uh ISDs and then five charter school programs.

In these programs, we work with kids of all ages, as young as pre-K.

Um, and but at all levels, we are working with students 16 to 19.

Um at times, in some situations, we do work with students that are 20, 21.

If they have uh dropped out of school, we'll work with them as well to try to help them get re-enrolled or find some other opportunity.

So our JCMs are on campuses the majority of the time.

They have offices on the campuses, and they're working with students and families throughout the day.

Uh, they try to work with them early to take a preventative approach to ultimately get students to graduate and and not drop out.

Um we have a progressive level of intervention where it can continue, they'll work with them one-on-one, they'll monitor their attendance.

If it continues, they could be asked to come to mediation where they will see Judge Shavaria, and we'll try to figure out there what the issue is and why the truancy is continuing.

Uh, we also work with students that are transitioning into ninth grade because that grade is where we see a lot of truancy, and then we start to see students repeat that grade several times, and many of those students end up dropping out because they get so far behind they can't catch up, uh, they get discouraged and feel like they'll never be able to finish, and they end up dropping out.

We have our senior summit where we deal directly with seniors.

Um I think some of you have been there at the court.

It's a positive event where we're just trying to encourage, they've made it this far, they've got to senior year, don't give up now.

Uh they talk to the judges individually and give very positive messages there.

And then again, the JCMs will continue monitoring their attendance while they're on that agreement.

And if they need it further, they'll continue all the way through graduation if needed.

Our re-engagement docket, that one we work with those students who have dropped out.

So if schools have attempted to get students to re-engage back in their school and they haven't been able to, they may refer them to us, and sometimes we can get them to come in and have that conversation about what's going on, what their plan is, if they're planning to re-enroll.

Um, if the public school is not working for them, let's talk about some other options because it's not for everybody.

Uh, we've also added this year to address students that we call over age undercredited.

So those would be like your 18-year-old freshmen that I had just talked about, where they get discouraged and end up dropping out.

So, again, trying to take that preventative approach before they drop out, um, and we kind of lose contact with them.

Let's have that conversation and see how we can get you to to graduate, get your diploma or a GED if we need to.

Uh, this year alone, we have asked, we've invited roughly 900 students to come to the court that have been withdrawn already.

And as of right now, uh, we know that 209, we've been able to confirm that 209 of those are re-enrolled back in some educational program.

A lot of that data we have to get from the school, so there are more numbers still coming in on that, but as of now we know 209 have re-enrolled.

So we are happy to see that.

Our uh programming and partnerships, we teach classes at the court, our youth enrichment class, that's where we try to address common issues that our youth are seeing, um, such as substance abuse, mental health, bullying, uh, self-awareness and emotion regulation, um, again, to try to prevent those issues and bring some education to them.

We have our attendance matters class, that's more for parents, and we try to focus on elementary parents of elementary age students again from an educational point of view and a preventative point of view because we see that that truancy starts young and it's a pattern that develops over time.

And so we try to address those early while the kiddos are young, and the parents can pick them up and take them to school before they are 16 and bigger than their parents, and they no longer can force them to go.

That's very discussion-based.

So we go over the law and tips and the importance of attendance, and then parents spend a lot of time talking and telling their story and asking for feedback and ways, ideas of how to handle certain situations, and there's been a lot of positive feedback there where they felt isolated and alone and that this was only their problem and that they were doing something wrong, and to hear other people say, No, I'm struggling with that too.

I'm having a hard time to get my kid up and get into school.

They left feeling a little more supported and motivated that they can make changes.

This year we re-established our partnership with the American Indians in Texas.

They are helping us with our youth enrichment class, and they started teaching three of our six classes.

So we partner with them every other month.

They come in and work with the kids and they take their more like holistic approach to it.

That just started in January.

It went really well.

The students were engaged and talking, so that was wonderful to see.

And then for UTSA, that is also for our older students and their parents.

We asked them to come in and it's through the UTSA counseling department.

They work with the students and the parents separate to address those communication issues between student and parent to help improve that communication and again get them to graduate, get them to avoid any trouble, criminal charges, and we usually hear good feedback there too.

Our budget, we currently work all of our programs and initiatives with no additional funding.

None of our programs have additional funding.

We do it with the staff that we have.

That's the adopted budget for the fiscal year 2026.

We also are on our tenth year of our truancy grant that we received from the Office of the Governor.

It was just approved by council yesterday, and that application is going to be turned in next week.

So fingers crossed that we received that.

That's about just under 355,000 in that funds for additional JCMs and another supervisor as well.

So we are looking forward to getting that again and continue working with all the districts and schools that we do.

I know I want to address quickly outcomes.

We are in a unique situation where we work with so many different partnerships as far as the districts and school, and they all function a little different and how they would like to either utilize our services, how embedded our our staff are in their districts, and also what they consider successful.

We have faced the trouble of trying to define what success looks like because it's a gray area.

What success is for one student is not the same for another.

This year we were able to work with ITSD, and they built us a database system that we have up and running, and we're getting all of our data from this last uh fall semester in there, and we're looking forward to be able to get more information on those outcomes because we have come up with some definitions of what success are or what improvement is.

Um hoping by this time next year, end of summer, we'll have some numbers to be able to actually say for the mediations what that success rate is.

Um we do track how many show up and the contracts that the JCMs do and the attendance tracks that they do, but those outcomes are a little difficult.

So we are excited to see what that looks like this year.

Um I had asked my team though to send me a few stories.

We have JCMs there that range from 30 years with the city, 20 years as uh with the court, and uh three years as our newest JCM.

So there's a lot of knowledge and and years of service there.

And I had asked them to just let me give me a sentence or two of some stories or you know, students that really stand out to them in their years of service.

And so I just want to take a moment and just talk about those because while we it cannot provide those numbers, those hard numbers of outcomes, the impact that this team has on the community is amazing.

And reading this prior, I started getting like a little teary-eyed, so I'm like, oh no, like it's just it's so heartfelt to see.

Um, we had one JCM that was working with a senior that was discouraged because they knew that they couldn't afford their cap and gown.

Um, he reached out to different programs within the district and got some information in that student's cap and gown was covered and they were able to walk the stage that year.

Um I had one of my seniors that used to be a JCM.

Uh, she worked with a student in her senior year and had her come to her office every single day.

Every single day she checked in with the student to make sure that she was going to school.

She helped her navigate the attendance recovery process and helped her regain all of her credits.

And she also got to graduate and she invited the JCM to her graduation, and the parent actually found her and came up and shook her hand and he thanked her for the effort and accountability that you know she held the student to and got her to graduation.

We had another student who was struggling with alopecia and didn't want to come to school because she felt some shame and embarrassment in that.

And our JCM reached out to local uh beauty salons and advocated for this student and found a salon that was willing to do her hair for her for free.

And after that, she started going to school.

Her confidence went up and she was in school.

Um she said that was one that she will never forget.

Uh some of our staff have families that come up to them while they're out in the public with their own families and say, Do you remember me?

You helped me get to graduation, you helped me finish, you told me that I could do anything I wanted, and I had to, I was in charge of my own future.

Um, and their families are able to see their their wives and kids and and husbands are able to see the impact that they make on the community.

So it's really wonderful hearing those stories, um, and we look forward to continuing as we go.

And thank you.

Thank you so much, Katie.

And thank you for those last stories.

Those are really helpful in just kind of shaping the conversation and the continued work we're doing here.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Um, just want to do a temperature check with my uh colleagues here.

Do you want to have any questions on this and next level because another little bit more related, or do you want to continue on with parks and ready to work?

Continue on.

Okay.

All right.

We'll go into it number four education programs, youth opportunity, uh, opportunity youth, ages 1624, provided by the parks and recreation department.

Hi, good morning.

Uh so I'm Sarah Sharp.

I'm a recreation manager with the Parks and Recreation Department.

Uh, super excited to be here and explain like what we do with education with parks and rec.

Everybody thinks parks and rack, and they're just obviously sports, but we do a lot more than that.

So uh really excited to share.

Uh just a quick overview about the department.

Um, we're large, very, very large.

Uh, we are Capra certified with the National Recreation and Parks Association, and we got our safety certification as well.

Those are two certifications we're super proud of as a department.

Uh, we have 271 city parks, over 260 plus miles of trails, 125 pavilions, 18 dog parks, 32 pools and splash pads, 30 community centers.

So uh we have a lot of opportunities for the public to come out and really enjoy natural spaces, but again, our community centers and our programming.

So uh two years ago, our director Homer Garcia III challenged us to develop a youth services master plan.

It was the first time we'd ever even thought of that.

And so trying to find like a comprehensive guide to guide our programming and our investments in youth services.

So uh we did a lot of engagement throughout the community, pop-up events, uh surveys, really trying to get feedback for those that participate in our programming already, but those that don't, and to find out why.

So uh we took about a year and a half to do this plan, and we got a lot of recommendations out of it.

Um, if you've been to our centers, uh, the bulk of them were built in probably the 70s.

So looking at how do we invest in those centers and bring the technology up to date and you know, with our our youth and our teens, they're looking at gaming, they're looking at being on the computers.

So, how can we do that?

So that was one of the recommendations, expanding our our youth programming.

You're gonna see a map in a little bit, and we're really located central San Antonio.

But San Antonio is growing as we all know, right?

So the outskirts where we don't have community centers, how can we grow partnerships to also offer that programming?

Uh Lebrett leverage specialized training opportunities.

So we have a lot of youth that come in and participate in our programs, and our staff have said, hey, can we get someone to come and talk to us about how to deal with kids with autism or kids that have things going on at home?

And so we've brought in Child Safe.

We brought in out to autism network to come in and provide that training to our staff.

So continue doing that, and then increasing community engagement.

The biggest thing we found out from our surveys is people don't know what we do.

Um, San Antonio is huge, and you don't think of parks and rec all the time for the different opportunities that we provide.

So, how do we go ahead and improve that um engagement and that communication so we can celebrate our youth services?

And then specifically, since we're talking a lot about teens here, uh, we asked teens what do you want?

What is it that we could do that would bring you in our facilities?

Uh, they're looking for fitness and wellness.

Uh, they like the outdoor adventure.

That was really kind of a cool thing to hear the nature programs.

You know, everyone's behind their screens on their iPads on their phones, and they do want to get out and try different things.

Cultural programming.

I don't know how many of my friends still don't realize that we do dance and music classes, and I'll share pictures at our recitals, and they're like, I forget that you guys do that because you just don't automatically think parks and wreck, dance and music.

Uh, steam programming, that's huge, right?

Science, the technology, the robotics.

We do that, and so it's like get that information out the teens to let them know.

Uh, so we have community centers.

We have 30 community centers citywide, uh, 20 of which are our full service centers, which really means that we offer programming throughout the day.

We've recently expanded our hours.

We were open at two o'clock in the afternoon.

Now we open at 10 a.m.

So that gives an opportunity for toddlers and parents to come in in the morning, our seniors to come in in the morning, and we're seeing an uptick in attendance, which is really great.

Honestly, some of our opportunity youth.

It's an opportunity to come in to the gym to do like a young adult basketball league or a volleyball league.

It's in that outlet because it's it's the education piece, but it's also that fitness, that health that you need, that wellness piece.

So we have that opportunity now.

We are open 50 hours weekly, and uh we had over 352,000 youth and teen in attendance last fiscal year.

We have four adult and senior centers.

You know, DHS has fantastic senior centers.

We have adult and senior centers, so anyone 18 and up can come in participate.

We do get a lot of the older adults and seniors, but we have some young adults that come in and take advantage of like our painting programs or our photography.

Um, those are fantastic services that we can offer for all ages.

And then we have six open play centers, self-explanatory, they're open play.

You can come in, shoot around, uh, play volleyball.

We have table games, maybe a pool, tables for them to use, uh, computer lab.

Uh, and so in FY25, we had over 22,000 youth and teen in attendance.

So these are our community centers.

So we always call it like a little bit of a smile around Central San Antonio.

You can kind of see that's where we're clustered.

We have the one outlier in D10, uh, Hamilton Community Center, but really this is where we're congregated, is really that's like kind of that smile around San Antonio.

Plus, it's just kind of fun to say a smile around San Antonio.

Um, so we have community club hubs, and this is where we do our programming.

So, our community centers, we have taken our programming and kind of uh market it with what we call our club hubs.

So we have Discovery Lab, that's all your STEM robotics programming, Fitzone, uh, yoga, Zumba, core conditioning, sports club is your basketball, your volleyball, but then also your lacrosse and some of your non-traditional sports.

We have a teen club, self-explanatory that's really for teens, uh done a bunch of different programming that's in there.

And the studio, which is our fine arts programming, uh, as well as our arts and crafts.

So, some highlights from FI25, the gallery.

It is my favorite night of work that we have.

So the kids take 12 weeks to develop uh uh paintings or sculptures or photography, and then we bring all of that artwork together and we transform a space into an art gallery.

So they can bring their families, they can come with their friends, see their art on display, we'll have our d'oeuvres, we'll have like a little music in the corner.

Um, we'll do like the little plates with the little forks so they're walking around looking at their artwork.

It's it's the cutest night at work.

It just reminds you of why we do what we do, right?

Um, sea perch, the top picture here is the CPurch program.

So it's an underwater robotics program.

During the week, the kids build this robot, and then we'll take them to the pool.

A lot of our community centers have a pool, or we'll just transport them to where the nearest pool is.

They actually get to put their robot in the pool, go through obstacle courses, do some battle bots, they really like to fight the robots, of course, in the water.

Um, so that's a it's a fantastic program, and it's for youth and teens.

We had 187 youth and teens go through it last summer.

Aim to float, that's a two-year program.

So the second year that we did it was this past summer.

That program is a riot.

So probably 90% of our kids had never gone kayaking, had never done archery.

I'd almost say like 80% of our staff had never done any of that either.

So we take the time to we put the kayaks actually in the pools first so they can get in the in the kayak, get comfortable, learn how to paddle.

Um, same thing in the community centers, you'll see the archery, they're using strings right now just to show them how to hold it before we actually give them the bows and arrows.

Um, and then we'll take them out and they actually get to put this in use down at the mission reach.

So we put the boats in the water, they get to go ahead and kayak down, they go down the chute.

Uh, they're doing the archery outside, so we do uh nature education while they're out there.

We've actually taken this program and um taken it to our senior centers.

So our seniors got in the kayaks and went down the chute and went down the mission reach.

They did the uh archery.

We had a blind senior that did the archery and hit the target.

So that was probably you should have heard the crowd go nuts when she hit the target.

So that's a fantastic program.

And then Azzobots, which they explained it to me.

I'm not a robotics person, but you have this little sphere, you do some coding, and these little Azzobots are zooming around the floor, they go through obstacle courses, and that's for our teen participants.

So it's another way just to kind of engage them in something that they really like.

Um, so we have out-of-school camps.

So kids are out of school, parents have to go to work.

So we have Thanksgiving holiday, spring break.

We're registering for spring break, I think starting on Monday.

Um, those are Monday through Friday, 7:30 to 5:30, ages six to fourteen, and our out-of-school camps for those three, it's just three dollars a day.

They get lunch and snack, it's all day.

Age appropriate curriculum, so looking at for the younger kids is different than for the older kids, really doing that teen-specific programming for those 13 and 14-year-olds.

Summer youth program, I'm sure everyone's heard of that.

That's our very robust summer camp, eight-week day camp.

Uh, we're at approximately 45 locations.

We use all of our community centers, and then we also partner with six local school districts, and they let us use their facility to offer the program.

Again, Monday through Friday, ages six to fourteen.

This program is a little bit different as far as this fee goes.

So we have a sliding scale.

So the first child for all eight weeks is 260 dollars.

The second child will be an extra 160, three or more is 160 after that.

But 73% of our kids qualify for the reduced fee.

That reduced fee is $25 for the first child for all eight weeks, 15 more, so it's 40 dollars for two kids, $55 for three or more for the entire eight-week program.

Again, it's lunch and snack, it's age appropriate activities, and we keep them busy all day while the kids are out of school and the parents are still at work.

Two years ago, we piloted a summer teen club camp.

And so we've done that at three different locations.

It's free.

They're a little bit different.

We know teens are not gonna wake up at 7 30 in the morning to come to camp.

So we start our day at 10 a.m.

So they'll start rolling in.

Some of them are still dressed in it looks like their pajamas, but they're come for camp and they're good to go.

So we do that from 10 to 6, it's free.

It again has lunch and snack, and it's it's it's the robotics, it's more of clinics, scrimmages, stuff like that that teens really want sitting in front of the computer in the summer youth program.

We try not to have them on their cell phones, teen club camp, they're on their phones, you know.

So we have dedicated time that we we really are offering what the teens want.

And then last year, for the very first time, we did a dance camp.

So we have the Britt Almaguer dance studio and community center, and we're like, why not use the facility for that?

So we just do a half day dance camp.

Uh, we'll do a week for it's just youth and a week of teens.

So it's really dance intensives to kind of appeal to that, those folks that are looking for that cultural programming.

And some notable partnerships.

We can't do this alone, right?

And so we have some really great external partners.

Junior Achievement has been a partner for years, and they have this new finance park, and so we use this program with our teens to really teach financial literacy.

They're probably not getting a lot of that in school, and this program like helps like start that conversation.

Uh, the American Diabetes Association, we do project power, uh, Metro Health actually introduced us to that.

So we're super thankful that's a health and wellness program.

Talked about CPurch earlier, the underwater robotics.

Zero Robotics.

Now, this is a super cool program, right?

It's a partnership with MIT and NASA.

And the top picture here is the kids that we've made it to the finals every year we've done it.

Two years ago, we came in second in the nation, which was just amazing.

I think this year we came in ninth.

We're gonna get better because I really want to win.

Um, so but the kids at the end, if we make the finals, they get to link up with the international space station.

So the top picture is the astronaut floating around at the International Space Station talking to our kids as they input the code that we develop into these little satellites that are uh going around the international space station.

So that's like that's a trip to watch.

And then the astronauts have called out like San Antonio for their breakfast tacos a couple times, so they're like, hey, we're gonna when we land, and we're like, come on over.

Um and then AgroLife.

We've had this partnership for years, and again, it's another food and nutrition program because we know that our youth and our teens really need that education as they're getting older.

And then internally, I love to brag on this because um we have some really great partners.

My friend Rebecca here.

Her and I uh work together.

Actually, I got invited to help with the next level development, and so um we just kind of had a lot of conversations about the community that we serve.

We have a lot of overlap, but DHS has a lot of folks that come for their programs and don't know what we have to offer, and vice versa.

So I think it was what two years ago, we decided we were gonna form a committee.

My boss was like, What's this committee?

I was like, we made it up.

Um, so we invited the library and Metro Health to join us, and we call it the big four.

I think we need a more creative name, but um that's not my jam.

Um, so the big four is us four departments that service so much of the same community to come together and figure out how can we share that information with those folks that don't know.

So we've done multi-generational programming where we brought teens and seniors together to just share a meal and share stories.

You know, if you sit down and have a meal with somebody, it's just easier to have that conversation than just sitting in front of them.

So we've done some of those, which has been very successful.

We did a programming showcase last year, so we brought all of the city departments in and invited external partners to come in.

So parents could come and go from table to table and find out what are all these programs that people have to offer that they could take advantage of.

Um that's been just a great partnership.

Metro Health, we participate in Project Worth.

Uh they're gonna email me in about two weeks.

I have a feeling to say, hey, can you do this survey for the teen mental health survey?

Because we always do it every single year for our spring break kids.

Um, the public library, I'm a huge library user.

Um we do the summer reading program.

That's the biggest partnership we do with them.

But um I can call any of them and be like, hey, or they use our centers actually quite a bit when a library is under construction.

They'll come in, set up a satellite location at one of our centers, and so it's another way to share information.

And the other one I really want to harp on, because I don't think people realize is economic development with international affairs.

Martha and Tenzilla will email me and they're like, hey, we got this program opportunity.

So we did a photography competition with San Pedro Parques in Monterey, Mexico.

And so they did photography there in their parks.

We did it in our parks.

We shared our photos, and then we linked up via Zoom.

So we were able to have our participants talk to their participants across borders, which is really cool.

And then Suzu, China, we did a painting competition where we sent, we had the kids do paintings, sent them to China.

They got judged in China, and then they sent us back like certificates for the kids of like who plays first, second, third.

They're all in Chinese, of course.

And the kids thought it was the coolest thing in the world.

So just another really cool opportunity that we have for an internal partnership.

So we have athletic facilities.

We have McFarland Tennis Center, Fairchild, those are really our McFarland with Tennis, McFairchild with the pickleball and tennis courts, Wheelie Height Sports Complex, that's new in our portfolio.

We're really taking advantage of that with some of our programming to have that football field, the soccer programming, the track.

Some highlights as we do community clinics at McFarland.

Fitness in the Park beginner tennis.

They had over 2,500 participants learning how to play tennis.

Paddle and play youth camps.

So they did a camp for pickleball and tennis for kids.

And then the community open play is very popular at Wheatley for people to just go in and actually be on a real football field or use the track.

So those are great.

And again, they rely on partners.

We have to with San Antonio Tennis Association, Fitness in the Park does it on par golf.

We actually did golf clinics over at Wheatley.

So that was kind of a cool program too.

So with athletics and fitness, we do clinics with you know basketball seasons coming up or volleyball seasons coming up, doing clinics for kids.

So if they're like our high school kids that are gonna go and try out, they can start working on skill development and conditioning.

We do have youth athletic leagues.

Tomorrow starts the games for the Spurs Youth Basketball League.

So we've registered for that.

They've been practicing all games start tomorrow.

So that's gonna be fun to watch.

Go watch little four-year-olds out there playing now.

That that is something to see.

Some of our larger participation areas is track and field, like said Spurs Youth Basketball is very popular, even tennis clinics, though.

It's like almost a thousand people going through our tennis clinics.

We also have the San Fernando Boxing Club, so it's at Lincoln Community Center.

And that's an opportunity for youth, for adults to teens to come on in and try something new.

A lot of folks haven't, I mean, that's not a first thought process.

So we have the boxing club over there.

And then fitness in the park.

Again, they do the youth sports conditioning, um, and they have different partnerships for programs.

Like the top picture here is one of my favorites.

So they did the goat yoga, and that's for all ages.

And it's like you don't even really want to do the yoga, you just want to hold the baby goats because they're so cute.

Um, but that's like a really cool uh partnership and a program that we can offer and give somebody a new experience, right?

Who thought you're gonna go do yoga with?

And we'll have like all ages.

So you'll have youth, you're gonna have parents, teens, and you know, I mean, they're baby goats.

It's cute.

Um, and aquatics.

So, you know, that's now that's gonna be what we're gonna be talking about, like in the next couple months for sure, right?

It's gonna get hot, we're gonna have aquatics.

But we do have the year-round nadatorium, you know, it's a it's the only place that people in the public can come and swim year-round inside.

So last year they had over 50,000 in attendance at the nadatorium, and they offered swim lessons.

So over 500 folks took advantage of swim lessons at the netatorium.

Then the pools are gonna open for the summer, and you're gonna have the 24 pools across the city.

We had over 265,000 visitors to the pools last year.

I mean, that's astronomical, right?

Um, and in this ages that we're kind of talking about the 11 to 17, it was like 60,000 folks were in there.

One thing that really wanna emphasize, we'll talk a little bit about it later too, is lifeguards.

So we're constantly looking for lifeguards, and that they start at age 16.

So that's a great opportunity for youth to come in.

It's a great first job.

It's learning life-saving skills, it's uh we'll get you certified, you get an incentive, they pay, give you a uniform stipend.

Um, so that's a great uh it's a great opportunity to like build your resume and just have that job on your, you know, when you're applying for others.

So 255 of our lifeguards last year fell within that 16 to 24-year-old category.

So that's out of the 285, that that's a you know, that's the bulk of them.

And then they do the let's swim essay, which is the free swim lessons at uh our outdoor pools.

Again, partnerships, San Antonio Independent School District, Southwest Aquatic Center, pre-K for SA, the food bank.

So, in case you um don't know or just had forgotten, you know, we feed obviously at our summer youth program and our teen camps, but we also feed at the pool.

So we work with the San Antonio Food Bank to have lunch and snack for kids that are at the pool.

They might not be enrolled in one of our programs, they're hanging out at the pool all day, they have an opportunity to eat.

And then these are our swim pool locations, so you can kind of see we're throughout San Antonio, so a lot of opportunities for people to get out there and take advantage.

But we had over 620 opportunities last year to connect the community with nature through field trips, uh, guided hikes.

They do nature art classes.

We get our staff certified in all the project wild classes, so it's project wild, growing up wild, starting wild, and these are like you get to take a nature class in nature.

So you're you're implementing what you're learning, which is a fantastic opportunity.

They had over almost 26,000 participants go through their educational opportunities at our natural areas last year.

And then lastly, because we're gonna harp on this now for the next few months, is employment.

We are hiring, and so um, you know, we've actually started conversations with next level because we need uh folks to come in and work with us, and they're trying to find some of these folks to have their first job.

So again, aquatics starts at 16 years old.

Um, we'll get you the required certifications.

They'll actually they've taught people how to swim, and then get them to where they can then pass the swimming test.

Um like I said, they get incentives, uh, uh the uniform stipend.

And then we have pool supervisors.

So anybody that's got that high school diploma or GED and has been a lifeguard for a couple of years, you can be that upper pool supervisor.

And if you graduate from college, you could come in and be an area supervisor.

And then for our community centers, you know, we're looking at temp rec assistance.

We do 18 years old or 17 years old, have graduated with a high school diploma or GED.

Um, we look for year-round instruction.

So to come in, it's like you love to play basketball.

We'll hire you to teach basketball.

You know, I mean, that's a gimme, right?

That's why I do what I do.

Um, summer youth program, you want to be a camp counselor, come on in, we'll give you a group of kids, go through all the training, and then you can lead these kids in activities all day.

You know, it's like, oh, let's go.

I love to do art.

Go do an art project with them.

We're gonna pay you to do that.

So uh, those are those opportunities for those that age group to come on and work for us.

So that's why we're gonna work with next level, see how many of their participants we can come in and have that first job.

And then full-time jobs, you know, we have the rec specialist.

So you do a year with us in recreation, graduate.

I mean, graduate from high school, you can come in, and that's a that's a great first job.

Um, and I was just gonna really quick.

So, for our temp rec assistants, I think the last two years, we've had really cool stories where we've had these kids are 18 come in to interview, they're so nervous, they can't even like formulate a sentence at some point, so you're just trying to get them to talk.

And by the end, one of the questions is why do you want to do this?

And we've had them point out well, I went to Joe Ward Community Center and DJ was my camp counselor, and I want to be DJ for the next person.

Yes, and so it's one of those where you're like, man, that's why we do what we do.

So um, yeah, it's a great opportunity.

So we're gonna link up with next level, see what we can do with that, and then everybody else around the city.

So spread the word, please, uh, that we are now hiring jobs are up on the website.

Um, and that's it for us.

So thank you very much.

Thank you so much, Sarah.

All right.

Our final presentation, ready to work.

Uh I don't know the exact yeah, we were programming efforts benefiting uh San Antonio's youth, young adults, youth and young adults.

Go ahead.

Well, good morning, everyone.

My name is Michael Sindon, and I'm an administrator with the city's workforce development office, and today I will be briefing on San Antonio Ready to Works efforts that benefit San Antonio's young adult population.

So prior to starting each briefing, we like to provide a point of light regarding our program's participants.

Um, I'd like for you all to meet Adriana Herrera D'Avila from District 10.

Um, Adriana had a unique passion for caring.

It began when she had to help her grandmother who was dealing with health issues, um, and later when she had to provide support for her grandfather.

Those experiences inspired her to pursue a nursing, and she enrolled in the ready to work program.

She received her medical assistant certification through the support of our prime partner Project Quest and training through the Goodwill Training Academy, who was also our prime partner as of last year.

After completing the ready to work program, Adriana is now employed with Thousand Oaks Pediatrics.

And to quote her, I wanted to care for patients the way I care for my family.

Adriana will continue to seek a future education goals, and her story is proof that ready to work can help open and reopen doors no matter the circumstances.

So to begin the briefing, let's start by discussing eligibility criteria to enroll in the San Antonio Ready to Work Program.

As you see here, an individual must be at least 18 years old when applying for the program, permitted to work in the United States, a resident of the city of San Antonio, or be a military connected individual living in Bear County, have an income less than 250% of the federal poverty guidelines, be willing to take assessments related to barriers, academic skills, aptitude, and workplace readiness, and be committed to the program.

Next, let's look, let's look at some data on ready-to-work participants aged 18 to 24 as compared to all ready-to-work participants.

On the left side of this chart, you can see that participants aged 18 to 24 make up approximately 25% of all intakes, enrollments, and training completors, uh, while making up 24% of all quality job placements.

18 to 24-year-old participants have a 64 training percent completion rate and 58% job quality placement rate, which is comparative to the program-wide average.

Here we have demographics of the 18 to 24-year-old group.

Approximately 63% of them are female, 67% are Latino, 18% African American, 9% Caucasian, 2% Asian or Pacific Islander, 2% Native American, and 2% unknown or declined.

And this slide here shows the interest in the program of the industries of this group, with health care solidly in the lead at 56%, as you can see, and then transportation and IT cyber to round out the top three industries.

And here are the top five training occupations for this demographic with medical assistants and nursing assistants leading the way, as you can see towards the bottom.

Next, let's shift the programs, the shift to the program's outreach efforts to reach our young adult population.

First, let's start with our city senior summit, in which we collaborate with the city's municipal court who host this summit for students experiencing trauma truancy issues or are deemed at risk.

The purpose is to recapture students and direct them on a path towards graduation, and it is geared to seniors at several San Antonio school districts, including San Antonio ISD, Edgewood ISD, East Central ISD, Judson ISD, among others.

At these summits, parents and guardians are also present to hear from judges, ready to work participants, and other city civic organizations and opening remarks.

To date, the summit has reached hundreds of eligible and near-eligible students who can take advantage of the ready to work program.

In addition, our office attends various resource fairs aimed at high school students to learn about ready-to-work opportunities after graduation.

An example is our participation in the fall 2025 fair hosted at Clark High School in Northside Independent School District.

We plan to continue this relationship with them and attend the spring 2026 fair as well.

We also attend numerous community events throughout the year, such as an upcoming event here in March, which is a community car show hosted by Southwest Legacy High School as part of the Southwest Independent School District.

This event is organized by the high school to gather families from District 4 and ready to work will be on site to meet potential participants and students at the request of the event organizers.

Additional examples include our work with the San Antonio Independent School District and its career readiness department to conduct outreach to graduating seniors and forming them of benefits of ready to work.

We have also presented information about the program to Northside Independent School District's career and technology teachers and counselors to provide a basic overview with educators to pass to their students.

And then the last initiative we want to highlight here is a new pilot program we have with SAWORKS, who is a ready to work prime partner.

We are working with them to engage with a minimum of five local high schools with low socioeconomic status student enrollments to spread awareness of the ready to work program to seniors.

Next, let's pivot to Ready to Works Apprenticeship Building America grant program, which was awarded to us and funded by the U.S.

Department of Labor.

The grant funds for this initiative are used to support and expand pre-apprentip and registered apprenticeship programs.

In turn, these grant funds help individuals earn wages while learning on the job, gain knowledge and confidence in industry and occupation, obtain certifications, and ultimately turn a job into a career.

The grant award was received for a three-year term for a total of 2.9 million, and we will have it sunset in June of 2026.

Regarding pre-apprenticeships, our team has worked to create 15 programs, collaborating with businesses such as Layuna, Holt, UTSA, and JR Plumbing.

In addition to created pre-apprenticeships, our team has worked to expand enrollment to seven existing pre-apprenticeship programs, and to date, 238 ready-to-work participants aged 18 to 24 have gone through a pre-apprentip training.

Next, let's discuss registered apprenticeship programs.

To date, our office has created 17 registered apprenticeship programs with local employers such as UTSA College of Education, JR Plumbing, Office of Historic Preservation here at the city, and CAS Network.

In addition to the created programs, our office has worked to expand enrollment into 14 registered apprenticeship programs with entities like ABC of South Texas, Cavalry in Power, Central South Carpenters, and YWCA.

Here you'll see demographics of the 18, 24 year olds in the pre-apprentipers.

We have 78% who are male, 20% female, and then 65% who are Latino, 20% African American, 9% Caucasian, 2% Asian or Pacific Islander, 2% Native American, and the rest are unknown or declined.

This slide will showcase the interest in program for the industries of our 18 to 24 year old group for our pre-apprentip programs with IT Cyber clearly in the lead there by 61%, followed by construction trades utilities and manufacturing aerospace.

And here are the top training occupations for this demographic, with obviously computer user support specialists leading the way at 58%, followed by electricians and plumbers, as you can see there.

In addition to the efforts previously shown, the workforce development office is collaborating with Alamo College's P Tech programs, along with results for America and a partnership to engage local registered apprenticeship program employers to assist high schools and expanding and developing pre-apprenticeships pipelines that feed into their registered apprenticeship programs.

Pathways and technology early college P Tech programs will focus on preparing students and careers in local markets.

And then currently five P Tech programs are identified in this pilot initiative, which you can see here Highlands High School, Judson High School, Alamo Academies, Jurdenton High School, and Tom Moore High School.

This concludes the briefing.

Thank you very much for your time.

And our team is available to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you so much, Michael.

Thank you to everyone who presented today.

I know we're kind of reasoning through, but I think it's really critical to kind of hear how these things are all tied together.

We have some incredible programs here at the city.

And I know we went over the last meeting, the kind of early childhood ones.

Of course, today was a bit more K through 12.

The team kind of support there too.

And the next one will likely be the higher education one.

So we continue that kind of pathway forward of seeing how our full programs are looking here.

What we do with the city.

Or what ways we can just kind of impact educational opportunities directly through these programs because there's so many incredible ones that we have.

I don't know.

But I want to be honest with my committee members about what things you want to see together kind of form with uh even with Sarah's point from parks about the big four and others as well, like municipal courts, and how they kind of all break together to hopefully hopefully kind of have the biggest impact on educational opportunities through our budget and showcasing that to our community.

I think is very important.

So anyway, I'll do that there.

It's kind of just the overlying question and thought as we always have.

Um who would like to start with their comments?

Councilman Gia.

Well, thank you, Chair, for organizing this today.

I think it was a really great um agenda and all really connected.

Um, and I'll say this, and I'm not sure maybe it was Rebecca who told me this, but what I think about with this, all these presentations is you know, I think oftentimes we we think of like a pipe burst right in all this water is gushing out, and we are focused on all the buckets that we need to get to collect the water instead of trying to fix the leak at the top.

And I think um this council is is one council that a majority of us realize that uh this is the fixing of the pipe, all these types of programs that we have here, which is really really important.

And so I think um developing this type of ecosystem for the budget is really important, uh, versus just saying, you know, we've got crime on the back end, we've got these issues, we need you know enforcement on the law, uh, instead of providing opportunities for people that are in a um opportunity zone, you know, an opportunity part of their life.

And you know, I was actually at a senior summit with municipal court and I got to be there, and it was for South San ISD specifically, and it was so nice to be there to talk to kids, and I they don't they didn't know who I was, right?

I went up there and I said, Who's we don't know what a councilman is, right?

But I went there and I I shook everybody's hand and I told them that you know, while we may not know each other, uh the city cares about you, and what we're doing here today is to make sure that um you have the opportunity to get through high school.

Um I got to talk to some of the counselors who were there, and as we connected, and as a matter of fact, we are helping sponsor a Chick-fil-A uh party for South SAN for the kids that are gonna do well with their attendance.

It was based out of that connection.

And through that, you know, I I've talked to a lot of the tables that were there and talked to a lady that was uh with next level and organized uh um a trip over there with Rebecca and the team.

I see some of the folks here from next level, and that is truly remarkable work that they're doing there.

Um, and that really should be expanded to serve a greater population.

So I think that is is phenomenal what they're doing, and it's such a wraparound you know, area with so many different partners there, just working under the guise of next level to to make it better for um the kids there.

So I think that's really important.

And going back to municipal court, I'm very interested also in the AIT program.

I'm familiar with them, I think that's really cool that they are participating with that and love to sit in on a class just to kind of see how that holistic vision goes.

And it sounds like um if it works for the kids, then that's even better.

So I think you know, uh giving children, young people opportunities to do well is important to let them know that the city cares about them, and I think so many of those young folks um feel like nobody's on in their corner for them sometimes, and they need to know that people that strangers care about them and want to invest in them and put more resources out there for them.

And at next level, there was a couple, you know, young ladies who went through the program and were mentors to other kids there, and they got to say, you know, if you want to know what we need, just ask us kids, ask us young people what we want, and we will tell you what it is.

And so I think that's very important.

Um, and so to move on to parks real quick.

I think um it's phenomenal the programming that that happens there.

Um, and I remember at a neighbor association meeting, we had they told us that for the Thanksgiving uh camp within like the day it opened, it was fully booked out.

Uh and so that's a high, high need for the uh residents of our community.

And as one of those kids who you know was kind of a latchkey kid, you know, and and had to be home sometimes.

Uh those types of things are very important for folks that just have to work and can't be there at home, and it's a very productive way for them to do that.

And it just shows the the need for further investment in our parks uh facilities and and the staff there.

And if we can go to the slide with a community centers, I don't recall which one it was, but maybe parks can remind us which one it was.

I think it's more on uh slide five.

Leave it to our teacher to tell us.

That's good.

Um so I said this to a library, and I and I want to do this for all our maps that we have coming in.

We really need these maps to be zoomed out all the way to 1604.

Uh even if there's nothing in between, we have to see the full footprint of the city because we're leaving out in this map many parts of our city.

Uh, and then that's okay to say, right, we don't have community centers there.

That's for us council members to advocate to invest in that area also.

Um I know you know our colleague in District 8 has said they don't have a community center in their entire district, which makes it difficult for community to gather.

So um it's a really important map.

I think we should um do a deeper dive into this, maybe at a different committee level, but um it's important to see where these are and where the gaps are.

And if we can go to a few slides after that to the pools as well, then that maybe the one after that.

Yeah, the one after that.

Same thing with this map, right?

This is um needs to be a little more zoomed out also to see the entire city, and I think especially with our pools, um, there's such a large opportunity to add more to the city.

Um, I mean, I'm looking at at specifically my district, right?

And we have one pool uh and heritage, um, and it looks like only you know one pool south of military.

Um, and so while we do have some animatorium things going on in our district, obviously those are limited, and you know, my district community is like in the next bond, we are wanting to see it some sort of a pool community, uh, some sort of pool park happen.

And you know, when it comes to summertime, these are really you know, utilized and and very, very important to the community to have these spaces when it's cooled.

Um I remember seeing an article, you know, what did what did San Antonio do before there was AC, and it was they were at the pools, they were at our local waterways um all day, and so not much has changed with that.

And so we've got to do the council has to do a better job of looking at these opportunities to expand um pool services to everybody.

And you know, when it comes to our out-of-school camps um and things of that nature, which is I think a few slides before that, I would welcome also some data on individual centers and where it is also.

So it's it's out of school camps.

So we have our Thanksgiving holidays spring break, summer youth, uh summer teen club, dance camp.

So I want to make sure that you know we are activating parks all throughout the city.

Um and if there are, you know, let's just say we couldn't do certain things at Miller's Pond or uh Arnold Park, then that's something I need to know to start making investments in because we have to make sure that all parts of our city, especially those that was shown in the opportunity gap map, right?

Which is you know, half of the city of San Antonio is in that opportunity zone for youth.

Those areas and specifically, those parts of town, those districts should have um fully built out programming at those parks because that is obviously where the need is for those things.

And so if there's certain communities that have gaps and that we're not investing enough in, uh, we need to know that.

Uh and it's not your fault, Homer, right?

I'm not saying, you know, but it's a resource issue.

And going back to the chair's point, when we talk about budgeting, we have to layer these things together and say, you know, it's a prime target to put more investments in and four and five and three and two and parts of one and six uh where these gaps exist.

And if we move to you know, ready to work uh slideshow.

I was um those are really good numbers there that you have, and I want to point out that on one of the slides here, you have the top five training occupations, medical assistance, nursing assistance number one and number two.

These aren't labeled, so I don't know what slide it is.

It's bar graphs.

I think uh slide number six on item number five.

Yeah, and it's 56% health care.

Um so you know, I and I've had this, we've talked a little bit about this with Alex, right?

About we have such a large emphasis on manufacturing and advanced manufacturing.

There is a solid pipeline from high school to community college to manufacturing here in San Antonio, which is great.

That is some life-changing uh opportunities for folks.

But when you see this and you see that what kids are choosing to participate in is health care, coupled with the fact, of course, the large health care gap that exists west south side of San Antonio.

I want to make sure that kids that have these up want to do health care, have those opportunities on the south side and west side of San Antonio.

So while we're pushing a lot of folks into manufacturing, um, you know, Polito College is investing a lot into that.

I also want to keep in mind that what kids are choosing to want to do is quite different than the jobs we're seeking for the community and the programming that we're kind of um setting up in these systems.

So that's really important to me.

And that's a larger conversation with our ISDs and our and our colleges and and what opportunities exist here, right?

So I happen to think the more kids on our south side and west sides that are interested in health care and that pursue health care will work in health care on our sides of town.

I spoke to the the president of Christa Santa Rosa on on the Westover Hills, right?

Same, he told me that a lot of doctors that are coming from you know Alamo Heights or wherever, they want to practice medicine in their own communities.

That's just a phenomenon we see, and the more that we can get our own folks in our districts to be interested in that, they'll come back and fulfill and fill that gap that we have.

Um because you know, while UHS is building the hospital, we don't have a hospital right there, and on specifically on that side of town.

There's there's I think one currently south of 90 for half the city.

And again, when you look at that opportunity youth map and you see those gaps with lack of hospital, lack of health care, uh, lack of you know large parkspace natural areas, uh, which we are growing, of course, um that says a lot.

And I did a wonderful tour with uh Mirror Harburger recently at Harburger Park, and I got to thinking, you know, there's the three big parks, McAllister, uh Harburger, and Pearsall Park.

Pearsall Park is the largest park south of Harburger Park.

If you really think about it, uh which is why we've invested so much money there, right?

And we're doing we're trying to get the trail system over there expanded, the last part of Leon Creek that hasn't been touched.

Uh, we've done some wonderful work with the on the mission side and the mission reach, and it's beautiful out there too.

But we've got to just grow all those resources and opportunities in the areas where we have our children that are experiencing those gaps.

And so I think it's a very holistic conversation.

I really appreciate this.

And I think that's setting us up really good for the conversation when we have the budget time and where we should really start investing these things.

So thank you, Chair.

Appreciate it.

Thank you, Councilman McGee.

Councillor Castillo.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you all for the presentation.

When I think about public safety, what it means and what the impact could look like.

I believe that it starts with each of your departments and the work of y'all's teams.

You know, the next level team had an opportunity to run into them over at the Frank Garrett Community Center, uh, and they're always sharing the stories of the youth that they're working with.

Uh, and you know, like what's next and what could be helpful in terms of helping to improve uh the overall work experience, but ultimately the opportunity for the kids that they're serving.

So uh grateful for each and every one of those pieces, and um, you know, I'm extremely grateful for the chair for laying out these presentations in this manner um to paint the full picture in terms of the opportunity services for our kids and folks of all ages to be engaged and productive, and in the case that there is uh youth that uh need additional support, that there are um resources and programs available in terms of the budget conversations, right?

Providing additional support to next level uh is something that I would be supportive of because the impact that you all have.

Uh, and of course, uh continuing to support municipal courts and the services that they do.

And I appreciate Sarah highlighting that you know, the the big four and the conversations and the collaboration that takes place uh to work towards the same shared goal.

Um, and with that in mind, uh in terms of the conversation, and I jotted that down, support District Four Community Center on my notes, uh, because there's been other presentations in which we see uh the desert of community services within District Four, and that's something as a council and as a council member, I'll be supportive of.

Um, and again, right, going back to the ready-to-work component, right?

Ensuring that folks uh have access to apprenticeships and opportunity for union jobs where we know there's higher wages, better benefits, uh improves overall quality of life, not just for the individual, the family, but the city.

Um so just really grateful to see all these moving pieces together.

I am interested in terms of the 18 to 24 comparison.

I know it's a voluntary question uh that folks check, but I'm curious to uh how many uh of these participants are justice involved and will it paint a picture in terms of the job placement that we're seeing.

Um I mentioned that because uh my team and I were working on a council consideration request, and I'll run it by my colleagues soon, but uh essentially to provide additional opportunity for opportunity youth.

And I understand that the parks team does have those really great job opportunities for 16-year-olds, it's where all the cool kids in high school work, they're all like the lifeguards of the city.

Um but I always go back to the San Antonio Ambassador Program, right?

I was a participant of it, it's restricted to college students, and the goal is to ensure that those folks in college have an opportunity to come back and stay in the city of San Antonio.

Uh but there's cities like Atlanta, um uh in Madison, Wisconsin, uh, Milwaukee, Chicago that have programs geared towards opportunity youth um to provide similar uh internship opportunities.

So I think there's a value, and in these cities, they've also seen a reduction of violent crime amongst youth.

Uh so I I think that's something that uh I know we're having conversations in the public safety committee as well, um, but we've seen these models when they're expanded uh to 16-year-olds and in some states up to 14 that have access to these internships.

Um they're likely um they're unlikely to reoffend, right?

And that's the goal.

We don't want folks re-offending.

Um so we're working on something there.

We'll run that by my colleagues and hope to have y'all signature.

Um, but with that being said, um, you know, in the next weeks, my team and I will be sitting in uh Judge Cruz Shaw's court to um go absorb observe rather uh and to listen to some of the the cases that he has to um work through because again, going back to the public safety component, um, Trinsey court can sometimes escalate to uh higher courts, and we want to make sure that uh we're doing all we can to provide support for kids, um, but ultimately um keep folks out of um out of our jails and prisons.

Um all that to say appreciate the work, looking forward to supporting uh work in District 4 in terms of access to community centers, libraries, pools, so on and so forth.

Uh and as we move into budget discussions, I'm hopeful that uh this alongside some of the work of Metro Health, not some, all of the work of Metro Health, uh, remain uh top priority as we navigate budget deficits.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Castillo.

I just want to really quick on that point about the some of the other cities that have been doing this work, right?

Uh the mayor's really big initiative there.

They've seen a drastic decrease in public safety or uh in crime and violent crime in particular by over 40 plus percent over like 10 years.

And it was primarily driven by this exact work of only the big four, maybe they are big, et cetera.

Um numbers on that side.

Um but that kind of collaboration within our city, and so always something that I think we need to be focusing on.

But anyway, I'll leave that there.

Council Record.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, to start off with the initial question that you had about how to how what how do we collect all of this work and move it forward for a budget?

And y'all aren't gonna be shocked by my answer, but it's putting data together.

So I think, like, for example, in the ready to work dashboards, we do a really good job of collecting at least numbers, but we don't really do a good job of of knowing where our kids are coming from and how they're helping.

So, in that uh next level slide where the opportunity youth slide is, it's slide four on item two.

Uh, this shows we know what the data looks like in our community, but and we're helping so many folks, but we don't know where those kids are really coming from and making sure that we're targeting the right areas.

I know it's hard data to collect, but if there is some way again that we could triangulate all of the programming and overlay with this map, we'd be, I think, able to really see if we're targeting and getting the right areas and folks.

And it's easy to see, like maybe not easy, but we can at least see where we're putting things.

So, yes, it's we know location matters, absolutely doubling down on that support for community centers and support in in District Four and the outer south and west sides, but um and the outer east side, but at the same time, I think it's also important for us just to like know where families are coming from.

And I mean, I think the the we were talking about the programs at parks and all of the um super reduced costs for the summer.

That is one thing we know about an education super research based is that the summer is where summer slide occurs, and the folks that have the access to additional supports in the summer where they're getting high quality curricula supports and um engagement in different types of social capital actually do much better when they come back.

And so we know I know we have great programs, but I'd like to know from that list like how what's the wait list?

Where are those kids coming from and from from the sliding scale?

How many kids are being able to access at the very lowest part of the sliding scale versus the highest?

Is there diversity in our programs?

Because that's the other thing that is really helpful when we do have diversity and kids are able to learn from other folks as well.

So, anyways, all that to say, I feel like at least for the next level and parks programming, I think we could get a little bit better about how we're tracking folks and where they're coming from.

So if and I I know Councilman Castillo mentions next all the time.

Um, is it next or NXT?

Am I saying it right?

Next, okay.

Um every time I see them at any fair, any program, they are just phenomenal.

Like the way to your point around you mentioned you can't tell who's who, and they really feel like they are connecting with the kids and the folks that work there are awesome.

So I think we've built a great program.

And I think it's to to Councilmember Gilvan's question earlier, we have a lot of really cool things that we're doing in the city, and I I think we just have to figure out how are we targeting to make sure that to your point around what Baltimore was doing, that we're actually getting to the root cause of that uh what you call a water bucket leak because the analogy the water leak that we're we're reaching the kids that really need it.

And so um, and I think the work that we do as a city could also connect with the um DHS funding that we provide to our organizations and how we can figure out a way to connect all of that.

Uh, the more I think, and our our to your point around our our hotspot policing plan or a violent crime prevention plan, the last part about it is funding this work, right?

And so it's like when are we gonna like we have to get there?

Yeah, we have to get there.

We have to get there, and so um, however, we can I feel like what our goal, at least for us, should be is like how are we gonna collectively combine all of this work so we can make a budget ask for this for this summer to prioritize that we're targeting the right areas.

Okay, that's my rant.

But I just have a couple of quick questions just on slide stuff.

Um so I know Rebecca, you said that the um NX the next grant ended.

What are do we have any um funding looked at or like uh examined for options to grow the programming?

Um at this time, no, and one of the challenges that we're facing is that we're city government and found a lot of foundations do not fund city government.

And so we had a couple of foundations that were asking if we can find a nonprofit pass-through, they would be interested.

Um, but at this time we have not, but um, we're continuing to explore options there.

Would the area foundation be potentially a part possible partner there?

They have, I believe they have a provision in their charter that they cannot fund local or governmental entities.

Yeah, that's tricky.

Okay.

Um and then I already asked about the data question.

And for item three, um which this was the yeah, so can you talk a little bit about what each of the um like what for re-engagement and students resolved?

Well, just help me remember what those definitely the definitions of each of those is.

It's slide four.

Um for just the re-engagement.

Yeah.

So just tell me exactly what uh the reading like what each of those means.

Uh so for the re-engagement, the students are resolved.

Uh, those are the students that we actually are able to make contact with and help guide to their another educational opportunity.

Um, given the number, we can't always stay with them through the entire process and um make sure that they have enrolled up until this year.

This year we were able to get a team member that's focused on the re-engagement, and so she is constantly contacting the schools uh that to confirm the students that they sent if they are still considered what the school called leavers or not.

So that's where we were able to get better data this year, and how many actually are back in school?

So it'll look better um uh uh next year, but the the one last year, those were all the students that we are able for the fiscal year 25, the 846 of the students we were actually able to make contact with, have that conversation about the importance of education and provide a list of alternative educational opportunities if traditional high school is not gonna work for them.

Do you have that breaking down by grade level?

Um I could, yeah, because they send everything they send us is is like on a list and we do ask for the grade.

Um we encourage the districts to send us again though those levers, the students that um withdrawal and haven't enrolled elsewhere, even into elementary, because those are the kiddos that we want back in school because they're not able to advocate for themselves, like kindergarten.

Um, but they tend to utilize that uh program primarily for high school because they have to report on those and not the elementary.

I wonder like if we can if if we could get a data sharing agreement for the list of these kids to be able to like connect them to our parks programming or our summer programming to see if we could maybe capture a few more of them because maybe they want to go uh hunting or doing darts or whatever the uh I can't think of the name, but they want to go on a summer thing, a park program that that that wouldn't help them maybe re-engage.

Yeah, we we have community partners that come into those dockets, um, mainly educational based, just to try to get them in some of those other programs.

Um, but we're open to anything that gets them you know re-engaged into positive things and hopefully lead down the educational path too.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Um for uh the just the park stuff.

Do we have stats on uh youth that are in employed, like number by where I guess for employment?

Yeah, yeah, we can pull that for sure.

And also your uh comment earlier for uh where people are coming from that utilize our program.

We have all that because everything's online, so we can pull zip code so we'll know.

Um we we do a really good job working with the schools as well, and we'll track what school district do they attend for the summer youth program.

So any of that stuff we could definitely pull.

I feel like we have a lot of this information that we could probably gather.

That'd be helpful.

I'd be interested in it.

That's cool.

Yeah, we can get that too.

I was gonna do a three-hour presentation.

I heard I guess these could all be, yes, that's true.

Um, okay, and then just the last question for uh uh ready to the ready to work program for the essay works pilot.

Um I I didn't I didn't know about that, and I'm excited to hear about it.

Tell me, can you just tell me a little bit more about what the plan is for that program?

I think it's the last slide 10.

Sure thing.

So um SA Works already has a young adult internship program, and we are already contracting with them through this program for various business engagement services.

So we thought why not mesh those two opportunities together and get those folks enrolled into ready to work.

So we threw out this um 300 number here, of which 150 get enrolled, and we're excited to see where it goes.

Enrollment for SA works.

Like what percentage we're trying to hit.

Okay, that's great.

I'm excited to see that.

I wonder what it I don't know if y'all remember we tried to talk about in increased or lowering the age for ready to work because we do have a lot of uh high school interests, and it it I remember the the feedback was that's not what the voters voted on.

But I I like that we're trying new things to get young people involved.

Okay, that's all I got.

Thanks, Chair.

Thank you.

Well, thank you, everyone, for the conversation here.

I think um I think it comes with some asks.

I know we're not making any official action today, all briefings, but I think we heard general consensus uh from this group, right?

About in particular, I think data is one of the biggest points, right?

We always talk about ways that we can continue to build upon it.

And I think if we can I don't know this is the right way to do it, but I think uh if there's a way to pull all the data together by zip code and ISD enrollment or whatever it is uh that kind of showcases where these participants from every one of these programs are coming from, I think that'll help us not only know where they're coming from, but also to figure out okay, how can we make the biggest impact on that student's life with our city services that we can if there's a way to kind of get that larger data sharing um conversation started with the ISDs um and even region 20?

I think that'd be a great place to not only start, but I think a big shift, right?

And how we can make that collaboration more central.

And I know Alex and I we've been talking a bit about how we can bring our um superintendents into this conversation, even if it's in uh a one big event or a subcommittee conversation or some form.

Um I think bridging that's gonna be the biggest piece with all this work, right?

Um, of how can we supplement their work, how can we support them in their work um and support their families to not kind of create uh any new barriers or things like that for them.

Um I don't know if it's an office that can do that, like if we need to create a central office within our uh central or different departments here.

I think I'd be interested in seeing what that would look like.

I guess what would be the best kind of next step for that work to start.

Um if that's a budget conversation too, that's great.

Uh we can have that conversation.

Um there's a couple different things I heard from my colleagues.

I think the visual the data visualization map is always important.

Of course, we know um the kind of similar things we'll see, but I think we talked about the community visualization visualization asset map, I believe it was the name from Dallas.

I think that's really helpful to still kind of look at.

Um in particular, I know uh for a lot of the folks who are here, Sarah, um, Katie, we've all talked before, Rebecca, um, about staffed elementary in my district and how we're trying to find ways to support them.

And it became a lot of that, right?

That kind of just even that showcasing of hey, the the community center nearby, QAR has these particular programs going on that can fully align with the work you're doing.

Monterey Park, just down the road has uh computer lab that can help the students who maybe need to study after school or need to do this particular um whatever the kind of the lessons are doing, but maybe can't do it during the day and want to do it after school, they don't have internet, they're just down the road.

And I think just seeing the kind of staff staff's reaction to that from the when the school district was extremely exciting, right?

The library programming too, the 24-hour uh tutoring support, all these different things that we have here.

Um I'm wondering if there's ways that we can also include not only the data conversation, but um maybe referral is not the right word, but that communication directly with the schools themselves.

School districts, yes, but even the individual schools that hey, you're next door to uh QAR community study, you're next door to the uh the library, right?

What kind of things can we bridge together here uh in some kind of geographical area so that way those teachers know, the educators and the staff there know we can connect to our local resources right here.

And I know there's that work already going on, uh, but I guess seeing if there's a more formal way we can do it, um, so that our educators and our families know directly where to reach out to, and also to kind of get that full menu of options, right?

That your kids can also enroll in these programs here versus the hopefully you look for it online, hopefully you see an ad about it directly.

You get sent home with you, maybe uh my ideal world, right?

Um the summer's coming up, when Thanksgiving breaks coming up, this is what's available to you.

So anyway, I think those are all the big picture things.

I have different questions about some of these particular programs.

I'll save some of them for maybe offline conversations, but one last one I wanted to ask uh, or what that I wanted to ask about was um for the ready to work one.

Um do we know I know you listed the what was it?

There's one um internal apprenticeship opportunity that was there.

I think it was an OHP.

Can you uh can you uh kind of detail what that is?

What that looks like come up, she leads our apprenticeship team.

Okay.

Thank you.

So the OHP is a um they're fall under the ready to work standards for registered apprenticeships.

And so basically right now they're in the training catalog as a pre-apprentip.

And so but they are registered as a national um registered apprenticeship.

Okay, good.

And what is that work look like or what?

So it's construction, um, um window restoration and deconstruction.

That's great.

And uh do we have a list of like or the number of applicants or participants that are uh right now the number is pretty low.

It's not a lot of people going into it, so maybe like six individuals in a class.

Okay, okay.

That's really exciting.

I guess just trying to find ways that our city departments can also supplement this work.

I know what was it?

Uh I don't remember which presentation.

Was it during a B session?

Council Burr, what's it?

Yeah, solid waste as well.

There's a really good work there.

I know I don't know if there are other apprenticeships as well.

And so figuring out if there's ways that we continue building on that work internally would be really interesting.

I think to Council Rick Castiel's point, we've always talked about that, ambassador expansion of some kind.

If there's ways that we can plug all those pieces together, I think that'd just be great.

Um I know there's another one I was gonna mention, but that's okay.

Um thank you for that.

That's helpful.

Um I have any last things really quickly.

Um, one last thing I wanted to mention.

I know uh Councilman Mughear brought it up about the community center kind of map that was presented with parks.

Um two things.

One, I think with the aquatics one with the pools, I would love to see also where the splash pads are at.

Uh I know there's a list online somewhere, but I think it's interesting to see kind of generally what kind of aquatic programs and water activities are available to all of our residents uh in different forms.

Um but in particular when I was looking even at district six, seven, and eight, I mean you can see that big gap right outside 410.

Um, and as you go further out to 1604, there's that still gap there.

I think a lot of that, and this could be just my assumption, but you know, a lot of HOAs in the area um were present and have parks in their own kind of private um entities there.

But a lot of them, uh at least in my district, have gone under uh that maybe in the 80s and the 90s, they were pretty active.

So they maintained their own pools, their own tennis courts, their own basketball courts, etc.

And now they're gone.

Um they've they've become voluntary associations, they've no longer associations at all.

And so I think trying to capture some of that and seeing what those residents are looking for.

I know we do that work all the time with the even essay tomorrow planning.

Um, but just I think that's uh a key thing to keep in mind there is that um some of these areas do have those those amenities, but some of them have used to have them and now they don't anymore.

So there's this kind of vacancy in what was once taken care of by I guess private entity is no longer there, and I think that's where a public needs to step in.

Of course, funding allotted, right?

Um but just that keeping that in mind as we continue to grow as a city.

Um how can we you know make sure that we're working with those neighborhoods directly?

I'll leave that there.

Um I think those are all my comments.

Any last other comments from my council colleagues?

Yeah, I just want to um agree with you about inviting superintendents to talk about you know their gaps and their needs, and I think some of these programs could be housed, of course, in some of their facilities and just helps them, especially you think about Harlandale, you know, South Sand, Southwest, um, SAISD, Edgewood.

And I just realized the four of us are also on PCDC and the councilwoman Castillo uh had reached out to our office about talking to those some of those school districts also about their housing gaps and needs.

And I think we could actually include that conversation with this when you're talking about the superintendents and get a larger picture with them uh and save room at PCDC for other things.

So yeah, that's all.

No, that's great.

And I think uh we should talk more also about uh long-term agenda planning.

Uh just because I think that's something I know we were talking a bit too about even bringing school districts and talk about their state of the school districts as well, right?

Where everybody's at.

Um so we can kind of look at not only our internal programming but the external ones too, and just see where we can all put them in public safety, et cetera.

Go ahead.

As a follow-up to that, the superintendents have this like monthly meeting at region 20.

And I wonder we we did this a couple years ago where we would go off site for committee meetings.

Let's do it.

And we could do a committee meeting there and like maybe just say, hey, we're gonna be in the back and then use space to meet afterwards if we want it or something.

No, that sounds incredible.

Um and I also wanted to mention I know uh your point really quick of uh Councilman Gia about using the school district buildings themselves.

I know we have SA uh not SA parks, and it's not that one anymore, but the actual school challenge is also one that we have here, a program that's very similar.

And so kind of seeing what that can look like too when incorporated in all this work.

Anyway, just wanted to mention that one.

Um all right.

Well, thank you so much.

Thank you for the great conversation.

Thank you to all the staff who presented today and made it possible at uh 1142 a.m.

Uh committee is now adjourned.