May 2, 2025
120. Why San Antonio’s Future Starts with Early Childhood Education
This week on bigcitysmalltown, we examine San Antonio’s fourteen-year effort to build a more equitable early childhood education system—an undertaking rooted in the city’s fight against generational poverty. Host Bob Rivard traces the origins of Pre-K 4 SA, from its formation by a blue-ribbon task force under then-Mayor Julián Castro, to the launch of universal pre-K centers across the city, and its ongoing impact on young children and working families.
Bob is joined by Peter J. Holt (chair of Early Matters and CEO of Holt Group and Spurs Sports & Entertainment), Mark Larson (Executive Director of Early Matters), and Dr. Sarah Burey (CEO of Pre-K 4 SA), for a candid discussion about the opportunities and gaps that remain.
They discuss:
• How San Antonio became a statewide and national model for early childhood investment—and where it still lags in quality and access
• The ongoing struggle to raise wages and professional standards for early childhood educators
• The systemic challenges of scaling up early education, including the limits of state funding and the realities facing working families
• The role of employers, business leaders, and city policy in expanding access to high-quality child care
• What it will take—in partnerships, policy changes, and private investment—to meet San Antonio’s ambitious goals for its youngest residents
For those concerned with the future of education, workforce development, and social mobility in San Antonio, this episode offers an in-depth look at the city’s approach, its tough trade-offs, and the prospects for true progress.
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▶️ #98. Public School Funding in Texas: What San Antonio’s Business Leaders Want Lawmakers to Fix – School funding and early childhood education are deeply connected in shaping San Antonio’s future. In this episode, Bob Rivard sits down with civic leaders Mario Barrera and Luis Rodriguez to unpack the urgent funding challenges facing Texas schools—and how business leaders are pushing lawmakers to act. 🔗 Listen Here.
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00:00 - Introduction to the Podcast and Episode
00:37 - The Birth of Pre-K for SA
02:28 - Peter J. Holt's Journey in Early Education
05:37 - Challenges and Insights in Early Education
08:43 - The Role of Early Matters and Workforce Development
14:39 - Current State and Future Goals for Early Education
19:28 - The Importance of Early Childhood Education
23:49 - Demographic Challenges and Workforce Implications
29:18 - Funding Challenges in Childcare
31:38 - Business Leaders' Role in Early Education
33:25 - City Initiatives and Funding Strategies
35:15 - Policy Recommendations and Legislative Actions
37:12 - Public and Private Sector Collaboration
52:31 - Call to Action for Community Involvement
56:03 - Conclusion and Acknowledgements
Bob Rivard [00:00:03]:
Welcome to Big City, Small Town, the weekly podcast all about San Antonio and the people who make it go and grow. I'm your host, Bob Rivard. This week's episode is an opportunity for our audience to learn more about San Antonio's extraordinary fourteen year journey to build an early childhood education system in the city. The long term solution to San Antonio's generational poverty, experts agree, is providing universal education opportunities to all children at a very young age, regardless of zip code, race or ethnicity, or family income. We have to go back to 2011 when Mayor Castro convened a Blue Ribbon Task Force to identify the most effective methods for improving the quality of education in San Antonio. The recommendations, in turn, from that task force led voters to approve the creation of Pre K for SA. Within a very few years, early childhood education centers were opened on all four sides of the city, serving thousands of four year olds. Competitive grants helped expand pre k enrollment in partner school districts, and by 2022, educators began enrolling three year olds into the program.
Bob Rivard [00:01:16]:
That progress in turn led to the creation of Early Matters in 2020, an initiative chaired by Peter J. Holt, CEO of Holt Group and chairman and managing partner of Spurs Sports and Entertainment, and former Texas Speaker of the House Joe Straus. Civic and business leaders set an ambitious goal of enrolling 50% of the city's children in early education programs. Peter J. Holt is in the studio today with us and he's joined by Mark Larson, Executive Director of Early Matters, and Doctor. Sarah Baray, who is finishing her ninth year as CEO of Pre k for SA. Peter, Mark, and Sara, welcome to Big City Small Town. Peter, you're a very busy guy.
Bob Rivard [00:01:57]:
Tell us why at the outset, you're so focused on this and you've been so dedicated to it for five years.
Peter J. Holt [00:02:05]:
First, let me say I'm really happy you're doing this podcast. San Antonio needs alternative methods and modes of media and information, and, I think we've been a little bit behind the curve. And so really grateful you're doing this, and I listen as much as I can and, appreciate you having us on to talk about this. How I got started in early education actually goes back, before I entered any of the fancy titles that you talked about before and, really entered the business community. I, I first started after high school, well, even in high school, having to do, middle school and high school, having to do community service projects, both kind of because my family mandated it and You better. And because our school had a lot of programming that that encouraged or mandated it. I did most of that via work with kids, a lot at the Boys and Girls Club, Saint PJ's, you know, a variety of organizations around YMCA, a variety of organizations around San Antonio that, focus on youth, and spent, you know, most of my time with kids that were, you know, eight, seven, and under, and, just really enjoyed that. And, when I got out of high school, I went to UT for a couple years, that didn't go so well academically.
Peter J. Holt [00:03:40]:
It went well in other ways, but, this is probably not the podcast for that, and left UT and didn't know what I wanted to do. And so came back to San Antonio and, enrolled at San Antonio College, and got a job. And my first job was working at George Gervin Academy. And On the East Side? On the East Side. Yeah. And, you know, Barbara Gervin Hawkins, was she's still, you know, leading the charge there, but was the active, you know, I don't know what she called herself, their superintendent or, you know, but, one of the first one of the first charter schools, that was, certified and licensed in Texas. And, my job was, I think my official title was, you know, teacher assistant, but at a small charter school like that, I kind of did anything they asked me to do, and, most of it was working for, their kindergarten and, their pre k, and, helping out the the two teachers. I still remember Mrs.
Peter J. Holt [00:04:49]:
Camp. She was kind of my core boss, and, I I thought I wanted to go into education as my primary career at the time, and and so I worked mostly with young kids, and they started their early education program because their original mission was to help underserved communities, mostly with, high school dropouts, and their scope has obviously now grown and developed and progressed, but they realized one of the big reasons why there were high school dropouts is because they had kids. They had they were teen moms and teen dads,
Bob Rivard [00:05:30]:
and
Peter J. Holt [00:05:31]:
they
Bob Rivard [00:05:31]:
had to
Peter J. Holt [00:05:31]:
go get a job. And so so that's why they started their early education program, and, you know, needless to say, it was a very eye opening experience based on, you know, the way I was raised. And and so but I but I really I learned two things there. Well, I learned a lot of things, but a couple things that really stuck out to me and influenced me was, one, I did not want to be a teacher, or a principal, that that would, that would probably ruin a lot of kids and also in a nuanced way that I could, fulfill my heart's desire, in in different ways. I didn't know how at the time, but I could fulfill that, not being not having it be my career. And then I also learned, I knew it, but I really saw it from a maybe a new perspective, the impact of, good teachers and a good I don't want to say school, just a good place for early education to happen, and not only the influence of that on the child, but the influence of that on the community around that. So parents, aunts, uncles,
Bob Rivard [00:06:45]:
you
Peter J. Holt [00:06:45]:
know, we're talking earlier. Tias, right? A little abuelas, like, just, the community that surrounds a family and it surrounds a child, and I learned the impact that, the place and the people in the place, most specifically, the instructors and the teachers can have on that, and and and I learned that that, that that takes a focus and effort and is not rocket science. One example that really sticks out was we had times during the day on what what, you know, Doctor. Bray would probably use as, like, a fancy, like, motor skills, but what it was, hey, we're gonna have shoe tying competitions, you know, and it was, like, five to seven minutes, and there were some kids that couldn't tie their shoes. And some of the kids write their parents, right, let's make it easy. Let's just do the Velcro. They we had shoes there that were donated or we found or whatever, and, we'd have those, and and and to see little progressions of that kid couldn't tie their shoes and could tie their shoes, and the and the confidence, and the ability to improve their writing, and just like on and on and on. And we just constantly do these little what what, you would think are are not rocket science, because they aren't, but they're focused, really would improve kids outcomes and, their their confidence, their ability to to learn, and and so I I learned that and, really kind of was a very, impactful moment in my life.
Peter J. Holt [00:08:18]:
I went on to incarnate word, got my business degree, entered the family business, and, the need at the time was, was workforce and technical workforce. And so I shifted a lot of my focus, and San Antonio is a great town, but also a town that has a lot of need. And so whenever you start asking questions, the leaders end up giving you the problem, just to fix. And, and so, that happened and started working on in and on some organizations like workforce Alamo, workforce solutions Alamo, Alamo Colleges, San Antonio Works, etc. Really focused on what's the talent pipeline, and why is it so fragmented, and how does the education system work, why what happened with vocational education, what happened, with, where where are the corporations? Why why aren't we investing in the talent pipeline, down through the ranks? Where internships? You know, all of that stuff. And, you know, I'm glad to say that there's been I don't think we solved that problem, but there's been significant progress around San Antonio, and I I would say around the nation, both societally and functionally, in that space. And so, you know, five to seven years into that, I I, through that process, got to know Kate Rogers really well. Kate was, at the time leading a lot of H E B's efforts, the Butt family's efforts, and, you know, I I was was and is an expert in kind of education and talent pipelines.
Peter J. Holt [00:09:57]:
And, so got to know her really well. She's now leading Alamo, and their transformative project and plan and doing a great job, but I, kind of was starting to transition out of the workforce roles, in the city, rightfully so, and, she came to me when she was getting her fourteenth master's or doctorate or whatever.
Bob Rivard [00:10:19]:
She's doctorate, Roger.
Peter J. Holt [00:10:20]:
I don't know. Whatever it was, and said, hey, you know, basically my thesis is on early education and how everything starts there, and I've really learned a lot about that, both the, you know, the entire spectrum of societal impact on that, whether it's, economic, we're talking about health, you know,
Bob Rivard [00:10:41]:
just just the range of the human category, that
Peter J. Holt [00:10:41]:
that early, education, weirdly hard to logically wrap your brain about in weirdly hard to logically wrap your brain about it. It's kind of twofold that it starts, you know, before four or five and under. You can maybe argue the exact age, but it starts really young, whether it's brain development or it's, you know, the the the family situation they grow up in, education system, etcetera. And, she came to me and said, hey, there there's some there's some organizations in Texas and and cities in Texas and cities in Texas and around the nation that have quite literally may maybe not literally fixed, but have have made wild progress in this space. And and I think that San Antonio is ripe for that, because of a lot of the welcoming nature of Pre k for SA, as you mentioned, other initiatives that have have been, recept received well in San Antonio, and, we should do this. And, and so, she recruited me and Joe Strauss to lead kind of an exploratory committee, and we got different people from different backgrounds, business community education, etcetera, to start going and learning about these cities, Fort Worth, Charlotte, Tulsa, Houston, you know, different different places where they've done slightly modified versions of of what we're doing that really matters, with each a little bit different focus. And and so dove in and started learning more. It's also the time when I, you know, I have four kids, and, at the time, the oldest was six or seven, and, you know, had my own experience around how challenging it is to find, and I have tremendous resources.
Peter J. Holt [00:12:41]:
I have a wonderful wife that is focused on this. I have family in town, and it was still challenging to navigate, and find, quality early childcare, and how do you measure that? Where do you look for that? Who's the, is there a guiding, a sister or organization that can, help with that? And, found that, it's challenging, and and so kind of combination of the research Kate showed, and we learned through this committee, and my own experience, realized that, yeah, this is this is important and can have, a very exponential impact on our community if we can improve quality. San Antonio is interesting to where we not to say we don't have a quantity problem, but, we kind of don't have a quantity problem. That there there there are there are plenty of seats available. We need more, but compared to a lot of other communities, there are plenty of places to go. It's just navigating that and improving the quality, of those places, and, accessing quality, and so, we we kind of turned that committee into a real Early Matters organization chapter, and hired Mark, because we realized, hey, we need we need somebody that's working on this every day, and with his background, I think it's ideal and, really established us as a as a formal organization to work on, mostly work on quality and access. And, you know, I think it's been a really positive journey, and we've made some really good progress, with also, some big hills to still climb.
Bob Rivard [00:14:37]:
Wow. You guys need to jump in. Although I would preface it by saying that, I consider that vote that we took, those years ago now, fourteen years ago, to be one of the most consequential decisions that we've taken in our city, and, you know, hats off to mayor Castro for seeing that. It could be the signature legacy of his of his mayoral, time. But, how do you feel about where we stand now today? We've had the state come in with some all day, early childhood education funding that didn't exist before that, and, I just see nothing but progress. But you're inside and may see it, you may see so much more ahead of us that we still need to do. Sarah, you wanna
Sarah Baray [00:15:20]:
Yeah. I'll I'll jump in here because I think that both things are true. We've made a tremendous progress, and in some ways, we are the envy of the state and the nation for having made that decision all those years ago. And also, we have a lot of work ahead of us, but we're poised to do that, and and I'll certainly, the work that Early Matters is doing is gonna help us get there. But I wanna share a little bit to Peter's point on, a recent study that came out. The City of San Antonio commissioned a study to look at how what is the supply of early learning and care out there in the community and, figure out what the quality level is, where it's located, and some other issues that we know affect the access and quality issues around workers' pay, the education of their early learning teachers, and what that study showed, it was done by Texas A and M San Antonio, who is a tremendous partner in this work, and they surveyed providers across our community, across Bexar County, as well as held over 50 focus groups to gather their data, and it's a mixed method study. And some of the big key findings that came out of that is that while we do in fact have more supply than many communities do, it is still not quite sufficient, and but more importantly, the supply is not currently rated for quality in terms of very many places. And I hesitate to say, it doesn't mean they're not not quality, but it means that there's no we have no way to know that because they haven't gotten into one of the programs, whether it's Texas Rising Star or National Accreditation, that would let us know.
Sarah Baray [00:16:53]:
And in fact, what that study showed was that for a family, who has a young child under the age of five, if they are looking for a childcare seat right now, there is only there's about 66,000 seats, in the community, which is insufficient, but of those, that are open, only 15% are open at any one time. And of those 15%, only 33% of them are rated for quality.
Bob Rivard [00:17:26]:
Oh, that's not good.
Sarah Baray [00:17:27]:
And if you for infants and toddlers, it's less than 1%. At any one time, there are about a thousand seats open in a high quality space for infants and toddlers.
Mark Larson [00:17:37]:
So it's Okay.
Bob Rivard [00:17:37]:
It's babysitting, isn't it?
Sarah Baray [00:17:39]:
Yeah. Well, it does it's just not because that's the other thing is the average education level of our early childhood workforce is a high school diploma, and that's because that's required. And, the wages are so low that it averages around $11 an hour, which means you can go work at any number of places, including Bill Miller, H E B, anyhow. It's not a
Bob Rivard [00:18:01]:
living wage.
Sarah Baray [00:18:02]:
It's not a living wage, and it doesn't have any benefits with it, and you can go with another lots of other places where you can take your high school diploma and go make almost twice as much and get benefits, and so it makes it hard for people to stay. So the study was not surprising, the outcome was not surprising to those of us who work close to this because we see it, but it was great to have this baseline study that says, Okay, now we see what the scope of the problem is and here's how we're gonna start to move toward it. And while we were doing this study, Pre K for SA actually had commissioned a study on our shared service alliance, which is an alliance of 94 providers that are focused on these issues, and that study came out about the same time, and what that showed was that our alliance members have raised wages to 14 on average, dollars 14.82 an hour, so getting close to our $15 an hour goal, and they have The turnover rate has decreased dramatically. The number of providers with professional learning and CDA credentials and associate's degrees is up because that's part of the infrastructure of what we're providing. So the A and M study also showed that those kinds of strategies, the providers are saying, That's what we need more of. And I think this is where Mark can jump in with because that's what Early Matters is put together a plan to bring more of that to our city.
Bob Rivard [00:19:28]:
Go ahead, Peter. Well, I
Peter J. Holt [00:19:29]:
was just really quick to get it before Mark jumped in. The you mentioned something, Bob, about, legislature
Sarah Baray [00:19:37]:
Mhmm.
Peter J. Holt [00:19:37]:
Providing, a change in education funding
Bob Rivard [00:19:43]:
That's right.
Peter J. Holt [00:19:43]:
For, a tool to allow and fund the public education system to play in the space at four year olds?
Sarah Baray [00:19:51]:
Four year olds. Four. Four.
Peter J. Holt [00:19:54]:
And while I think that's a phenomenal shift and a growth in receptivity around funding for for public education in Texas, it didn't necessarily address the structural nature of our current education system and how they're not built for early education.
Bob Rivard [00:20:16]:
Right.
Peter J. Holt [00:20:16]:
And that's no, like, fault of theirs. It's just if you look at, you know, the structure of public education, the majority of the focus and thus the funding is as the kid gets older, and whether you can look at anything, whether that's you know, most bonds include bright sports facilities, and, you know, obviously, I love sports, and so, like, I'm not saying that's wrong. I'm just saying, the average dollar to serve a kid goes way, way up as it goes along, and thus the people, the processes, the curriculums, the everything that surrounds that gets more focus.
Bob Rivard [00:20:58]:
And the culture. Yeah,
Peter J. Holt [00:20:59]:
and the culture, right? Exactly. And so there was this new funding source, but not necessarily, kind of like assistance or offers or credit like to say, well, how? You know, how are you gonna do four year olds? And then I would argue, you know, why just four year olds? Well, because it was easy, right? Just one year earlier. Makes total sense logically, but but it it actually doesn't, provide a solution for where the kind of hardest piece, the zero to three. And again, I don't wanna, you know, when you're given a nice steak, you don't wanna say, why is the steak so small? You know, so I don't wanna sound like a complainer here. I think it's still good progress, but it still doesn't really, address the the kind of overarching issue. And so, unless our nation and our state and down through kind of government and how that's how dollars are raised to the county and cities up to the state, is willing to take on the massive dollar shift and structural shift to go quite literally start at zero, then some of these kind of initial or surges won't fix it, and potentially could be a little bit of a political or societal band aid that says, Wait, we fixed that. Why are you coming back? What? We we we we did. We allowed four year old, and so and and I think one of the signals that shows that concern to me is that the enrollment, is actually not that great of of four year old in our community is not that great.
Peter J. Holt [00:22:54]:
That and and we wanna help with that. That. We wanna drive that up. But the initial, like, right away, like, you know, you think logically, oh, like, you know, free free school one year earlier, like, that will help my family, and I can go get my job at whatever it is, didn't actually just immediately trickle down. And so that that kind of validates some of my concerns about, unless we're gonna do the up end and kind of change the entire public education system, starting at zero and shifting some of that funding or rebalancing some of that funding, there's still gonna be, a tremendous need, maybe even more, for that zero to three, zero to four from a, I don't know what you wanna call it, decentralized, solution standpoint.
Bob Rivard [00:23:39]:
Mark, you have some incredibly compelling data that you've shared with me, and I'd like you to share with the audience about where we're going demographically as a city and really as a state and a country. But our concern here is San Antonio and Bexar County. And, legislatures are awash in some windfall revenue now. I don't know whether or not there's any prospect of more funding coming to early childhood education in this session or not, but but I I think you ought to educate our audience a little bit. You don't need to have school aged children to care about this. It's it's really consequential for the future of our city of addressing generational poverty and and and reaching children, as Peter said, much earlier than the first grade. It's sometimes too late by then.
Mark Larson [00:24:21]:
Part of the structure of how we were how Early Matters was born in the first place, you know, with the with the efforts and focus of Kate, Sarah, Peter, Joe, and
Sarah Baray [00:24:31]:
Mom was there in the early 1900s.
Bob Rivard [00:24:32]:
A lot of others. I remember day one. Yeah. Proud of was there. You were
Mark Larson [00:24:35]:
you were yeah. You were you were around before I was in this work. But it was it was highlighted to say, look, this is as much as this is a human development and and and a piece, this is a workforce issue as well. It is impacting our current workforce. We all experienced it during COVID when it was like, oh, you know, we forgot that that, you know, in the k twelve, one of its primary purposes was a place to put the kids go so we could go to work. That got better. People are now back in school, but early childhood didn't. There's still a solution that we need to provide there.
Mark Larson [00:25:10]:
Here in San Antonio, we have a 35,000 children under five years old, and two thirds of those have all available parents working. So if they have one parent, they're working. If it's two parents, they're both working. That's a lot of kids that need to be someplace. The other thing that stacks onto that is, the Harvard Center for Developing Child has some graphs that we can that people can find on the Early Matters website that talk about that 90% of your brain development takes place before your first day of kindergarten. And we in Texas have basically decided that we are willing to spend a hundred and $30,000 per human to work on human development. And we spent 10,000. It's basically 10,000 more or less for kinder, 10,000 for first, second, third, on the way up through twelfth grade.
Mark Larson [00:25:58]:
But we don't spend our first state dollar until the last 10% of your brain development. It doesn't make a lot of sense. And, you know, part of what Peter was referencing is if we had gone back and we understood a hundred years ago, this is how brain development works, this is when the, am I reading ready by kindergarten? Am I getting ready to do the learning, working on the executive function skills? If we had understood that back then, we probably wouldn't have structured school like we do now. There's a far, far higher ROI for two year olds or one year olds or two month olds than there is for third graders or tenth graders. But that's not where we've committed our public funding to date. And so we've largely left the sector to fend for itself. Everybody go out and launch a new early to early learning center if you want or childcare, whatever you'd like to call it. But we don't other than what Sarah has created really just in the and and her team has created just in the last three ish years with the shared service alliance.
Mark Larson [00:27:03]:
There are very few supports for this. It's largely moms and pops. We really mean mostly moms, nearly all moms, running small businesses. Probably 5% are nonprofits or or faith based, but we don't have good structures around this. And part of the challenge that we're facing is, without the superstructures and systems, whether it's not that we need to recreate school districts, that's not where we're pointed. But, how do we how do we support these early learning and early childhood opportunities, whether it's the 700 early learning centers that we have in San Antonio, that that exist in San Antonio, or the 300 licensed home providers that we have, how do we help them, increase in their access, quality, and affordability for our families. This has become a, a you know, there's more and more research that also points to, like, particularly for folks like, it I think it's most most easy to see for folks like Peter and others who are in multigenerational businesses that we're not planning for next week. We're not planning for, we need to accommodate that, but we we have to look a quarter century down the road.
Mark Larson [00:28:18]:
And that workforce is being developed now. When we hire somebody, we'll check for their accounting skills and can they do gap. But right after that, and we say, Yep. You can do the work. Then we immediately switch to the executive function skills. And do you have interpersonal abilities? Are you curious? Do you ask good questions? Are you can you delay gratification? And those things are built when you're younger than five, again, before we've committed any funds. So to date, we have not created early childhood, and that entire sector, the 90% of your brain development is just has not been declared a public good.
Peter J. Holt [00:28:53]:
And The the the one thing that is a bit odd about this that most people don't I didn't know this, is that our government actually has recognized this and has recognized this for decades. And you can see that because workforce solutions Alamo, which is our workforce development board that is funded a % from tax dollars, well, I don't know about a %, but close to a %. Yeah. And which exists in every county in Texas, and mostly across The US has some form of this. 80% of their budget goes directly to child care. So meaning there are child care centers that get stipends per kid directly from Workforce Solutions Alamo, and so, it's it's a there there's there's these odd paradoxes, well, in most places, but especially in this world, to where there is a recognition, and and the the issue is that it's it's woefully underfunded. It just can't serve. The formula, was not developed in a way to grow as our population or As our population grows or demographics shifted.
Peter J. Holt [00:30:10]:
And so I just wanna mention that and then say, if we as a society or a government or a state is not going to expand that or is going to take on this structural shift of public education, there will have to be this, a improvement in the decentralized system and an increased funding in a in a decentralized system. And I think that that's one of the hopes that I have for our early matters chapter is we're not here Mark kinda mentioned this because hopefully we're, you know, we're not here to pick
Bob Rivard [00:30:51]:
winners and losers. It's not, you know, we don't wanna
Peter J. Holt [00:30:51]:
get into the, winners and losers. It's not, you know, we don't wanna get into the other debates that happen in this space of, you know, go public or charters are bad or, you know, vouchers are great. Like, that's that's less of a
Bob Rivard [00:31:06]:
Everybody's in the same boat, really.
Peter J. Holt [00:31:08]:
Yeah. Everybody's in the same boat. And and and so if there's in home care, okay. If there's large centers, okay. If public education's gonna, assist, okay. How can we help provide enabling systems behind it to where there's quality and access and navigation and ease ease ease of of the system and improved outcomes. I think that's that's the goal.
Sarah Baray [00:31:38]:
I I just gotta jump in here, Bob, because I want to highlight something. Back in was it 2017 or 2018 when we did the, education forum on early learning?
Mark Larson [00:31:47]:
Yes.
Sarah Baray [00:31:47]:
And it was after that that we started saying, How could we get business leaders to understand this issue and really get focused on it? And there were a few of us around the table trying to figure that out, and then the providers were They were like, We need people, business people, to be able to speak on this. So I just wanna note, Peter Holt could give lectures on the important but really to understand, have a prominent business leader like Peter and like Joe and like John Brazevich and some of the others under and Kate, understand that at such a deep level. And to have someone who is in the K-twelve charter world for a long time can speak to these issues at a really deep level, I think is huge progress that we need to make note of because that's what's driven San Antonio's progress is really our business leaders. Way back from when the Blue Ribbon Task Force started, we had a great mayor, mayoral leader who did it, but he called on Charles Butt and General Robles from USAA to lead that task force, and then again with Early Matters, calling on Joe and Peter to lead that, we're really fortunate in San Antonio that we have business leaders who have made it their business to know this.
Bob Rivard [00:32:54]:
It's interesting to me that at the outset Peter talked about his personal experience in workforce development and then switched to early childhood education. This episode airs in early May, and we're days away from a mayoral election. If there's one thing all the mayoral candidates agreed on, it's that when you talk to people about workforce issues, their biggest need is childcare And as both an expense and also proximity, whether it's in their neighborhood or their area that they can get, quality childcare. So we've seen the city under under mayor near Ron Nierenberg undertook two new initiatives with city funding. One was the housing bond, which was a first, and that seems to be going very well where they're partnering with the private sector and letting the private sector lead on on these projects, and they're not trying to get into the business of housing themselves. Less success with Ready to Work SA, that has not delivered the numbers or the income we want, but they are funding about a $35,000,000 a year, that program. It makes me wonder whether or not we should be looking at innovative ways to to ask the city to fund, more investment in early in early matters. And I know, Peter, I've heard on other occasions you, call out the business community and and say we need to raise more money from the private sector as well.
Bob Rivard [00:34:13]:
So do we wait on the state for these fundamental changes, or do we look for, to turn inward and do more ourselves?
Mark Larson [00:34:20]:
We have a big opportunity to take to San Antonio, in so many ways, has taken taken a a bold step forward. Pre k for SA, as you mentioned, was the biggest first example. The amount of support and engagement from the business community, philanthropic support that has enabled us to exist and begin to wake up and work on this every day, has been remarkable. And I think that there's another step for us. You mentioned that we're in the legislature right now for this, but we'll be, you know, close to wrapping up when by the time this airs. There are a couple of opportunities for the state, really, for the first time ever, to put, money toward, early early learning outside of the public school sector. And there are a couple bills that are that that have potential. Even if those go through, they are scraping at the surface, and there is way more work to do.
Mark Larson [00:35:15]:
There are, currently, as we're looking at this, and I would just wanna throw in one thing here because because a lot of this is like, hey. Aren't families supposed to solve this? And I'm gonna come back to the public piece. Right? To the to the policy piece. Fam early early childhood right now cost between mostly between 10 and $12,000 per child per year. That is more than Texas A and M University San Antonio, and we're asking families who are in the the very earliest stages of their career when they're making the least ever. We don't have five twenty nines. You can't get a Pell grant. There's no loans for it.
Mark Larson [00:35:52]:
You just have to deal with it if you wanna have the opportunity to stay in the workforce. So we put families in a terrible bind. So if families can't pay more, it's inelastic for them. You know, if either the federal government or state government isn't gonna throw in more, we could try, locally. But we also need to have opportunities, and I think this is where policy can do some work, to, incentivize businesses to jump in as well. So a number of other sectors around the or, municipalities around the country have done things like employer match programs. So you you we can if we ask the state or the, sorry, the city or county to say, look. Can you put up, in in, Dallas, they're testing it with a million dollars.
Mark Larson [00:36:38]:
And they said, look. If if for every dollar that an employer puts in up to this certain amount for a child care for an one of their employees, a dollar comes out of public funding and then effectively reduces what the family has to pay by $2. Right? This is a massive, massive help. And it that money was spoken for within a week because so many employers jumped in immediately. We could create something like that here, fairly readily, and I think that it would incentivize a lot more dollars to come in from the business sector who every one of them. We we had a a breakfast with, a number of CEOs that, from, Whataburger and, Zachary and SWBC and Toyota and every single one of them. I thought we were gonna have to make the case for early childhood, and they were like, this is an issue for all of us. Like, we're ready.
Mark Larson [00:37:35]:
And as as Peter talks about, this is an opportunity to move from, this is happening to me to I'm doing something about it. And I think that that with more of our city business leadership and more of our city engagement and the opportunities not that they don't have to do it alone, but that we can come together to work on that, I think there are some big opportunities. There are also pieces like if they're making $11 an hour and they keep leaving, are there ways to do wage supplements, that could be publicly funded, that could potentially come out of a, a little bit of a modification of a ready to work, that there are ways to do something like that. So people are, the people who are doing 90% of the brain development work and meeting the needs of these infant and toddler who, you know, as a community, we want them we want those parents to be able to, if they wanna work, come work. But right now, somebody can't even afford to take a job
Bob Rivard [00:38:35]:
because childcare costs I'm afraid we're talking about $15 an hour in an economy where the the the bottom line now is $20 an hour.
Mark Larson [00:38:43]:
We're a long way away.
Bob Rivard [00:38:45]:
It's inflation has, post pandemic, has had a real impact, and the hourly wages are a significant issue. Would you favor, approaching the city and asking them to be as innovative with the 2027 bond as they were with the 2022 bond, and to find a five year cycle of commitment for funding for somehow addressing some of these early childhood education needs that you're talking about, whether it's the the providers or whether it's incentives to businesses or whether it's direct payments to families?
Sarah Baray [00:39:21]:
I just want it clear. I work for the city, so I won't be approaching them about anything.
Mark Larson [00:39:24]:
Yeah. I was gonna jump on this one, so, sir, I didn't have a
Bob Rivard [00:39:27]:
Just so you won't turn it down if it comes. Yeah.
Sarah Baray [00:39:29]:
I won't. I won't. We're we're ready. And I'll I'll share some things to you after Mark or his comments.
Mark Larson [00:39:33]:
So the early childhood community has come together over the last couple of years and written a citywide plan to increase access, quality and affordability. No surprise that coming out of that work, there were a long list of policy recommendations and requests that they had. Many of them can be addressed, at the at the city or county or local agency level. And a number of those could be funded in something like the 2027 bond. It could be an annual city budget allocation as well. There are a number of ways to solve it, but I think that I think that there are some very significant ways we can step forward because the reality is that, as inflation continues to increase, if I'm running a center and somebody leaves to go work someplace else, I just can't hire somebody to fill that room. So I many of our centers, have a wait list of families who wanna come in, and they have an empty room, but they can't close the gap because they can't hire somebody. So without solving for this on a on a significant level, at the city level, and I think that we can take steps like that, but, this is gonna continue to be a challenge.
Mark Larson [00:40:39]:
And as Peter and Sarah mentioned, we have enough seats generally. They're not all in the right spot. There are not enough seats for children with special needs or military families or infants. But, though even that will become a problem, going forward if we don't have bold city solutions. And Pre k for SA is a phenomenal partner and doing amazing work. So it's a necessary, but also there's more work for us to do together.
Bob Rivard [00:41:11]:
Don't you think, Mark, that, the institutional structure that's already in place with the public school districts, with the growing charter, school networks that that, we need legislators and the Texas Education Agency and others at the state level to say, this is where the most direct investment could have the most immediate impact if we funneled money into the districts specifically earmarked for improved early childhood education? We'd love to yeah.
Sarah Baray [00:41:39]:
I was gonna say I'm gonna jump in because as someone who spent the majority of her career in the p k twelve system, I think we need to public investment needs to start before that. And and as Peter said, our education system isn't designed to do early education. I've prepared literally thousands of principals and superintendents in my time when I was at Texas State, and I can tell you they don't necessarily they typically don't come with early childhood knowledge,
Bob Rivard [00:42:05]:
and
Sarah Baray [00:42:05]:
they don't get it within their preparation program. So in many ways, they're not they've got such a big, responsibility in what's happening after the age of five that I think it's really thinking more about how do we invest in our existing infrastructure of small private businesses that are operating as early childhood providers. And and I I do wanna acknowledge San Antonio as a city, for investing public dollars in, you know, our sales tax dollars. Pre k, for sale is funded through an eighth of a cent sales tax. In most cities in Texas, all of that sales tax that the cities have to invest goes into public transit, which is also a huge need. But San Antonio said, no. We're gonna put some of this aside for early childhood, which, you know and I think our our friends at Via would say, we need all that money, which they do too, but, you know, we have to make choices. And so and then, San Anton the city of San Antonio increasingly in their economic development policies where they're bringing companies, early childhood is emphasized businesses that are coming in that are getting some tax incentives and those sorts of things, encouraging them to invest in early childhood.
Sarah Baray [00:43:11]:
So I think there are some city policies that are in place, that are doing that, and and certainly there can be more investment. Prepaid birthday so we can serve more. Happy to do that, but, I think we have the mechanism to do it, and it's just figuring out how do we bring all the players together in public private partnerships to to get it done.
Peter J. Holt [00:43:34]:
And I think I think under the current state climate that it would be a little more fluid or acceptable to do something a little bit different right now, with maybe the hope or goal of really changing the structure of the public education system.
Bob Rivard [00:44:00]:
I hope we're not giving up on being able to reform it.
Peter J. Holt [00:44:04]:
I don't think so.
Bob Rivard [00:44:05]:
Like there's an urgent need for everybody to
Peter J. Holt [00:44:07]:
Yeah. I don't think so. But with with the current climate, I think the the structure of providing dollars in a more direct way, via to families or to centers is is probably gonna be have higher receptivity.
Bob Rivard [00:44:24]:
Be more realistic.
Peter J. Holt [00:44:25]:
And and like I was mentioning earlier, there is a system in place to do that. And so, one way to inject some energy incentive funds would be to either go alongside or go directly within the current funding that goes through the workforce boards to childcare. And if that's too complicated, then then you can go alongside it. And and what's interesting about this is, you know, in some ways, you know, Texas in this space for education, you could argue, is way behind or our community is way behind. In a weird way, there's a paradox where there's actually incentives and systems here to invest in education that are much better than others. It may just be underfunded or not tied with the right formula or tied with quality or tied with access. And so, another example of that is the Texas Rising Stars program that is is a quality rating system that many states don't have. And it's pretty good.
Peter J. Holt [00:45:37]:
Like, it's not perfect, but it's pretty good. And guess what? If you are ranked higher as a childcare center, you get more funding per student. And so they're actually in a weird way, it's a big problem, but there there's some existing solutions in place. They just not, in my opinion, they're not all being enabled in the right way at the right time with the right support. And and so I actually I actually think that's that makes me optimistic because it's not there's not just one thing we got to get done the legislature it's a it's a relatively complex problem and there's there's I think a myriad of solutions that can assist. And I actually think that's you can argue, well, that sounds like chaos, but I I view it as that makes me optimistic because, you know, we can think about different things because as you know, Bob, like, you know, time, leadership, environment, economic, you know, all paid play a role in in people's receptivity, politicians, receptivity, communities' receptivities. And so, if we just had one solution, then I think I would actually be more pessimistic. And and so, I think I think to your point, it's probably it's probably an annoying answer, because it's not black and white but I think we have to build and maintain relationships across across those boards state level, Bexar County, City, you know, even federal like to to local, to, see where where where where is the water flowing and how can we make that water clear and more abundant.
Bob Rivard [00:47:19]:
When you talk to other business leaders, Peter, or conservative, elected leaders, do they, worry that this is a form of welfare? Or do people see it as an investment in not only workforce development but an investment in our future by better educating our children?
Peter J. Holt [00:47:35]:
Yeah. I think I think there's there's obviously some elephants in the in at the table or in the room that should be called out. One of them is, hey. I totally recognize that I'm a I'm a unique democrat, but do, like, demographic as a CEO of a company. Right? You know, most CEOs of our companies, and they're great people, are, you know, people in their fifties, sixties, and seventies, usually white males. And, like, I don't think that's, like, I'm not shaming them. That's who they are, and they're great leaders. But that's a lot of the structure of our economy.
Peter J. Holt [00:48:11]:
And so this is has been they mentioned this earlier, Sarah and Mark has been an issue that is is less, in their face. Mhmm. That has changed, which is great. The the societal receptivity, as Mark was saying, like, you don't have to make the case, but that's, like, pretty recent. Like, that's in Yep. Maybe since COVID. Maybe that's one of the benefits of maybe that's one of the silver linings of COVID. Maybe that's when it really shifted.
Peter J. Holt [00:48:36]:
Right? Their their kids were calling them saying, like, my life's miserable. Like, quit your CEO job and come be a babysitter for my kids because this is horrible. I don't know what shifted it, but there was a big shift even from when I got engaged, whatever, six or seven years ago in the you really had to explain it to people. Now you have to explain it less, which I is a is a great Yep. Pressure point. The other I think that you're calling out is is fair, is around, this this, a little bit of this I don't know if it's fear or it's just change of of, hey. We kind of woke up and, you know, thirty or forty years went by and it's like, wow, we've made great progress in our society around, women in the workforce and receptivity of companies of that and dual working families. And, but our structures and systems are, aren't built for that.
Bob Rivard [00:49:28]:
Haven't caught up.
Peter J. Holt [00:49:28]:
Yeah. Even within companies. Right? I mean and and it I don't think it's maybe I'm being too naive, but I don't think that's, like, malicious intent. I don't I I think a lot of it's maybe ignorant of intent of, like, oh, wow. You know? I, man, my workforce is is 40% women or 50 or bigger, 60% women, and and there's whole new challenges and opportunities with that. And so I think when I talk with, companies, yeah, there definitely is that, maybe maybe whatever you wanna call it, old school or conservative or traditional mindset of, well, how come the, you know, the the wife isn't just staying at home when they have kids or maybe the husband or whatever, like, hire a babysitter, you know, do what I did kind of thing Yeah. Which is a fair bias. I think that's understandable.
Peter J. Holt [00:50:13]:
We all have those biases. But I think, the the the image change is is happening, which is good, because it's because it's factual. And then and then secondly, you know, CEOs are running for profit businesses. And so at the end of the day, if it's not affecting the bottom line and their shareholders or stakeholders, then it's gonna be lower on the radar even if it's important to them. Right? There's plenty of organizations that have incredible philanthropic, arms. But but if there's something that's not structurally affecting their profitability, or revenue growth, whatever their business goals are, then it's it's gonna be lower on the radar. And I think that, that is increase that heat wave is increasing as well. And so we have a unique, period of time where we need to use that and and run with it.
Sarah Baray [00:51:11]:
And yeah. And I would echo what Peter says about the business leaders. I find that with policy makers at all levels, whether it's locally. I I talk with our city council members and people that all the time say, we know this is an issue. What can we do that's what more can we do? Same thing at the state, have had an opportunity to to testify as well as, to talk with policymakers. And across the board, people get that this is an important issue, same thing nationally. So I don't think it's a matter of people not caring or not wanting to do something about it. Now what we do about it is where, right, the rub comes in and how much do we invest in it.
Sarah Baray [00:51:48]:
But they're actually and I would say our governor is very supportive of early childhood, in fact, was the first governor to stand up a task force to address childcare and keeping childcare centers open when COVID hit. And I'm not even sure any other state had that, but he knew right away, we gotta get this done. And so we have good minds thinking about this, and I think it's just coming up with with some of the ways that we can, you know, help to solve for it. So I think that's one of the things I am most hopeful about, certainly in San Antonio because we don't wait for the state of the nation to do it. We just get down to it. And then also but for the state too, I think we've got some some good folks that are, you know, thinking about this. And and, of course, Mark and and some of us are helping them to to give them some ideas that they might wanna adopt, and hopefully they will.
Bob Rivard [00:52:31]:
Well, we're running out of time, but I wanna ask you, Mark, what is the call to action at this point for Early Matters? And I know it's multilayered, but people that are listening hopefully include people both at the corporate level and individual level that could help and may not be that familiar with until now with Early Matters. And so what are we asking people in the community to do that have the capacity to help?
Mark Larson [00:52:51]:
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity to speak to that. So, Early Matters serves as a convener. We don't we don't run centers, but we wanna help all of the centers, do an an amazing job. And we do that with our lead partners at PreK for SA United Way and Workforce Solutions Alamo and and Texas A and M Institute for School and Community Partnership. And with that, we have created a number of different ways for businesses to plug in for tools that they can use now to help their current business model, for whether it be for designations or about being a best place for working parents or survey tools to help them see and understand what is the true cost of that the childcare challenge is having on their own company. So we would we would invite their engagement. We have a, breakfast the first Friday of every month, and we meet at Cappy's at 08:00, and that's open to whoever wants to come.
Mark Larson [00:53:47]:
And part of what we wanna do there is create an, kind of an easy front door to say, let me learn about the how I might engage. And it can be a business leader. It can be an employee. There are families there, some of the childcare owners, to say, and we have discussions about what we can take on. So we need, at minimum, a huge number of advocates, about early childhood, and in particular to some of the policy solutions that we're working on on developing at the local level and at the state level. So we need a massive number of of, champions in that regard. And then, you know, we've the city has put together if there are you know, we know that there are this is a very generous city. We have part of our intention is that we built the citywide plan.
Mark Larson [00:54:34]:
And in order to execute that plan over the next three years, that's gonna cost us about $20,000,000. And so we are a good chunk of the way down on the on the on the philanthropy, thanks to the generosity of some significant folks. But we have a long, long way to go on that as well.
Bob Rivard [00:54:52]:
Are you organized as a five zero one three c prop a nonprofit? Yeah.
Mark Larson [00:54:56]:
We're a nonprofit.
Bob Rivard [00:54:57]:
That wanna contribute. I'm sure, Area Foundations and others are already at the table.
Mark Larson [00:55:02]:
Yeah. We I'm meeting with the Area Foundation next week, and we're and and pretty much anybody who will sit down with us. We've got a lot of work to do. And as Sarah said, this is not a city that waits for the the federal government or waits for the state to come and solve things for us. We have an opportunity to take leadership ourselves. And with the with the strength of, the advisory board for really matters, with the strength of the business partners and our lead partners, I've I've full confidence. One of the things that, that, that Peter has mentioned that that is part of why this was the right next chapter for me is that, you know, we both we all all three of us believe that this is something that we can actually solve in our lifetimes. And it it hasn't been yet, and but there aren't a lot of problems out there that that we could actually take on and address.
Mark Larson [00:55:54]:
And we think this is an opportunity, for us as a community to take a lead role. And hopefully, what we do here ripples around the state and around the country.
Bob Rivard [00:56:03]:
Well, you're doing great work. So thank you for coming on to Big City Small Town, Peter Jay Holt, doctor Baray, Sarah Baray, and Mark Larson. Thanks for your service in in the community, and thanks for coming on to the podcast today.
Peter J. Holt [00:56:14]:
It's a pleasure.
Mark Larson [00:56:14]:
Thanks, Bob.
Bob Rivard [00:56:19]:
Please share this episode with friends and colleagues, and do sign up for our new newsletter, Monday Musings. Big City, Small Town is brought to you by Western Urban, building the city our children wanna call home, and Geekdom, where startups are born and smart ideas become businesses. Our producer is Corey Eames, video by Erica Rempel, sound engineering by Alfie de la Garza of Sound Crane Audio. We will see you next week.
Peter J. Holt
CEO of Holt Group and Chairman & Managing Partner of Spurs Sports & Entertainment
Peter J. Holt leads Holt Group and serves as chairman and managing partner of Spurs Sports & Entertainment, where he steers both business and civic initiatives central to San Antonio’s growth. Deeply invested in education and workforce development, Holt chairs Early Matters, an organization focused on expanding access to high-quality early childhood education. His commitment to the community extends from hands-on experience in youth organizations to championing systemic solutions for generational poverty through Pre-K for SA and related programs. Holt is a University of the Incarnate Word graduate and an advocate for elevating San Antonio’s talent pipeline from the earliest years.
Mark Larson
Executive Director of Early Matters
Mark Larson is the executive director of Early Matters, a San Antonio initiative uniting business, civic, and education leaders to increase access to quality early childhood programs. With a background in education leadership—having worked with charter schools and public education policy—Larson brings data-driven strategy to community-wide efforts that support working families and early brain development. He is instrumental in shaping local and state policy discussions around childcare, education funding, and workforce innovation, as highlighted in his role on this episode.
Dr. Sarah Baray
CEO of Pre-K 4 SA
Dr. Sarah Baray is CEO of Pre-K 4 SA, San Antonio’s publicly funded early childhood education initiative, completing her ninth year at its helm. With decades of experience in education, Burey has advanced Pre-K 4 SA’s impact through research-backed programs, teacher development, and quality improvement networks such as the Shared Service Alliance. She holds an advanced degree in educational leadership and is recognized for her role in shaping citywide strategies that prioritize access, affordability, and workforce support in early learning. Dr. Burey’s expertise anchors the conversation on San Antonio’s progress in tackling generational poverty through education.
