Future Ready Bexar County: A Year of Partnership, Progress and Possibility  

Future Ready Bexar County: A Year of Partnership, Progress and Possibility  

 

When Dr. Cathy Jones joined UP Partnership as Chief Executive Officer in July 2025, she stepped into an organization with a clear purpose: helping Bexar County transform a bold vision for young people into measurable, community-wide action.  

Improving outcomes for young people requires more than great individual programs; it requires schools, nonprofits, employers, higher education, philanthropy, and government working together toward a common purpose. That’s the idea behind the Future Ready Bexar County Plan, a countywide initiative that brings together more than 100 partner organizations. Guided by four focus areas — Healing, Access, Voice, and Systems Support — Future Ready transforms a shared vision into a shared way of working, recognizing that every young person’s success is shaped by the relationships, opportunities, and systems around them.   

Together, these organizations are working toward the Future Ready Bexar County North Star goal of increasing the percentage of Bexar County high school graduates who enroll in a postsecondary degree or credential program to 70% by 2030. 

UP Partnership serves as the backbone organization for Future Ready Bexar County. Rather than replacing the important direct service work of schools or community organizations, it helps connect partners, coordinate efforts, measure progress, and strengthen accountability so that individual contributions lead to lasting, community-wide results.  

Over the past year, that shared way of working produced measurable results across Bexar County. Regional outcomes also improved, with College, Career, and Military Readiness increasing to 71% and dual credit completion rising 3% over the previous year. Since the 2022–23 baseline year, TSI Reading has improved 6% and TSI Math has increased 11%. 

Future Ready also expanded opportunities for young people to shape the systems that affect their lives, engaging 20 young leaders in leadership development, supporting 16 civic engagement opportunities, engaging in 12 policy advocacy actions, and helping register more than 100 young people to vote. 

These milestones—alongside expanded college and career advising, stronger youth-serving organizations, new national investments, and better alignment of public resources—demonstrate how Future Ready is turning a shared way of working into measurable systems change that improves outcomes for young people. 

Aligning an Ecosystem Around Shared Accountability 

One of the most significant milestones of the past year wasn’t the launch of a new program; it was strengthening the framework that helps partners work together toward shared outcomes. 

Designed to strengthen accountability across the Future Ready network, the Institutional Agreement process invited partners to identify the specific strategies within the Future Ready Bexar County Plan that their work advances, select shared Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), establish baseline data, and commit to measurable outcomes through 2028. By creating a common framework for measuring progress, the process helps partners see how their individual contributions connect to a larger, countywide effort to improve outcomes for young people. 

Throughout the process, UP Partnership staff served as partner coaches, helping organizations align their priorities with the Future Ready Plan while identifying opportunities for deeper collaboration, shared learning, and coordinated action. 

The Institutional Agreements also laid the foundation for the Future Ready Ecosystem Map, an interactive tool that illustrates how organizations across Bexar County are connected through shared strategies and action commitments. More than a directory of participating organizations, the map helps partners, funders, policymakers, and community members better understand who is contributing to Future Ready, how organizations are aligned around the plan, and where opportunities exist to strengthen collaboration and collective impact. By making those connections visible, the Ecosystem Map reinforces that improving outcomes for young people is a shared responsibility, one that depends on coordinated action across the entire community. 

Building a Countywide Advising Ecosystem Through Advise Me 210 

For a middle school student, preparing for life after high school can feel a long way off. Yet the decisions students make as early as sixth grade, from choosing courses and exploring career interests to preparing for college entrance requirements, can shape the opportunities available to them years later. Just as important, students and families need access to trusted guidance that helps them understand those decisions and navigate them with confidence. 

That’s the vision behind Advise Me 210. 

Over the past year, Future Ready Bexar County continued to strengthen a coordinated advising ecosystem designed to ensure students receive consistent, high-quality guidance no matter where they seek it. Rather than creating another standalone advising program, Advise Me 210 is helping transform advising into a countywide system of support. 

Over the past year, that work included: 

  • Redesigning the Advise Me 210 Guide for middle school students in grades 6–8, giving schools and youth-serving organizations greater flexibility to deliver advising through classroom instruction, small-group discussions, or one-on-one conversations. 
  • Launching the 2026 Advising Pilots, which expanded personalized advising and family engagement across participating school districts and community organizations. Led by five institutions across Bexar County, the pilots reached nearly 1,900 students through locally designed advising strategies tailored to their communities’ needs. In East Central ISD alone, advisors conducted more than 860 advising sessions, and 98% of participating seniors completed a college application, demonstrating the impact coordinated advising can have on students’ postsecondary success.  
  • Beyond the Advising Pilots, Advise Me 210 and the region’s broader advising ecosystem facilitated more than 700 advising sessions through collaborative efforts among advising partners and communities of practice. 
  • Using lessons from the pilot to continue refining Advise Me 210 as a scalable, countywide advising ecosystem that can continue to grow with community needs. 

Future Ready partners also collaborated through the Advise Me 210 Policy Taskforce, bringing together K–12, higher education, and community leaders to identify policy recommendations that strengthen postsecondary readiness across the region.  

To further strengthen coordinated support, advising information from Advise Me 210 sessions was integrated into the Future Ready Alert System (FRAS) Individual Dashboard, a secure tool available to participating advising partners through the pilot. Supporting 11,254 students across 32 campuses and 9 youth development organizations, the dashboard brings together attendance, behavior, grades, and advising history in one place, helping partners identify student needs earlier, coordinate support more effectively, and ensure young people receive the guidance they need at the right time. 

These efforts culminated in the launch of AdviseMe210.org, a centralized resource designed to help students, families, educators, and advisors navigate every stage of the postsecondary journey. The website brings together videos, planning tools, and community resources into one easy-to-access platform, making it easier for young people to explore college, career, and military pathways while connecting them with the support available throughout Bexar County. 

This work has also been strengthened by philanthropy aligning its investments with the Future Ready Bexar County Plan. As an Anchor Partner, the San Antonio Area Foundation committed $25 million to advance Future Ready priorities, including advising, recognizing that lasting change requires coordinated investment—not just individual programs—to create greater impact for young people across Bexar County. 

This work advances Future Ready Access Strategy 3a: Build a Community of College and Career Advising and Strategy 3b: Expand Best Practices in College Access. By creating a more coordinated approach to advising, Future Ready partners are helping ensure that students receive consistent information and support regardless of where they attend school or where they seek guidance. 

By aligning partners, tools, data, and resources around a common approach to advising, Future Ready Bexar County is making it easier for students and families to navigate important decisions with confidence. More than a collection of advising resources, Advise Me 210 represents a coordinated ecosystem of support designed to help more young people successfully pursue the postsecondary pathway that best reflects their goals, strengths, and aspirations. 

Connecting Education to Workforce Opportunity 

Future Ready Bexar County recognizes that there is no single path to success after high school. While some students choose a four-year university, others pursue community college, technical education, industry-recognized credentials, apprenticeships, military service, or direct entry into the workforce. What matters is that every young person has access to a pathway that prepares them for long-term success. 

Helping students navigate those pathways requires more than strong advising; it also requires a clear understanding of where future opportunities exist. That understanding inspired the launch of the Bexar County Workforce Needs Assessment, a collaborative effort designed to strengthen the connection between education and workforce development across the region. 

Led by UP Partnership in collaboration with greater:SATX, Alamo Colleges District, school districts, employers, workforce leaders, and community partners, the assessment provides a shared understanding of the industries, occupations, and skills that will shape Bexar County’s future. Rather than asking education and workforce systems to operate independently, the initiative creates a common foundation for planning, helping partners better align education pathways with regional workforce demand. 

The assessment is intended to serve as more than a snapshot of today’s labor market. It provides community leaders with the information needed to make more strategic decisions about where investments, partnerships, and educational opportunities can have the greatest impact. By identifying emerging workforce trends and aligning them with student pathways, the region is better positioned to prepare young people for success in high-demand, high-wage careers. 

This work advances Future Ready Access Strategy 3b: Expand Best Practices in College Access by strengthening the connection between postsecondary pathways and career opportunities. Whether students pursue a college degree, an industry-recognized credential, technical training, military service, or another postsecondary pathway, the Workforce Needs Assessment helps ensure those options are informed by regional workforce demand and connected to meaningful career opportunities. 

Accelerating Opportunity for Boys and Young Men of Color 

Strong partnerships don’t just create local impact; they also create opportunities to attract new resources, strengthen collaboration, and accelerate change. 

This year, Bexar County was selected by the Obama Foundation’s My Brother’s Keeper Alliance (MBK Alliance) as one of its newest Accelerator Communities, recognizing the region’s collaborative commitment to improving outcomes for Boys and Young Men of Color. The designation reflects years of work by school districts, higher education institutions, community organizations, employers, philanthropy, and youth leaders working together through Future Ready Bexar County to expand opportunity, foster belonging, and remove barriers to future success. That work has already produced measurable results, including training more than 120 educators across 12 campuses to strengthen restorative practices, increasing the use of relationship-centered and peer-led restorative approaches while contributing to declines in student suspensions. 

As the backbone organization for My Brother’s Keeper San Antonio (MBKSA), UP Partnership works alongside partners including Edgewood ISD, Harlandale ISD, San Antonio ISD, Southwest ISD, Alamo Colleges District, greater:SATX, United Way of San Antonio and Bexar County, the San Antonio Area Foundation, and numerous community organizations to align strategies, share accountability, and improve outcomes for Boys and Young Men of Color. Together, these partners are strengthening advising, expanding postsecondary pathways, increasing access to work-based learning opportunities, and creating environments where young people are supported to thrive academically, personally, and professionally. 

Selection as an Accelerator Community also brought a $200,000 implementation investment from the MBK Alliance to help advance locally identified priorities. Rather than prescribing a single solution, the investment builds the work already taking place across Bexar County, providing additional resources to deepen collaboration, strengthen regional capacity, and accelerate progress toward shared goals. Additional support from the Enterprise Mobility Foundation’s ROAD Forward initiative further reinforced national confidence in the collaborative work underway across the region. 

This work advances both Future Ready Healing Strategy 2a and Access Strategy 3b by strengthening the relationships, opportunities, and systems that support Boys and Young Men of Color as they prepare for life after high school. At its core, the initiative is ensuring that every young person has access to the relationships, resources, and opportunities they need to reach their full potential. 

Strengthening the  Organizations and Investments Behind Student Success  

 Helping more young people succeed requires more than expanding opportunities, it requires strengthening the organizations, partnerships, and investments that make those opportunities possible. Over the past year, Future Ready Bexar County continued building a stronger support system for young people by investing in organizational capacity, aligning philanthropic resources, and coordinating public investments that support children and youth across Bexar County. 

One of the year’s most significant investments in organizational capacity was the Catalyst Exchange Network Support Pilot (NSP), a national initiative that equips organizations across education and the social sector with the expertise, tools, and hands-on support needed to strengthen their long-term impact. Through a six-month co-investment, ten Future Ready Youth Development Organizations received $30,000 each from UP Partnership and Catalyst Exchange to pursue projects tailored to their unique needs. Together, participating organizations completed 12 organizational improvement projects focused on strategic planning, financial sustainability, technology, leadership development, and other critical areas that strengthen long-term effectiveness. Every participating organization achieved its project goals. 

Future Ready’s commitment to organizational capacity extended beyond Catalyst Exchange investment. Through New Opportunities and Horizons, the San Antonio Area Foundation invested in organizational assessments, strategic coaching, implementation support, flexible funding, and leadership development for 16 organizations, strengthening the infrastructure needed to better serve young people and families. United Way of San Antonio and Bexar County further advanced Future Ready priorities by investing nearly $6 million in organizations supporting math, reading, absenteeism, TSIA readiness, and opportunity youth. Together, these investments demonstrate how Future Ready partners are aligning resources to strengthen the organizations that make student success possible. 

Future Ready also invested in helping organizations strengthen how they use data to inform decisions and demonstrate impact. In partnership with UT San Antonio, Future Ready launched the UTSA Data Capacity Building Cohort, providing youth-serving organizations with hands-on learning, technical assistance, and peer collaboration to strengthen data collection, analysis, and evaluation practices. Beyond building technical skills, the cohort created a community of practice where organizations could share ideas, learn from one another, and improve how they measure and communicate their impact. 

While these efforts strengthened the capacity of individual organizations, UP Partnership also developed a Public Investment Tracker, which provides a shared view of city, county, state, and federal investments supporting children and youth across Bexar County, helping partners identify funding gaps, strengthen accountability, and align future investments with the Future Ready Bexar County Plan. By combining shared data with coordinated advocacy, Future Ready is helping ensure public resources are invested where they can have the greatest impact on young people. 

The Future Ready Public Investment Tracker found that partners helped unlock millions in public funding since 2023 toward Future Ready’s goal of aligning $333 million in investments that support young people, which is strategy 4a: Grow public investments in children and youth.  

Through intentional advocacy by Future Ready partners, the collaborative effort has helped unlock $49.1 million in public funding from the City of San Antonio and state funds since 2023.  Despite deficits in the City’s budget, those advocacy efforts also contributed to the Department of Human Services’ proposal to sustain delegate agency funding for FY2027—a decision that could preserve services provided by 55 nonprofit and youth-serving organizations, including 22 new agencies and 26 new programs. 

Together, these efforts demonstrate that improving outcomes for young people requires more than investing in individual programs. It requires strengthening the organizations that serve them, aligning public and philanthropic resources around shared priorities, and equipping partners with the tools, data, and relationships needed to work together. By building organizational capacity, coordinating investments, and supporting collaborative decision-making, Future Ready Bexar County is creating a stronger, more sustainable ecosystem where every young person has greater opportunities to succeed. 

Looking Ahead 

The accomplishments of the past year represent more than individual initiatives or organizational milestones. Together, they reflect a continued commitment to strengthening the Future Ready Bexar County ecosystem—aligning partners, expanding opportunities, investing in organizations, improving transparency, and building the systems needed to support young people at every stage of their journey. 

None of this work happens in isolation. It is made possible by school districts, higher education institutions, youth-serving organizations, employers, philanthropy, government agencies, and countless community partners who have chosen to work toward a shared vision for Bexar County’s future. Their collaboration demonstrates that lasting change is not the result of any one organization, but of a community willing to align around common goals and shared accountability. 

The Future Ready Bexar County Plan set an ambitious North Star: increasing postsecondary enrollment among Bexar County high school graduates to 70 percent by 2030. Achieving that goal will require continued collaboration, innovation, and investment. More importantly, it will require a community that believes every young person deserves the opportunity to build a future that reflects their goals, strengths, and aspirations. 

The first year of Dr. Jones’ leadership has been defined not by changing the direction of Future Ready Bexar County, but by building strategically on its momentum—strengthening the partnerships, systems, and shared accountability that make collective impact possible. As that momentum continues to grow, so does the opportunity to ensure that every child and young person in Bexar County is future ready.

 

Be a Part of Future Ready Week: November 1-8. 2025

Future Ready Week

November 1-8, 2025

The Vision

UP Partnership will coordinate Future Ready Week in November 2025.

The vision for Future Ready Week is to highlight a series of free, community-driven events designed to help more young people and families learn of the opportunities, resources and youth supports available to lead to a brighter future. This cross-sector coordinated effort of Future Ready partners showcases the pathways to successful futures for students in Bexar County after high school.

How You Can Participate

Coordinate and plan events that align to the North Star goal of increasing postsecondary and workforce credentialing enrollment to 70% by 2030 or the themes below.

Themes

🗓️ Nov. 1 – Schedule Saturday: Learn how to set yourself up for college success!

  • Alamo Colleges District: Financial Aid Saturday, open 9:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m., offering in-person support to create an FSA ID and complete the FAFSA — the first step to accessing grants, work-study, and loans that help fund your education. Learn more.

🎤 Nov. 2 – Speak up Sunday: Let your voice be heard! Tell an elected official, whether through social media, writing a letter or email or in person, about what you most want to learn about to be better prepared for your future! 

🎓 Nov. 3 – Major Monday: Spotlight different academic majors or departments to broaden awareness of postsecondary options.

  • 2nd Annual Bexar Area School Safety and Mental Health Summit (Invite Only), 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m., at ESC Region 20, bringing together school districts, charter schools, law enforcement, government leaders, hospitals, and nonprofit partners to strengthen collaboration around school safety and youth mental health.

⚙️ Nov. 4 – Trade Tuesday: Explore trade and vocational pathways. 

  • Alamo Colleges District: Virtual Financial Aid Night, Tuesday, November 4, 2025, from 6:00–8:00 p.m., offering one-on-one online support from the Student Financial Aid Office to help you create an FSA ID and complete your FAFSA — the first step to accessing grants, work-study, and loans that help fund your education. Learn more.

🧘 Nov. 5 – Wellness Wednesday: Focus on wellbeing as an important step to success.

  • San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce: CORE4 STEM Expo at The Boeing Center at Tech Port San Antonio, a hands-on STEM activities and career exploration for seventh and eighth graders. Learn more.
  • Career Explorer Programs at Crockett Academy (Invite Only), an interactive initiative introducing 7th grade students to career pathways through hands-on activities, advising workshops, and engagement with community role models to support informed transitions into high school CTE programs.

📝 Nov. 6 – Take-note Thursday: Tips on how to get to academic success like how to study, financial aid, etc. 

  • San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce: CORE4 STEM Expo at The Boeing Center at Tech Port San Antonio, a hands-on STEM activities and career exploration for seventh and eighth graders. Learn more.
  • Career Explorer Programs at Crockett Academy (Invite Only), an interactive initiative introducing 7th grade students to career pathways through hands-on activities, advising workshops, and engagement with community role models to support informed transitions into high school CTE programs.

🚀 Nov. 7 – Future Ready Friday!: Focus on career planning, goal setting, and life after college.

  • San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce: CORE4 STEM Expo at The Boeing Center at Tech Port San Antonio, a hands-on STEM activities and career exploration for seventh and eighth graders. Learn more.

🎉 Nov. 8 – Student Success Saturday at Hemisfair Park: Setting You Up for Success emphasizing connecting with college and career resources. 

  • Bexar County BiblioTech: College Workshop at  Biblotech Edu, a free workshop offering college-readiness tools and application support.  Learn more.
  • San Antonio Education Partnership / Café College: College 210 on Saturday, November 8, 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m., at Café College, celebration of college pathways and opportunities for students and families. 

Trellis Foundation Invests in Future Ready Bexar County

Trellis Foundation Invests in Bexar County's Future with Grant to Strengthen College and Career Advising

In December 2024, the Trellis Foundation made an investment of $450,000 to UP Partnership to enhance college and career advising, support students’ postsecondary success, and advance data-driven decision-making. This investment will help to maximize the impact of the Future Ready Bexar County Plan. 

Launched in April 2022, the Future Ready Bexar County Plan brings together more than 100 partner institutions committed to improving outcomes for young people through its core pillars: Healing, Access, Voice, along with essential System Supports. The plan’s North Star goal is to increase the percentage of Bexar County high school graduates enrolling in a postsecondary degree or credential to 70% by 2030. 

“The Future Ready Bexar County Plan is a powerful example of what’s possible when communities come together to ensure every student has access to the support they need to succeed,” said Kristin Boyer, CEO & President of Trellis Foundation. “We are particularly impressed by UP Partnership’s commitment to data-informed practices, and we look forward to seeing the impact of this collaboration—not just in Bexar County, but as a model for other communities across the state.” 

This grant will support the development of a robust data infrastructure to better serve students across the seven Future Ready School Districts — East Central ISD, Edgewood ISD, Harlandale ISD, Judson ISD, Northside ISD, San Antonio ISD and Southwest ISD — by strengthening collaboration between K-12 schools and higher education institutions. By aligning Future Ready advising strategies with improved data systems, this investment will: 

  • Expand district-level data capacity to support college and career advising.

  • Provide real-time insights to help educators guide students toward postsecondary success.

  • Enhance the use of postsecondary data to inform strategic enrollment planning at colleges and universities.

  • Enable targeted interventions for students at risk of not enrolling or completing their postsecondary education.

“By fostering stronger alignment between school districts and higher education institutions, we can ensure that all young people in Bexar County have access to the tools and opportunities they need to navigate the postsecondary education landscape,” said Dr. Emily Calderón Galdeano, UP Partnership’s Interim CEO. “This grant allows us to strengthen Future Ready strategies, ensuring that every young person in our community has a clear pathway to success.” 

About Trellis Foundation   
Trellis Foundation advances equitable educational opportunities in Texas by supporting postsecondary programs, practices and systems that reduce disparities and lead to success for low-income students and students of color. More information is available at www.trellisfoundation.org.   

Meet UP Partnership’s Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Ryan Lugalia-Hollon

Meet UP Partnership’s Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Ryan Lugalia-Hollon

Ryan Lugalia-Hollon, Ph.D., has served as the chief executive of UP Partnership for six years, ensuring alignment across UP’s board, staff, partners and leaders in pursuit of the mission of ensuring all young people in Bexar County are ready for the future.

Ryan identifies as a human development planner. He was drawn to UP Partnership and the work the organization does because of the “opportunity to help increase youth outcomes while working across sectors,” he said.

Prior to joining UP Partnership, he served as the executive director for Excel Beyond the Bell San Antonio, which is now one of UP Partnership’s systems change networks, as well as worked at the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago’s Youth Safe and Violence Prevention department.

He is also a poet and an author. His poem, Vision, helps to explain some of the underlying motivation that drives him in this work daily…

Lugalia-Hollon is committed to working towards racial equity both locally and nationally.

Prophecies cannot restore the past,
yet each dream we cast
buries a secret weapon
in the not too distant future.

Our young ones
will soon need to dig them up
and use them for their defense.

Ryan’s first book, The War on Neighborhoods, was published by Beacon Press and tracks the devastating impact of mass incarceration on one Chicago community area. It helped influence the birth of the R3 Program in Illinois. R3 — Restore. Reinvest. Renew. — which provides a model for how to support those neighborhoods most impacted by the War on Drugs.

Ryan is committed to working towards racial equity both locally and nationally. He is an active leader in the national StriveTogether network and serves as the Board Chair for the Children’s Funding Project, a nonprofit organization that helps communities and states to expand equitable opportunities for children and youth through strategic public financing.

He was selected as the Outstanding Young San Antonian of 2020 by the Rotary Club of San Antonio. Ryan received his doctorate in urban planning and policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago and his bachelor’s in anthropology from the University of Chicago.

When not supporting social change efforts, Ryan enjoys time with his family, practicing Tai Chi, hiking, cooking, coaching, and studying the Enneagram of Personality types. He is a big fan of the book, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat, the show Foundation, and the rapper Lacrae.

As UP Partnership staff can attest, Lugalia-Hollon also loves telling dad jokes. Including this gem: “When does a regular joke become a dad joke? When it’s a-parent!”

All joking aside, Ryan’s advice to the work is “Take it easy, but take it.” If he could be any dinosaur, he would be a Pterodactyl “for the views.”

One Year of Future Ready Bexar County: Paving the way for a brighter future for young people

One Year of Future Ready: Paving the way for a brighter future for young people in Bexar County

In the News: An Op-Ed by Our CEO and Chair in the San Antonio Express-News

Here is a synopsis of an op-ed by our CEO, Ryan Lugalia-Hollon, and our chair, Elaine Mendoza, that was published on May 25 in the San Antonio Express-News titled: “Paving the way for a brighter future for young people”

UP Partnership’s Future Ready Bexar County Plan, launched a little more than a year ago in April 2022, is a way for our community to deliver on an equitable recovery pledge to help our children and youth recover from the many ills of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is a plan to ensure all young people in Bexar County are prepared for the future.

More than 85 organizations across varying industries are working together to provide services and/or funding to our young people. Together they’re pursuing a north star goal of increasing, from roughly 50 percent to 70 percent by 2030, Bexar County High School graduates enrolling in post-secondary degree or credential programs. And the plan is to achieve this while also reducing racial and ethnic inequities in enrollment.

Although 20 percent may seem like a steep increase in a seven-year time frame, data show this goal is attainable. According to the latest available data analyzed from the Texas Education Agency, 4,449 additional Bexar County students from the Class of 2020 would have needed to enroll in a post-secondary program to reach that 70 percent enrollment goal.

For the class of 2030, who will be sixth graders this fall, about 17,059 of the 24,270 students will need to enroll in a post-secondary program to achieve our goal.

This plan builds on the existing strengths of many of our partners, which have made commitments toward equity pillars of healing, access and voice.

You can continue to read the entire op-ed by clicking here.

We did, however, want to continue to expand on further examples that our youth serving organization Future Ready Bexar County Plan partners are conducting per pillar:

Pillar One: Healing: Young people will be future ready when they all have developmental relationships and healing supports they need.

Through funding awarded by Corporate Partners for Racial Equity (CPRE) by way of the San Antonio Area Foundation, UP Partnership’s My Brother’s Keeper San Antonio (MBKSA) and the Restorative Practices Collaborative (RPC) were able to fund six long-standing community organizations all of whom are Future Ready Partners — 100 Black Men of San Antonio, American Indians in Texas at the Spanish Colonial Missions, Children’s Bereavement Center of South Texas, Empower House, Family Service Association and Rise Recovery — to provide direct training of restorative justice and social emotional healing in Bexar County. Currently, the RPC is in local school districts like East Central ISD, Harlandale ISD, Judson ISD and San Antonio ISD. These funds augment the power of the work being conducted within the RPC through the support of funders such as Blue Meridian Partners, USAA and others.

In addition to funds from CPRE, Rise Recovery was given funding from Self Financial, Inc. through a connection made by Spurs Sports and Entertainment, a corporate partner of the Future Ready Bexar County Plan. This will allow the organization to expand healing in Judson ISD, a Future Ready school district, by providing a healthy space for youth to learn about the importance of mental health, as well as the tools and skills to support their peers at home, in the classroom and beyond.

Alongside our restorative practices work, there has been significant movement in upskilling justice-involved youth through Chrysalis Ministries, which includes a three-year partnership between them and Future Ready organizations such as SA Worx to advance equity and economic mobility through workforce development services providing quality internships and job placement. It is anticipated that around 20-25 students will be recruited for a pilot Justice Involved Youth Workforce cohort starting in 2023.

Pillar Two: Access: Young people will be future ready when they can access high quality education and career opportunities.

Starting in Sept. 2022, Alamo Promise, a comprehensive last-dollar scholarship from the Alamo Colleges District Foundation, expanded its free tuition at any college within the Alamo College District to ALL students in Bexar County regardless of income or high school grade point average. This monumental point of access for our local young people to get into college was only further expanded in November, when the Alamo Colleges teamed up with the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) on the Promise-to-Promise program. This program allows students who maintain certain eligibility criteria to not only transfer to UTSA but have their tuition and mandatory fees covered for four years through UTSA’s Bold Promise.

Keeping in line with expanding access to postsecondary opportunities for all students, UP Partnership’s Diplomás network provided $60,000 in scholarships for part-time and full-time students who identify as Dreamers enrolled in three Future Ready partner higher education institutions — Alamo Colleges District, Texas A&M University – San Antonio and the University of Texas at San Antonio — through a program called the UPLift Dreamers Award. These institutions specifically distributed the funds they received to provide funding and scholarships to many Dreamers at these institutions throughout the 2022-2023 academic year.

UP Partnership through its MBKSA and Diplomás networks also hosted the inaugural Future Ready Youth Summit in November, bringing together approximately 400 students from East Central, Judson, Harlandale, San Antonio and Southwest Independent School Districts at Northeast Lakeview College. Programming at the Summit focused on providing college and career planning support to students in attendance, many of whom identified as boys and young men of color, Dreamers and/or Latinx students. In addition to those workshops, the students listened to inspiring keynote speakers, as well as fun visits from local mascots such as the San Antonio Spurs Coyote. This event is planned to be even bigger this year with a goal of increasing attendance to 1,000 young people.

Pillar Three: Voice: Young People will be future ready when their voices are heard and their leadership potential is nurtured.

After months of advocacy by UP Partnership’s Excel Beyond on the Bell (EBBSA) network youth development partners, successfully secured nearly $25 million for young people through the city of San Antonio’s American Rescue Plan Act funds in February. This funding will enable many of the plan’s partners to continue the work of growing their youth development programming and mental health services. Young people 12 to 19 expressed a need for mental health services in a spring 2022 survey conducted by the city. More than half of the respondents said COVID-19 negatively impacted their mental health.

This success exhibits the power of community members working together toward a common goal and why cross-sector partnerships are essential to the work we do in order to reach the North Star goal.

We also recognize that young people need to be a part of the leading team guiding the implementation of the Future Ready Bexar County Plan. Their voice is vital in the process and in keeping us adults accountable. To ensure that their voices are heard, UP Partnership asked its partners to bring at least one young person into one of the quarterly leadership tables that is guiding implementation work for the Plan called the Joint Organization Leadership Table (or JOLT). In March 2023, the table met at Family Service’s Association The Neighborhood Place where cross-sector leaders and youth leaders convened to continue to drive forward the Future Ready Bexar County Plan’s impact in an intragenerational manner for the first-time and is a commitment that we all continue to strive to grow as the implementation of this plan continues.

Future Ready partners such as the San Antonio Museum of Science and Technology have also collaborated with many other Future Ready Partners to continue to grow their programming such as the annual SA Smart Challenge: The Mayor’s K-12 Smart City Challenge. SAMSAT in collaboration with the City of San Antonio’s Office of Innovation, Communities In Schools – San Antonio, Education Service Center, Region 20 and the San Antonio Area Foundation, have hosted the competition since 2018, bringing together 7th-12th grade teams from various Bexar County school districts to research a San Antonio-specific smart city problem and propose a strategy, product or service as a solution to the problem. All topics come from SA Tomorrow, San Antonio’s vision for 2040, and have included topics such as sustainability, digital inclusion, food insecurity, water resources and the 2023 topic of transportation.

To date, 1,155 students from 14 ISDs have formed 227 teams that have worked with subject matter and entrepreneur experts to present their proposed solutions to that year’s topic that include technical and marketing analysis at the Mayor’s Cup Competition Day which took place on May 24.

These examples are just a few highlights of the good work each one of the 85 Future Ready Bexar County partners do to help us reach that north star goal each and every day. With one year under our belt and three since our community decided to sign an Equitable Recovery Pledge, we cannot wait to see the progress San Antonio and Bexar County will continue to make with our education ecosystems’ continued aligned contributions.

If your organization is ready to join in on the Future Ready movement, please contact admin@uppartnership.org to find out more information on how you can become a Future Ready partner or donate to the work here.

You can also follow our progress by signing up for our newsletter and following us on social media.

Meet UP Partnership’s Executive Assistant Rebekka Payne

Meet UP Partnership's Executive Assistant Rebekka Payne

As we celebrate Administrative Professionals’ Day, UP Partnership would like to highlight Rebekka Payne who has served as the organization’s Executive Assistant since August 2022. 

In this role, she supports the organization’s senior leadership team consisting of Ryan Lugalia-Hollon, Ph.D., CEO, Emily Calderón Galdeano, Ed.D., Chief Impact and Strategy Officer and Kimberly Sama, Chief Finance and Operations Officer, in day-to-day operations. Rebekka is also key in event organization and logistics for UP Partnership events that relate to the progress of Future Ready Bexar County, the community plan whose north star aims to increase local enrollment into postsecondary and credentialed programs to 70% by 2030. 

She has lived all around the country, including New York City, where she worked in the Empire State Building as the Director of Employment Services for people with mental and physical disabilities. Rebekka brings many professional skills to the position from her nearly 20 years of experience as an Executive Assistant.

She has an adventurous nine-year-old who loves reading her books each night; funny comic books are his favorite. In her free time, she enjoys art and is a self-taught photographer.

Rebekka offers the following advice: “Don’t be afraid of being afraid. Sometimes the one thing you need for growth is the one thing you are most afraid to do.”

For more information about UP Partnership, please visit www.uppartnership.org or donate to the work here.

You can also follow our progress by signing up for our newsletter and by following us on social media.

Advice from Rebekka Payne:

“Don’t be afraid of being afraid. Sometimes the one thing you need for growth is the one thing you are most afraid to do.”

Meet Kimberly Sama, UP Partnership’s Chief Financial and Operations Officer

Meet Kimberly Sama, UP Partnership's Chief Finance and Operations Officer

Kimberly Sama has served as the Chief Finance and Operations Officer for UP Partnership since June 2022. Since joining the organization in 2018, she has also previously led the Youth Development team before transitioning into the role of Senior Director of Investment and Sustainability in Dec. 2020.

In her current role, Kim works with her team to develop internal systems that model the “transformation [UP Partnership] aspires to achieve within our community, particularly in regard to finance, human resources, operations and development,” she said.

As a continuous improvement leader and strategic thinker, she values “integrity, autonomy, imperfect action, social justice and growth.” It was the alignment of those values and the values and mission of UP Partnership that drew her to the work she does now.

In Kim’s own words, “It is incredible to wake up everyday and realize that I get to channel my energy into work that I truly believe in,” adding that her days “are filled with heart-driven, soul-infused work, in which I find meaning greater than myself.”

Sama works with her team to develop internal systems that model the “transformation [UP Partnership] aspires to achieve within our community, particularly in regard to finance, human resources, operations and development.”

Before joining UP Partnership, Kim grew up as a “citizen of the world” living in the United States and Europe, as well as living and working in East and West Africa as a member of the Peace Corps., International Rescue Committee and Muso, a global health organization. While living internationally, she gave birth to her incredible kid in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso and they lived in the Republic of Mali before they returned to San Antonio in 2014.

Kim earned her bachelor’s in French with a minor in social work at The University of Texas Austin and her master’s at St. Mary’s University. Out of work, Kim is currently reading Harvard Business Review and Economist magazines, The Body is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love by Sonya Renee Taylor and Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by Adrienne Maree Brown. She is currently watching Ted Lasso, Morning Show and Ms. Marvel, and enjoys listening to podcasts and various Spotify playlists.

 

When asked what advice she had to offer, Kim offered the following pieces of wisdom:

   • Real transformation and change takes time.

   • You are enough — the knowing is already within you, believe in yourself and lead from within.

   • True change is rooted in seeing ourselves and others in the fullness of our complexities.

   • And her son’s favorite quote from Thomas Edison: “I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that don’t work.”

If Kim could be any dinosaur, she would be a pterodactyl “because then I could fly.”

 

Meet Dr. Emily Calderón Galdeano, UP Partnership’s Chief Impact and Strategy Officer

Meet Dr. Emily Calderón Galdeano, UP Partnership's Chief Impact and Strategy Officer

Emily Calderón Galdeano, Ed.D., has served as the Chief Impact and Strategy Officer for UP Partnership since June 2022. Since joining the organization in April 2020, she has also previously led the Data and Postsecondary teams.

In her current role, Emily oversees all partner-facing elements of UP’s work to help empower evidence-based decision making and maximize community-wide alignment and systems change. She actively works with our partners to streamline the many steps that lead to graduating from high school and being connected to a postsecondary education or career.

It was her passion for a more inclusive and just world that drew her to the work of UP Partnership, particularly the work the organization does as a backbone in helping provide equitable access to education and academic and career success.

In Emily’s own words, “I have had the opportunity to do work with some fantastic partners at the state and national level, so when the opportunity came where I could be a part of system change in my own back yard, I jumped at the chance. So much is possible when we collectively work together — community, policy, research, individuals.”

Calderón Galdeano said it was her passion for a more inclusive and just world that drew her to the work of UP Partnership.

Born and raised in the Rio Grande Valley, Emily made San Antonio her home nearly 15 years ago. She is proudly both Salvadoran and Mexican and loves being a part of two beautiful cultures.

She has nearly 20 years in the education, community engagement, and policy arenas. Prior to joining UP Partnership, she served as Director of Research for two national organizations – Excelencia in Education and the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, university faculty member, and Legislative Director in the Texas Senate. Emily has been recognized as a San Antonio Business Journal 40 Under 40 recipient, served as the Chair for the national Council on Public Policy in Higher Education, and was a German Marshall Fund Memorial Fellow.

Her first book, Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs): Advancing Research and Transformative Practice, is an edited volume that focuses on colleges and universities that serve large numbers of low-income, first-generation, and Latinx students, and explores how these institutions can better serve their students.

Emily received her Ed.D. in higher education policy from the University of Texas – Rio Grande Valley, her master’s from the University of Texas at San Antonio, and a bachelor’s from Southwestern University. She is honored to be one of only 112,000 Latinas in the U.S. with a doctorate, but believes that “While being ‘Dr. Emily’ is just a title, it comes with a responsibility to give back and do more to help others.”

That sense of responsibility also led to her co-founding a nonprofit called Fiesta Wishes, alongside two of her friends in 2017. The mission of Fiesta Wishes is to inspire hope, create memories and bring smiles to children in foster and homeless care to feel the joy of being celebrated by providing birthday fiestas.

She and her husband, Dr. Daniel Galdeano, a fellow education leader who was born and raised in San Antonio’s westside, are the proud parents to their adorable 20-month old daughter. In her spare time, Emily enjoys taking flamenco lessons at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, traveling, reading, and cheering on the UTSA Roadrunners.

She is currently reading Solito by Javier Zamora, a memoir of a 9-year-old boy’s 3,000 mile journey from El Salvador to the United States.

Her advice to all is to travel, “whether you go near or far, it will open up your eyes to different sites, foods, cultures and experiences. Get out there and learn from it. Our world is a big, beautiful place and San Antonio is a great place to start exploring!”

If Emily could be any dinosaur, it would be a furry velociraptor that she and her nephew named “Panchito.”

Restorative Practices Collaborative held its Principal Kickoff for the 2022-2023 school year

Restorative Practices Collaborative holds its Principal Kickoff for the 2022-2023 school year

On Sept. 1, 2022, the Restorative Practices Collaborative held its Principal Kickoff for the 2022-2023 school year at the San Antonio Area Foundation’s Wells Center located in historic Pearl. We brought together principals and community partners including Judson ISD’s Chief of Equity and Diversity Dr. Paula Johnson and Dawn Kulpa, Director of Restorative Practices for San Antonio Independent School District.

Through a check in process, partners came to consensus that they hope to change systems to scale restorative practices in both classrooms and the community to increase a sense of belonging, which will help foster better practices in the classrooms and decrease unfair disciplinary practices that disproportionately impact young men of color through their efforts in the Restorative Practices Collaborative.

There are two components of the Restorative Practices Collaborative, the first of those being community building, through partnerships with organizations like American Indians in Texas at the Spanish Colonial Missions (AITSCM) and Empower House. Both organizations practice and teach community partners about restorative practices such as peace circles and peace corners and how to incorporate these best practices into their own organizations, including many campuses from the previously mentioned school districts.

Those campuses that have this knowledge can help further build campus capacity in these restorative practices, Ramon J. Vasquez, Jr., said, particularly within other schools in the participating school districts.

A major obstacle the Restorative Practices Collaborative sees is that not all schools within a district carry out restorative practices, which can particularly be challenging for students that are in participating alternative schools who gain some skills to help with the transition back to a home school, but may not necessarily be enough to ensure their success, Vasquez added in a conversation during the event on trying to engage entire school districts, rather than on an individual campus basis.

The second component is collaborative improvement which is led by the work that we do at UP Partnership as the collective’s backbone organization, which includes making space for these organizations to meet and further collaborate and holding partners accountable to the community framework laid out in the Future Ready Bexar County Plan. Through that plan, there is a keen focus on the equity pillars of healing, voice and access—the must HAVEs for equity amongst Bexar County’s young people. Falling under the equity pillar of HEALING— Young people will be future ready when they all have the developmental relationships and healing they need— is the vital work of the Restorative Practices Collaborative.

Overall, this work feeds into the Future Ready North Star goal of increasing the percentage of Bexar County High School graduates enrolling in postsecondary degree or credential programs to 70% by 2030 (currently, this number sits at around 50%).

If your organization is ready to join the Future Ready movement or the Equitable Enrollment Collaborative, please contact admin@uppartnership.org to find out more information on how you can become a Future Ready partner or donate to the work here.

You can also follow our progress by signing up for our newsletter and following us on social media.

UP Partnership executive chosen to be part of national leadership class by The Allstate Foundation

UP Partnership executive chosen to be part of national leadership class by The Allstate Foundation

UP’s Chief Impact and Strategy Officer, Dr. Emily Calderón Galdeano, is one of 35 leaders accepted nationally

UP Partnership’s Chief Impact and Strategy Officer, Emily Calderón Galdeano, Ed.D., will be a part of The Allstate Foundation’s Nonprofit Leadership Center Executive Leadership Program’s Class of 2023, a national leadership program aimed toward augmenting the skills of nonprofit leaders to further transform their organizations, their communities and the nonprofit sector.

Dr. Calderón Galdeano is one of the 35 leaders nationally selected to be a part of the highly selective program’s 2023 class. Leaders chosen represent a variety of nonprofit sectors roles, locations, experiences and perspectives. Dr. Calderón Galdeano is one of two nonprofit leaders from Texas that was chosen for the class.

Launched in 2014, the Executive Leadership Program is administered in partnership with the Northwestern University’s Kellogg School Center for Nonprofit Management. Through the program, academic practitioners provide in-person training to thought-leaders through classroom training, executive coaching and peer-to-peer training. Program participants build leadership skills including personal leadership, organizational leadership and nonprofit management.

In addition, the cohort will discuss different topics such as developing high-performing teams, negotiating for mutually beneficial outcomes, guiding difficult conversations and understanding a nonprofit’s financial position.

“I look forward to bringing back ways to further transform our community as we work toward our Future Ready Bexar County Plan’s collective North Star goal,” Dr. Calderón Galdeano, said. Through the Future Ready Bexar County Plan, launched in April 2022, UP Partnership is working with a collection of partners, across varying sectors, in a collaborative effort to increase the percentage of Bexar County High School graduates enrolling in postsecondary degree or credential programs to 70% by 2030.