This story has been updated.
Education, normally left to the state lawmakers who have policy-making power over local school districts, has become an unlikely defining issue in San Antonio’s city elections this year.
Anxiety about the future of Texas’ embattled public education system has been front of mind for child advocates as the legislature drags its feet on additional funding it’s been promising for public schools. At the same time, major cuts are happening at the U.S. Department of Education and Gov. Greg Abbott signed the first school voucher program into law on May 3 — the morning of San Antonio’s municipal election.
City leaders have almost no influence over local school districts, yet a number of youth-focused nonprofits are increasingly turning to local leaders to fill the gaps with after-school programs, early childhood education and workforce development.
“The state and federal conversations around education like school funding and vouchers and debates around [diversity, equity and inclusion] are shaping how people think about education at every level,” said Emily Calderón Galdeano, youth nonprofit UP Partnership’s interim CEO.
“While those debates can feel distant or divisive, … we are capitalizing on this moment by reminding voters and candidates that city leaders have real power to invest in what’s working right here in San Antonio,” she said.
That advocacy seems to be working.
Just last year UP Partnership waged an unsuccessful campaign to codify in the City Charter that 20% of additional city revenue be used for programs aimed at children — a move that local leaders seemed intrigued by, but didn’t put to voters.
Now, headed into a June 7 runoff election with many City Hall openings, candidates are giving education advocates’ ideas a full hearing across multiple forums and election events, despite looming city budget cuts and partisan pressures from both the left and right.
“I know, today, unfortunately, people are very concerned about what the future public education looks like in our state,” mayoral hopeful Gina Ortiz Jones said in an election night interview just hours after Abbott held a public bill signing for the voucher law.
While Jones acknowledged that public education is largely outside of city purview, she said San Antonio should “do our part” by expanding and shoring up the city’s free Pre-K 4 SA program so that K-12 schools start with the “best possible product.”
“I would argue that’s an investment we cannot afford to not make in our community, given the inequities and our challenges with the [Education Department],” Jones said.
Likewise, her runoff opponent Rolando Pablos, who has a background in economic development, has also expressed more openness to further investment by the city in education opportunities than other candidates with his conservative background.
In recent candidate forums he’s agreed with groups calling for expanding and investing in programs like Pre-K 4 SA to meet workforce needs, and making child care more affordable and higher quality — and sought to distance himself from Texas GOP leaders’ school voucher plan.
“Using relationships in Austin and in Washington, D.C. to shine the light on the needs that we have here, I think, is very important,” Pablos said. “There’s really nothing that we can do directly with our school districts as it relates to policy-making, but … there are many other things the city can do.”
An aggressive political effort
A focus on such issues by city candidates follows some major political spending by a variety of well-funded groups.
This year the nonprofit Futuro San Antonio spent roughly $150,000 on digital advertising, voter contact, a candidate forum and campaign resources ahead of San Antonio’s city election to help council candidates who support the city taking a larger role in education.
“There are cities across the country who are choosing to focus on issues of literacy, chronic absenteeism and different reforms or changes that the education system can utilize,” Futuro’s executive director Daiana Lambrecht said. “So we would love to see more bold leadership in our city.”
Futuro’s well-funded PAC received most of its money from a single source, Netflix co-founder and Democratic megadonor Reed Hastings, and brought on progressive San Antonio-based political consultants Düable to help with its political work.
But the group has drawn criticism from teacher’s unions that say it’s not being clear about its goals, and point to a 2022 tax form saying Futuro’s goal is to to “advance high quality charter school programs.”
“Groups like Futuro are pressing money into these municipal elections with the thought of potentially growing charter schools,” said Melina Espiritu-Azocar, president of the Northside ISD chapter of the American Federation of Teachers.
Futuro spent on behalf District 8 candidate Sakib Shaikh, who finished third in the May 3 election, but is staying out of the runoffs while it regroups on political strategy.
“The fact that we’re in a progressive city, sometimes it just adds more division to the issue of education,” Lambrecht said.
Another coalition of groups — including UP Partnership, United Way and Early Matters — hosted the city’s first early education and youth debate on Tuesday, drawing nine of the 10 runoff candidates during the busiest stretch of their campaigns.
UP Partnership’s Future Ready Bexar County initiative, aimed at improving the community’s educational attainment, raised roughly $114 million in grant funding for use over seven years, a large chunk of which comes from New York-based philanthropic investor Blue Meridian Partners, which invests in programs that target poverty. Other local contributors include the San Antonio Area Foundation and United Way of San Antonio, Charles Butt Foundation and the H. E. Butt Foundation.
In 2025, the partnership has spent $12,000 on advocacy work.
“We are encouraged to see growing recognition that early childhood, youth development, and workforce pathways are not side issues within broader conversations about public K12 and higher education,” Calderón Galdeano said. “We hope this forum was just the beginning of an ongoing conversation.”
Last month, internal polling commissioned by Futuro suggested the groups are having some success bringing voters on board with their ideas.
Among their survey of 250 San Antonio registered voters who are parents of school-aged children, education ranked right behind crime, jobs and health care as the most important city issues — up from the ninth-most important issue in Futuro’s October poll.
Limited options, shrinking resources
Concerns about education and childhood development have been a longstanding issue in San Antonio, where a persistently high poverty rate — 18% — is often attributed to low educational attainment, child care deserts and blocked access to higher education and training.
“Youth ages 0–24 make up 30% of our city’s population but receive just 6% of the budget,” said Calderón Galdean.
But even some candidates who are eager to change that have been short on ideas for how to do more through a city office.
San Antonio already has one of the nation’s first city-run pre-K programs, Pre-K 4 SA, which started under then-Mayor Julián Castro.
It also contributes to the Alamo Promise program, which offers free community college and was expanded to include all San Antonio high school graduates under Mayor Ron Nirenberg’s administration.
Though both have been broadly successful, the city’s next leaders will face a budget shortfall when they take office, with limited opportunities to create or expand programs as more state and federally funded initiatives are being pushed onto the city’s plate as well.
Against that backdrop, an audience of primarily parents and school-aged children packed into an unusual council candidate forum at Northwest Visa College in March, featuring numerous Futuro consultants milling about, catered dinner and raffles prizes like a brand new Nintendo Switch and flatscreen TV.
Of the seven District 6 candidates on stage, several answered questions about the city’s potential to grow its involvement in education by suggesting San Antonio could add a staff position that coordinates with the city’s many independent school districts. One candidate suggested a youth-centered bond election.
But others seemed confused by having an education-focused forum at all, when seeking a role that’s primarily responsible for city infrastructure, public safety and other services.
Former councilman Bobby Herrera, who unsuccessfully sought a comeback in District 6 this year, was booed by the audience for suggesting Futuro was barking up the wrong tree asking council candidates about education issues.
Another candidate, Carlos Antonio Raymond, said a major motivating factor in his campaign was the need for teacher raises — something the City Council has absolutely no power over.
In an interview after the debate, Futuro parent leader and event moderator Regina Guevara dismissed the idea that the city had no role in education, and said ideas like ones pitched were a good start.
“We have a mayor’s fitness council,” Guevara said. “If the mayor cares about fitness, well, then the mayor can say, let’s have an education council, it’s that simple.”
Challenging political environment
At the Education Service Center near Fort Sam Houston on Tuesday night, runoff candidates for City Council and mayor fielded some different questions about how they could work to make child care more affordable, ensure the city has high quality youth programs and increase the city’s youth investments.
The mayor’s race, as well as runoffs in District 1, District 8 and District 9 all feature progressive versus conservative matchups.
Among conservative-leaning candidates, most sought common ground with the advocates while stressing a fundamental belief that parents should be the ones directing much of the city’s youth programming.
Retired land surveyor Patty Gibbons, a conservative running in District 1, for example, expressed support for more summer programs and improved infrastructure.
“I don’t know if I want to build a lot of policy around how you raise your children, but I think you want to have some policies that protect your rights as a parent,” Gibbons said. “The more you pull back government, the more your families can thrive.”
Conservative candidate for District 9 Misty Spears echoed that focus on parental choice, but said the city should be going after more federal dollars to support and expand early childhood models like Pre-K 4 SA.
“If we can find grant funding — that’s the best thing I think we can try to do,” Spears said.
Progressive candidates, for the most part, proposed continued and increased investment in education-adjacent programs, such as creating policy that supports the financial sustainability of childcare centers, funding after school recreation activities and continued support of workforce development programs like city-funded Ready to Work.
Jones suggested converting closed school buildings, a result of school districts addressing lowering enrollment and multi-million budget deficits, into subsidized preschool programs and workforce development hubs.
But left-leaning candidates have also faced challenges aligning with their party’s base on education issues.
In the progressive-on-progressive runoff in District 6, for example, labor organizer Kelly Ann Gonzalez and projects manager Ric Galvan have both spoken positively about more city investments surrounding education, but kept their distance from the teachers’ union-disliked Futuro.
Futuro ultimately stayed out of that race, despite putting big resources into a candidate forum.
Vying for the District 8 seat, Ivalis Meza Gonzalez, said at Tuesday’s forum that support expanding current city-funded programs and proposed creating a “Ready to Work Jr.” program for youth development.
Spears’ progressive competitor in District 9 Angi Taylor Aramburu said the city should work more closely with the local nonprofits, strategically partnering with them and “lifting them up.”
Taylor Aramburu also tied early childhood development to San Antonio’s workforce needs.
“Pre-K and early child care has to be a priority, because that is economic development for our city years later. So we need to prioritize it in our budget,” Taylor Aramburu said.
Councilwoman Sukh Kaur (D1), who owns an education consulting company and was the only council incumbent at the May 13 forum, said city budget crunches will likely necessitate consolidation among the groups working on youth issues in the coming years.
But she suggested the city could do more to take young people into account in other places in the city budget, such as infrastructure priorities, making streets and sidewalks safer for students to use and focusing on reducing crime near schools.
“What if we addressed everything from a youth perspective, what would our city look like?” Kaur said.
Correction: An earlier version of this story reported that the amount of advocacy funding raised by UP Partnership was $114 million, but that amount is earmarked for use over seven years. In 2025, the partnership has spent $12,000 on advocacy work. The story has also been updated to clarify that the organization requested 20% of additional revenue in the city budget be used for children’s programs, not 20% of the city’s revenue.
