Pre-K 4 SA’s South Education Center will move farther south from its City Base location to an 8-acre lot off of South WW White Road in August, and for the first time in its history, Pre-K 4 SA will offer care for toddlers and infants under the age of 3.
Pre-K 4 SA is a city-funded child care program approved by San Antonio voters in 2012 that traditionally served children ages 3 and 4.
Applications for the infant toddler program are not open yet, but the new South center will offer to families 40 spots for infants and toddlers.
Since opening its first two centers in 2013, the program has served 13,000 children, expanded to four centers and partnered with nearly every school district in the area.
Construction of the new South facility has been underway since February of 2024. The project is a combined effort between the early education group and the Holt Group, an industrial company who donated the lot to Pre-K 4 SA and is helping them with the center’s construction.
Once it’s finished, Pre-K 4 SA will lease the new center from Holt until they can buy it.
Holt founded Early Matters San Antonio in 2019, a statewide collaborative of business leaders boosting economic mobility and prosperity through investments that support children. Holt is financing and leading the construction with contractor G.W. Mitchell and seven design teams.
“We will be able to have this fabulous building and eventually own it, so we can put more money back into programming,” said Pre-K 4 SA’s CEO Sarah Baray during a recent tour of the construction site.
Once construction concludes, the new center will have two “suite-style” rooms that will hold four classes of 10 toddlers or infants, Baray said.
Event though Pre-K 4 SA is expanding its programs, the new center will only have 20 classrooms in total, compared to the 25 at the current location.
A few miles away is Educare, a low-cost child care facility currently under construction at Texas A&M University-San Antonio, and Pre-K 4 SA is a partner of the campus-based program.
Baray expects some families will prefer enrolling their children at the Educare site, which will also offer low-cost early education services to families on the South Side.
Pre-K 4 SA decided to expand its services to families with infants and toddlers after a report commissioned by the City of San Antonio found that only 66% of families in Bexar County had access to child care for children under the age of 5.
Baray noted availability is actually less, given that child care centers don’t usually fill their classroom to licensed capacity because it would affect the quality of education.
In total, there are only 1,000 available spots for infants and toddlers to receive child care in San Antonio on any given day, Baray said.
“It’s an issue for the children, but also for the workforce,” Baray said, explaining that employers look at an area’s availability of child care when deciding whether to set up shop.
In total, the new center will offer 350 spots for children under the age of 5, but services for infants and toddlers won’t begin until October.
Unlike its regular pre-K services for kids who are 3 and 4, infant and toddler services will be available year-round.
Though Pre-K 4 SA has not landed on an exact number yet, infant and toddler programs will cost more than its regular pre-K services.
“We want to be additive,” and offering services at little to no cost would take away from existing infrastructure and local child care centers in the area, Baray said.
For children ages 3 and 4, enrollment costs are usually income-based with 80% of seats reserved for families that earn $80,000 a year or less and military-affiliated families, while 20% of seats are open to families based on a sliding fee scale.
If the toddler/infant pilot program goes well, Baray said Pre-K 4 SA may consider offering it at the other three locations.
The new center will include a nurse’s office, a “family cafe” which is a room for families who need guidance or access to resources and an outdoor play area, which can found at all Pre-K 4 SA centers.
Unlike the current South center at 7031 S. New Braunfels Ave., the new location will give students direct access to the outdoor “natural play” areas from their classrooms, which will have natural playscapes, mud kitchens and blocks.
The design includes natural light from large windows in every hallway to create an indoor-outdoor feel for students, Baray said. The windows are glazed, which allow for natural light but make them difficult to break.
Inside the building, hallways will have activity areas and playing nooks to maximize the “learning space,” and the new center will feature observation rooms where student teachers and education instructors can hold class and watch the children.
Soon, Pre-K 4 SA will commission local artists to create art pieces inspired by San Antonio’s natural landscape, which will be displayed throughout the building’s nooks and hallways.
The new center will also have an outdoor classroom with an amphitheater and pavilion, designed for learning and community activities, as well as an “adult” work room for teachers.
“Everything in the school is for the children,” Baray said. “The teachers need their own space to be able to do their planning and relaxing and taking a break and just, you know, being professionals that they are.”
