UP Partnership, an influential nonprofit that advocates for the town and county to get extra concerned in training and youth improvement, has a model new CEO hailing from Austin.
Cathy Jones formally stepped into the position on July 14, succeeding Emily Calderón Galdeano, who served as interim CEO since October 2024.
Raised within the Texas panhandle and the primary in her household to go to varsity, Jones is aware of first-hand the ability of training. Throughout a sit-down interview with the Report, Jones stated she’s additionally well-versed within the obstacles many San Antonio college students face: poverty, little entry to larger training and the challenges hooked up to being “first-gen.”
A lifelong educator, Jones served as the chief director of nonprofit Austin Companions in Schooling the place she led student-focused tutoring and mentoring applications to enhance school and profession readiness. Earlier than that, Jones started her profession as a kindergarten instructor, ultimately working her manner as much as assistant superintendent of Manor Unbiased Faculty District on the jap outskirts of Austin.
Jones’ mantra whereas working in public colleges: “we won’t hurt youngsters.” It was that mission which led her to the nonprofit world, and one she says will information her work within the Alamo Metropolis.
Jones hopes to maintain plugging away at UP Partnership’s Future Prepared Bexar County plan: rising school enrollment of native highschool graduates to 70% by 2030. Launched in 2022, the nonprofit has already seen some strides, as school enrollment went from 52% that yr to 56% in 2023 and school readiness charges jumped from 48% to 54% throughout the identical interval.
“Faculty districts are the inspiration, the cake,” Jones advised the Report. “We could be the icing on the cake, or we could be the cherry on high, whichever you need. However we’re right here so as to add worth.”
The next interview has been calmly edited for readability and size.
Q: What drew you to San Antonio within the first place? Why was this a spot the place you needed to take this job?
A: My daughter goes to graduate faculty right here on the College of Incarnate Phrase, and we’ve simply fallen in love with San Antonio. I used to be in Austin for 36 years and so it’s only a contemporary begin. I’m simply loving all of the nuances and the totally different cultural issues and Fiesta. I wasn’t trying to make a transfer, however this was so just like what I used to be doing in Austin and on a bigger scale. I really like that UP has a regional strategy to this work. I really like that there are such a lot of faculty districts on this space that may purchase into this collective influence work. UP companions with seven faculty districts to date, and the purpose is to get all of them.
Q: As a newcomer to the world, the place do you see the largest alternative to positively influence the San Antonio training panorama?
A: We’re actually plugging in with the newly elected metropolis council members and the brand new mayor. An enormous a part of our work must be influencing coverage and serving to develop insurance policies which are going to assist all youth in Bexar County. Growing these relationships with our newly elected officers goes to be an enormous precedence for me. We try this by way of offering knowledge for them and details about their particular communities. Us bringing that data to the desk for them, and simply providing our help to them as they begin their assignments as elected officers … We are able to begin wanting ahead to future ballots.
Q: Amongst some metropolis council incumbents and newly elected officers, views are inclined to range on how a lot the town ought to be concerned in training tends to range. How would you get them to see by way of your lens on training and youth?
A: Properly, I’m a lifelong educator. To me, training is the good equalizer, and it’s everybody’s enterprise to get entangled on this journey. Schooling adjustments the trajectory of lives, and I’ve seen it firsthand in all my years of expertise. My ardour — my perception in training — is hopefully going to assist others see how vital this work is, that we’ve to collaborate. It can’t be separate. We have now to be intertwined.
Q: San Antonio’s newly-elected mayor Gina Ortiz Jones campaigned on quite a lot of youth points, saying the town has to speculate extra in youth and teaching programs. Is there something particular about her platform you’re enthusiastic about?
A: I wasn’t right here through the election cycle, but it surely does excite me to know she’s somebody who sees the repay of investing in our youth. So I’m excited to know that that’s vital to her, that’s definitely vital to us.
Jeannette Garcia, director of communications for UP Partnership: There are nonetheless quite a lot of conversations that we’ve to have and work that we’ve to do with the mayor’s workplace, however I feel simply her displaying up at that discussion board that was between us Early Issues and United Means was positively the primary stepping stone in constructing that relationship additional.
Q: Earlier you talked about desirous to proceed engaged on influencing coverage and laws and maybe placing one thing on a future poll. UP Partnership tried to defer extra public {dollars} towards youth initiatives through the metropolis’s final constitution evaluate and got here up quick. How would you do issues in a different way?
A: We’re all in studying mode right here, as we scale up our coverage efforts and our work with these elected officers. What will we study from the final election cycle and initiatives that perhaps didn’t get all the best way there, proper? And the way will we circle again and regroup and ensure we’re all aligning? It’s all about aligning and ensuring we’re all on the identical web page talking the identical language. We simply must double down on our efforts and strengthen {our relationships} with people.
Q: What do you see as the largest impediment in getting extra faculty districts and even perhaps the town to purchase in to UP Partnership’s mission?
A: Lack of sources. We’re seeing quite a lot of adjustments on the federal stage. Budgets are tight, and I feel that’s the largest problem. However there are funders who’re keen to fund this work, and funders need innovation. What we have been doing 10 years in the past isn’t working. We discovered that from COVID simply 5 years in the past. What we’re doing isn’t working for our college students. So how will we adapt and alter and innovate to higher meet their wants? It takes sources, and I do know there’s cuts in every single place, together with metropolis council. Over half the college districts within the state of Texas have a deficit funds due to selections that have been made by our legislature, and so when persons are in a deficit mannequin of pondering that’s dangerous to youngsters.
Q: Do you see any distinctive challenges like in San Antonio’s training and youth panorama versus Austin?
A: I really feel for Austin since they’re so near the state legislature. Colleges there are sort of a shifting goal. I don’t know if the gap helps shield San Antonio from that. The Austin Unbiased Faculty District pays over a billion {dollars} into recapture, so their monetary scenario is a really troublesome one. They’re actually struggling financially to help college students in a manner that they need to be funded. I’m unsure there’s the very same points right here, so I’ll must study extra about that.
