Being a teenager in San Antonio carries a novel set of challenges — a reality exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the town’s regular poverty charge.
In Bexar County, there’s greater than 33,000 individuals between the ages of 16 and 24 who’re disconnected from work, schooling, social providers and generally household, in accordance with the Federal Reserve Financial institution of Dallas. These people are often known as “alternative youth,” and lots of within the metropolis are working to fill within the gaps for them.
Rebekah Solis, 23, is aware of these gaps greater than most. An American-born citizen, she got here again to the nation in 2020 from Mexico to enroll in faculty and faucet into the “larger alternative,” she mentioned. Nevertheless, Solis struggled loads.
NXT Stage Alternative Youth Middle is a program underneath the town’s Human Providers division working to attach and reconnect these younger individuals to work and schooling. It’s additionally the one nontraditional pathway into the town’s Alamo Promise, a last-dollar scholarship for Bexar County excessive schoolers who enroll within the Alamo Faculties District proper after commencement.
Solis joined NXT Stage in December of 2020, getting down to obtain two targets by way of this system: enroll in faculty and discover a job. Going through monetary and tutorial struggles, it took her some time, however she graduated from NXT Stage final yr.
“I felt like I wanted lots of assist after I simply got here right here, as a result of there have been so many issues that I didn’t know,” she informed the Report. “I really feel like it will have taken me loads longer to be the place I’m right now than if I hadn’t been in this system.”
Housed on the Frank Garrett Multi-Service Middle on the West Facet, this system presently serves greater than 200 individuals with tales just like Solis, however NXT Stage used to have two houses.
Northside ISD location closes
Bexar County’s variety of alternative youth greater than doubled through the summer time of 2020 to about 75,000.
After the pandemic, officers at Northside Impartial Faculty District observed many older college students didn’t return to high school, and lots of who graduated in 2020 had been struggling transferring on to jobs and faculty.
The problem actually struck Gerald Lopez, who served on the district’s college board from 2015-2024, when he was approached by a younger man in a gasoline station. He wanted cash, and Lopez acknowledged him as a Northside ISD scholar.
“College students had been dropping connections with associates and academics … Everybody was seeing what college students had been going by way of,” Lopez recalled. “They shouldn’t have been misplaced in that area between leaving college and never having a house.”
The coed, who Lopez didn’t identify, had graduated through the pandemic and was struggling to search out housing. Lopez introduced the difficulty up with the remainder of the board, asking what could possibly be finished for the district’s disconnected college students.
In 2022, Northside ISD partnered with the town to supply this system for Northside college students and residents for 3 years. The district dedicated $500,000 yearly, giving NXT Stage area to run this system, a meals pantry and donation middle.
Going through a $38 million finances deficit, Northside determined to not renew its settlement with the town, successfully closing down the middle and transferring all of its present individuals to the West Facet location.
Kimberly Ridgley, assistant superintendent for complete baby improvement at Northside, mentioned ending the settlement after three years was all the time the plan. It was a manner for the district to reconnect with “leavers,” college students who didn’t return to highschool.
Ridgley mentioned this system was “good to have” however not manageable to run together with the applications the district is already operating.
“Northside has by no means been afraid to strive applications it thinks will assist children … It’s unhappy that it’s over, but it surely’s not likely over,” she mentioned.
The district does produce other specialised providers for college kids struggling to complete their highschool diplomas and college students coping with homelessness.
In its three years, greater than 200 college students went by way of Northside’s NXT Stage middle. When the contract interval led to April, 104 individuals continued to obtain providers.
Lopez, who now sits on the board for the Alamo Faculties District, was not a part of the choice not renew the settlement between the town and Northside, however he says he understands.
“It served its objective,” he mentioned. “I used to be proud that the board acknowledged that we wanted to do extra for college kids within the first place.”
Efforts for alternative youth proceed
Closing the Northside location did put some pressure on this system’s present capability. There are about 260 present individuals, however common capability sits at 240.
However Angel Lerma, program supervisor for NXT Stage, mentioned metropolis workers can deal with it. It helps that a number of of their providers will be supplied just about, particularly since many individuals battle with having dependable transportation.
NXT Stage presently has a waitlist of 140 younger individuals. Relying on their targets, individuals are normally actively in this system just a few months to a yr.
Most individuals belong to a minority or marginalized inhabitants. About 70% are Hispanic or an individual of shade, 11% are homeless on the time of entry to this system (a quantity Lerma mentioned swelled in 2020), and 80% have a yearly revenue of $10,000 or much less.
A number of are additionally younger dad and mom, and NXT Stage helps by discovering low-cost or free childcare choices for these individuals.
This system’s common “reconnection” charge, which means how typically individuals are in a position discover work or proceed their schooling by way of NXT Stage, is 60%.
Members’ paths aren’t linear, Lerma defined. For a lot of causes, individuals might drop out of this system after which re-enroll, particularly when coping with housing insecurity. NXT Stage additionally serves as a prevention program, he added.
The county typically refers low-level felony offenders who meet NXT Stage’s eligibility standards to this system as a substitute of taking extra punitive motion.
For Lerma, who’s labored with youth on the metropolis stage for a number of years, this system is about breaking the stereotype that younger persons are unmotivated.
“I believe all the youthful those who we serve are very resourceful, very motivated, very compassionate,” he mentioned. “I believe some adults failed them of their lives. And actually they’re simply working to get again on their ft and in being profitable like all of us actually.”
Nontraditional path to Alamo Promise
When Solis, an alumnus of NXT Stage, tried to use for faculty within the U.S., she realized she didn’t have a sound highschool diploma, since she graduated in Mexico. She additionally didn’t have a Texas identification or the shot data wanted to enroll at a school campus.
“It was like tutorial shock,” she mentioned. However Solis quickly discovered Restore Training, a neighborhood program providing GED completion courses, who then referred her to NXT Stage.
With the assistance on an schooling coach and a life coach — most individuals get assigned each coaches to assist meet their wants — Solis acquired her ID and later her driver’s license, enrolled in medical insurance, discovered low-cost vaccines for college and enrolled at San Antonio School’s biology pre-medical program with an Alamo Promise scholarship.
NXT Stage is the one pathway into the Alamo Promise program that doesn’t require college students to be conventional freshly-graduated highschool seniors. This fall, Alamo Faculties District has 37 NXT Stage individuals enrolled by way of the scholarship program.
Since opening the scholarship to NXT Stage college students in 2020, Alamo Faculties has served 138 individuals and yearly targets 25 college students. A spokesperson for the school district mentioned there are presently no different plans to additional broaden entry to Alamo Promise.
Solis has been attempting to complete her affiliate for the reason that fall of 2021. She mentioned she nonetheless has one other yr to go, since she takes breaks from college to have the ability to concentrate on work — she’s labored at a blood financial institution since December of 2023.
She achieved the targets she arrange for herself when she joined NXT Stage, Solis mentioned. Now, her targets are ending faculty and persevering with her schooling to sooner or later be a pediatrician.
Solis has a message for younger individuals able just like hers just a few years in the past: problem your self at a doable tempo.
“It may be small steps. It may be large steps,” she mentioned. “No matter they’ll handle to do.”
