SAN ANTONIO – There is only about one child care spot for every two children under 5 years old in Bexar County, according to a new report.
Two Texas A&M University-San Antonio professors, Melissa Jozwiak and Hatice Inan, prepared the report for the City of San Antonio and presented their findings to a council committee Friday.
For the 132,355 children younger than 5 years old in Bexar County, there is a maximum allocation of 87,217 early learning seats — which is enough to cover about 66% of the children.
However, survey data showed that providers are operating at 70% of that capacity. This means there are approximately 61,052 spots, which is enough for only 46% of Bexar County kids.
Regulators calculated the maximum capacity based on the square footage of classrooms and the number of teachers, Jozwiak told the Economic and Workforce Development Committee. As an example, she said, the university’s Young Jaguars child care program was licensed to have 65 children.
“We will never put more than 50 children in that space because we would never want a classroom with more than 25 children in one classroom," Jozwiak said, adding that the number would drop “exponentially” for children younger than school age.
The study also found uneven access to quality with only about 3% of spots available at facilities considered “high-quality.” Less than 1% were open high-quality seats for infants or toddlers.
Most child care facilities operate on weekdays between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m., which can make things difficult for parents with non-traditional work shifts.
Less than 1% of the sites indicated they offered care hours on the weekend.
Finding a good fit is one problem. Paying is another.
The report also found the average monthly tuition is between $725 and $1,126, depending on the age of the child and whether it was at a high-quality provider.
Saray Baray, the CEO of Pre-K 4 SA, said the report’s findings did not surprise her.
“But what it does is it confirms what we were seeing sort of anecdotally out in the field, and what we were hearing from our providers,” Baray said. “But what we didn’t know was how much and how big the issue was. So, this gives us some baseline data that as we work to address these problems, we can see, ‘Are we making progress?’"
The report included various policy recommendations, such as expanding high-quality infant and toddler care options, advocating for increased subsidy program funding and improving pay and benefits for early childhood educators.