IDEA Public Schools, Inc (Individuals Dedicated to Excellence and Achievement Public Schools) is a not‐for‐profit charter school operator based in Weslaco, Texas. It was formed in June 2000.Guidestar listing Page accessed August 14, 2016.ProPublica listing Page accessed August 14, 2016.IDEA Public Schools, audited by Padgett Stratemann. IDEA Public Schools, Inc. Financial and Compliance Report June 30, 2015 and 2014. In 2015 it served about 19,000 students in 36 schools, about 85% of whom were economically disadvantaged.
History IDEA Public Schools, Inc. was co-founded by Tom Torkelson and JoAnn Gama, former Teach For America corps members, as a not‐for‐profit Texas corporation headquartered in Weslaco. Its mission was to create charter schools to serve impoverished students, starting in Donna, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley. Tracy Epp was a Teach for America colleague who helped them write the charter, joined the board of IDEA, and became the first principal of the first IDEA high school in 2003 and in 2008 became IDEA's chief academic officer.Tracy Epp Devotes Her Career to Educational Justice. Art/Sci, Vol 5(1) Fall 2008. Case Western Reserve University.
By 2008 IDEA had 10 schools and was serving 4,000 students and by 2010 IDEA had 14,000 students on a waiting list for its schools in the Rio Grande Valley.
In 2011 the Austin Independent School District contracted with IDEA to take over Allan Elementary, a school with a 95% low-income student population, and run it as an in-district public charter school starting with the 2012 school year. However many parents and an offshoot of the Occupy Austin protest group opposed the plan, claiming that the school was being used as an experiment to create education reform in the city. Many parents withdrew their children from the school, and IDEA had to recruit from outside the neighborhood and even outside of East Austin to get students. The school district canceled the contract in 2012, and IDEA opened a new school in its own IDEA school district and on its own land about nine miles south of the Allen. About 80% of the students elected to go to the IDEA school starting in 2013, leaving Allan Elementary empty and unused and taking about $60 million over the subsequent seven years out of the Austin school district.
In 2012 IDEA opened its first school in San Antonio when former basketball player David Robinson invited IDEA to take over Carver Academy, a private elementary school he had started in 2001; in the next three years IDEA opened five more schools there.Kathleen Petty (August 2015). Charter Choice: Charter School Growth in San Antonio. San Antonio Magazine.
IDEA's Contract for Charter with the State of Texas was renewed in 2015 and expires in 2025.State of Texas. February 2, 2015 IDEA Charter renewal application and grant
As of 2015 it served about 19,000 students in 36 schools, about 85% of whom were economically disadvantaged.
In 2016 IDEA was in advanced negotiations to establish schools in El Paso and in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and received a $16M donation to expand its operations in Austin from three schools to 26 schools.
In 2018 the San Antonio city government allowed IDEA to issue tax-exempt bonds, which are less expensive than the kinds of bonds it could previously issue. San Antonio-area public school districts protested the move, stated that this would cause charter schools to cannibalize them. In 2019 IDEA announced plans to expand in the San Antonio area after the United States Department of Education issued it a $116 million grant. It also announced plans to establish charter schools in Greater Houston.
In 2020, co-founder Tom Torkelson resigned from his position as CEO, with fellow co-founder JoAnn Gama taking his place.
In 2021, Gama, along with chief operating officer Irma Muñoz, was fired following an investigation concluding that they were involved in the misuse of funds. Board of directors chair Al Lopez took over as acting superintendent and CEO.
Following the death of Lopez in 2022, Collin Sewell took over his position as chair, superintendent, and CEO. Later, Dr. Jeff Cottrill took over the roles of superintendent and CEO.
Teachers According to the Houston Association of Realtors (HAR) and based on 2015 data, 24.5% of teachers were currently beginning their first year of teaching at IDEA, 60% had about 1 to 5 years of experience while 9.8% had 6 to 10 years of teaching experience. Around 5% of teachers had 11 to 20 years of experience while less than 1 percent had over 20 years of experience. In terms of ethnicity, the teacher population was 1.6% Asian/Pacific Islander, 2.9% African American, 77.4% Hispanic, 17.6% White and 0.3% were of two or more races. IDEA officials said in 2016 that about 12% of their teachers were Teach for America corps members.
Schools Individual IDEA schools usually launch on their own land with only three or four grades: kindergarten, first, and second grades in an "Academy" (as IDEA calls their primary schools), and a sixth grade to seed a "College Preparatory" school, which combines middle school and high school. It fills in the rest of the grades over the next six or seven years. IDEA has offered preschool programs.
When IDEA prepares to launch a new school, it markets the school door-to-door.
Student life As of 2016 around 95% of IDEA students were Hispanic, around 85% were economically disadvantaged, for around 33% English was a second language, and 5% of IDEA's students had special education needs.
Each campus requires students to wear a polo shirt with the IDEA logo and campus name and khaki or navy pants. In the past, students were required to keep their hair neat; for young men no facial hair was allowed and their hair must be short, and young women could wear only light makeup. As of late, many IDEA schools have become less strict about student self-expression.
IDEA schools hold a "College Signing Day" event each year to celebrate academic achievement, at which seniors announce the college to which they have been accepted. In 2016 IDEA said that 62% of graduates were the first people in their family to attend college.
Academics Admission is carried out by lottery, but students who have a juvenile record or a history of disciplinary problems may be excluded.
The schools have a reputation for being academically rigorous. In 2016 the student to teacher ratio was 22; the statewide ratio was 15.2.
Most of the curriculum for kindergarten through second grade is scripted. In all levels students in a given class are grouped be skill level and are regularly assessed, and group assignments changed accordingly. Groups move through defined sequences of lessons. All classes are taught in English.
Students cannot advance to sixth grade without passing the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR) exam in 5th grade, and they cannot advance to 9th grade without passing the STAAR exam. Students get three tries and tutoring, and if they still fail, they are held back. About 15% of students in an IDEA school in eighth grade are no longer there by eleventh grade.
Students take courses to learn the skills needed to take Advanced Placement courses beginning in sixth grade and in ninth grade they take their first AP course. They are scheduled to take eleven AP courses.
According to IDEA's student handbook as of 2015, students are eligible to graduate “only if the student successfully completes the curriculum requirements identified by the SBOE (State Board of Education), has been accepted into a 4-year college or university, has completed a minimum of 125 hours of community service, and has performed satisfactorily on required end of course assessment instruments.”IDEA Student handbook. Archived June 5, 2016. Originally linked from Idea Resources page. As of 2015, about 65% of students who entered 9th grade did not graduate at an IDEA school.
Finances Like other public schools, IDEA schools get state funding on a per-student basis, and they also get federal funding on a per-low-income-student basis from the federal government under Title I.
In its 2015 audited financial statement IDEA reported having about $445M in assets (cash, incoming grants, land, buildings, etc); in 2014 it had about $356M. It reported about $213M of income in 2015, with about $12M coming from cities or towns, about $164M from state funding, and about $37M from the federal government, with about $13M of that for child nutrition; its expenses were about $194M.
Bonds Like many charter schools, IDEA fueled growth by selling bonds which were treated as risky by the bond markets; in 2013 it raised $63M by selling bonds rated BBB by Standard & Poor's and priced to yield 4.5 percent, or about 1.5 percentage points more than the standard rate.David Mildenberg (October 3, 2013). Texas Fund's First Charter-School Pledges Buoy Debt: Muni Credit. Bloomberg News.
Grants In 2010 the United States Department of Education, under its Investing in Innovation program, awarded IDEA and the Pharr-San Juan-Alamo Independent School District a $5M grant to train teachers.Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) Awards. U.S. Department of Education.IDEA and Pharr-San Juan-Alamo Independent School District i3 Funding Proposal IDEA raised an additional $3M in private donations to fund the teacher training center; hiring teachers from the Rio Grande Valley was a goal for both school systems but people who had already been educated there were under-prepared.Morgan Smith and Sarah Butrymowicz (December 3, 2010). Charter and Public Schools Align in the Valley. The Texas Tribune.
In 2012 the company received a Race to the Top grant for $29.2M from the U.S. Department of Education. It was one of sixteen winners chosen from the original pool of 372 applicants; two other charter schools were among the recipients. In 2012 it also received a Department of Education grant of $11.5M to be paid over the next seven years.Patriciao Guillermo (May 2012). Congressman Hinojosa announces $11.5 million grant for IDEA Public Schools. The Edinburg Politics Blog.
In 2013 it had received significant funding from Choose to Succeed, a coalition of San Antonio-based foundations seeking to bring more charter schools to their city.Morgan Smith (November 7, 2013). Debating New Charter Schools, Their Policies and Their Effects. The New York Times.
As of 2016, IDEA had received grants from the Charter School Growth Fund and the Walton Family Foundation,
In May 2016 IDEA received a $16M donation from the KLE Foundation, a local non-profit, to expand in Austin.Melissa B. Taboada (May 16, 2016). IDEA charter launches aggressive expansion plans with $16 million gift . Austin American-Statesman.
Salaries In 2016 IDEA employed 876 teachers and the average teacher salary was $44,572 (statewide: $50,715); salaries ranged from a beginner's salary of $38,152 (statewide: $44,540) to someone with 20+ years experience making $60,175 (statewide: $59,787).Idea Public Schools. Texas Public Schools Explorer of The Texas Tribune. Page accessed June 5, 2016.
In 2011, the CEO Tom Torkelson received a base pay rate of $238,812 and with 9,505 students in IDEA schools, had a salary-to-student ratio of $25.121 in the same year the superintendent of the Dallas ISD was responsible for 157,575 students and had a salary of $211,216 for a ratio of $1.34. In 2012, his base salary was $299,000 and in 2013 his total compensation reportable to the IRS was $373,307.
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