The first charter school to open in Kyle now has chosen its leaders.
On Nov. 30, IDEA Public Schools, a south Texas-based charter school system, announced Ester Polanco and Jorge Chipres as the Founding Principals at the IDEA Kyle campus.
The duo will take the reins of a $20 million, 110,000 square-foot campus located at the intersection of Goforth Road near Bluestem.
Earlier this year, the Kyle City Council approved a pair of conditional use permits (CUPs) for the first of two phases for the campus, which is expected to ultimately house more than 1,400 students.
Officials with IDEA plan to start with 450 students in grades kindergarten, 1st, 2nd and 6th grade and would add 240 more students every year afterward.
According to an IDEA press release, the leaders for the Kyle campus were selected through the system’s Principal in Residence program, which is designed to “prepare high-quality educators to effectively lead a new or existing IDEA school.”
Polanco and Chipres will now enter IDEA’s Rhodes Fellowship, which is a semester-long program that’s the final step in prepararion for the principal role, according to the release.
Polanco, who currently works at the IDEA Bluff Springs Academy, began her career with IDEA in 2012 in the Rio Grande Valley as an elementary math teacher.
Chipres, who is originally from Mexico, worked previously at Alief ISD in the Houston area and then as a fifth-grade teacher at IDEA’s Weslaco Academy.
