IDEA Allan finds permanent home for school

"A permanent home for our students, families and staff has been months in the making," Tackett said in a news release. "The future is bright for IDEA in Austin, and we are excited to rededicate IDEA Allan next fall. At full scale, the campus will be the home to more than 1,300 students in grades K–12—all on the road to and through college."

The school hopes to open its new site in August 2014. IDEA needs to raise about $4 million during the next several years to cover the facility funding gap for public charter schools in Texas, Tackett said.

IDEA has been looking for a new location since December, when the Austin ISD board of trustees voted to terminate the district's contract with IDEA effective at the end of the 2012–13 school year. During the summer, it relocated to a temporary location at 220 Foremost Drive in Southwest Austin.

With the first six weeks of the 2013–14 school year complete, IDEA Allan held an open house Oct. 15 at its current site. Teachers and staff answered questions about the how the charter school's blended learning model works and how students have progressed.

"The results are strong," Tackett said. "We're really focused on building on the success from last year, and we've got really high expectations for all of our students and staff, that we can move from good to great."

In the 2012–13 school year, IDEA Allan earned distinctions from the Texas Education Agency, with sixth-graders outperforming students at comparable middle schools by an average of 21 percentage points on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, test in math and reading.

IDEA seventh-grader Mirella Verdin said she is on track to graduate from college in 2022.

"IDEA really pushes you to be a good student to have manners and not have excuses of when you don't do your work," she said.

Sally Gardner, assistant principal for instruction, said when students come to the school and are scoring below grade level, teachers work one-on-one with them to bring them up to speed.

"[For] our children that came to us just one year ago that are now in seventh grade, we're seeing at least a year and a half to two years' growth [in terms of grade level] in one year's time," she said.

Of the school's 605 students, about 90 percent come from low-income families, according to Principal Steve Mudd, noting the school has focused on achieving a high attendance rate.

"Most of our students are coming to us from really difficult situations, and so this may be the only place that they get a warm meal," he said.

IDEA Allan has partnered with Communities In Schools, Foundation Communities and other nonprofits to provide support for students and their families.

The school plans to hold another community open house Dec. 16.