ODESSA, Texas — IDEA Public Schools broke ground on a new campus in Odessa Wednesday.
The campus features two new schools: IDEA Lopez Academy and College Preparatory.
IDEA Lopez pays tribute to the late CEO and Superintendent Al Lopez, who was a first generation college student.
This will be IDEA's third campus in the Permian Basin and will serve kindergarten through second and sixth grade students in its first year.
The new campus offers a college support model to set students up for college success.
"There's a need here. We're in West Odessa and we look at the challenges that have come to exist and some of the schools and some of the areas where our students would come from. There's a demand when we look up at where we currently have a campus up on Yukon. IDEA Yukon, the namesake, we have a wait list. A wait list of hundreds and hundreds of students. Matter of fact, I think that we have as many students on the wait list as we have enrolled in that campus, which expresses a demand," said Jeff Cottrill, superintendent of IDEA Public Schools.
The campus will open its doors in August of 2025.