IDEA Public Schools, Inc. was 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.