Texas Border Business
Rio Grande Valley, Texas – Recently, IDEA Public Schools was awarded the CAB Healthy Champion Award for its Healthy Kids Here initiative.
The award was open to organizations, institutions or groups that are making a difference in their community through their efforts to improve policies, systems, and environments to address one or more of the following:
- Nutrition
- Physical Activity
- Increasing Access to Quality Preventive Services
- Senior Advocacy
IDEA created Healthy Kids Here to help combat child obesity in the regions we serve. The goal is to become the healthiest school district in America, by providing a healthy and active lifestyle for our students, increasing student access to healthy and nutritious foods, and educating our IDEA Team and Family on health, wellness and nutrition.
The award comes during National Farm to School month, and IDEA currently has four farm campuses in two regions, including IDEA Donna and IDEA Quest right here in the RGV. At these campuses, roughly three acres are dedicated to the school’s farm program. Students help plant, farm, and harvest fresh produce that is ultimately used in the campus’s lunch operations. To date, over 20,000 pounds of fresh vegetables and produce has been grown and harvested on these campuses, which supports the Healthy Kids Here movement.
Since 2001, IDEA Public Schools has grown from a small school with 150 students to the fastest-growing network of tuition-free, Pre-K-12 public charter schools in the United States. Based on the demand from parents for more high-performing public schools that prepare their children for college, IDEA has grown within Texas and beyond, opening schools in Austin, San Antonio, and most recently, in El Paso and Baton Rouge for the 2018-2019 school year.
