The 2024-2025 school year is halfway complete! Can you believe it? This means before we know it, the next school year will be upon us. Now is the perfect time to start getting ready for it and the first thing on your agenda will be preparing for the 2025-2026 Lottery!
We’ve got you covered with all the information you need to help secure a spot at IDEA Public Schools for your scholar for the upcoming academic school year.
When is IDEA’s Student Lottery?
- January 11, 2025: This date is exclusively for IDEA Baton Rouge campuses
- February 15, 2025: This is IDEA’s lottery date for IDEA Texas, IDEA Florida, and IDEA Ohio. Families in Midland, Texas interested in IDEA Travis must visit the Midland Independent School District website for more information.
IDEA’s Student Lottery and How It Works
Each region (Texas, Louisiana, Florida, and Ohio) has their respective lottery. In it, names will be selected at random, by grade, with spots offered in the order in which the names were selected. When each grade level reaches capacity, the remaining applications will be assigned a spot on the waiting list in random order. Applications that are completed prior to the deadline will be the ones participating in the lottery.
Note: Current students that will be transferring to a different IDEA campus for the following school year must submit their application prior to their region’s respective lottery day.
Each lottery will be conducted via STREAM, IDEA’s automated enrollment software system.
- Random Selection: Applicants in each grade level will be drawn at random.
- Notification: Once the lottery is complete, parents/guardians will be notified from their preferred method of contact. You can also see their offer status by logging into STREAM after the lottery is complete.
- Accepting an Offer: In your notification, you will be linked to your STREAM account to accept or decline the offer. When you accept the offer, all other applications for that scholar will be deactivated. (Example: If you applied to IDEA Weslaco and Weslaco Pike, when you accept the offer at IDEA Weslaco, your Weslaco Pike application will be removed from the system.
- Declining an offer: You must decline your offer in STREAM. This will deactivate the application at that particular campus and award an open a seat to the next scholar on the list.
- Withdrawal: If after applying, you have decided IDEA is not the right fit for you, please withdrawal your application in your STREAM account.
To our new families that will be joining us in August 2025, we are so excited to have you! We are looking forward to creating meaningful partnerships with you and being part of your child’s life. Be sure to stay tuned for all of your campus upcoming events to welcome the 2025-2026 school year!
For any additional questions about our lottery process, visit our Lottery FAQ website or reach out to apply@ideapublicschools.org .
