Case Study: IDEA Public Schools

Industry: Pre-K–12

Solutions: RapidID Cloud Lifecycle Management

Outcome: By implementing RapidID as the foundation of its identity and access management strategy, IDEA Public Schools centralized identity across multiple states, automated onboarding and access for more than 100,000 users, and significantly improved security and instructional time—without expanding its IT team.

As a public charter operating across Texas, Florida, and Ohio, IDEA uses RapidID to aggregate data from multiple student information systems (SIS), standardize identity policies across regions, and dynamically manage access for students and staff. The result is a scalable, secure IAM framework that supports both operational efficiency and better learning experiences.

“We’ve really expanded the scope of how we use this product and the systems it touches over time,” said Andrew Molder, Director of IT Systems at IDEA Public Schools. “Now it’s an absolutely critical system that we use every single day and depend on every single day.”

IDEA Public Schools currently supports active accounts for approximately 91,000 students and 12,000 staff—all managed through RapidID.

CHALLENGE

IDEA Public Schools operates unlike a traditional school district. As a public charter organization with campuses across multiple states, IDEA functions more like a higher education system with satellite campuses—each subject to different state regulations, funding structures, and student information systems.

As IDEA expanded beyond Texas, complexity increased quickly:

• Multiple SIS platforms across states
• Different data structures, school codes, and attributes
• State-specific compliance and reporting requirements
• A need to accurately bill staff time across legal entities
• Rapid growth without increasing IT headcount

At the same time, the organization needed to support secure access at a massive scale: onboarding tens of thousands of students annually, managing role changes, and ensuring access was accurate and consistent across hundreds of applications.

“We needed a solution for customization and automation that we just didn’t have the skills in-house to do,” Molder said. “We just don’t find any other vendor that can do exactly what [RapidID does].”

SOLUTION

RapidID serves as the system that aggregates identity data from IDEA’s various SIS platforms and normalizes it into a single, authoritative identity layer. APIs pull data from each system, apply consistent logic and filters, and then provision access across IDEA’s environment.

“[RapidID] allows us to aggregate all of that stuff into one place so that we can effectively manage it, “Molder said. “That’s really the biggest win for us.”

This approach allowed IDEA to maintain consistency across all students and staff—regardless of state—while still respecting local requirements.

RapidID’s customization capabilities were another deciding factor. The district’s workflows now support onboarding and access management, handling lifecycle events such as account creation, updates, and deprovisioning automatically.

“There is no other platform out there that can build the custom jobs that we need,” Molder said. “Our account automation is the backbone of our entire organization.”

IDEA also adopted RapidID as its identity portal, giving students and staff a centralized place to manage their accounts. 

“One of the things we really wanted was that brand recognition. They see this page everywhere. If they see this page, our users know to trust it ,” Molder said. “It’s our instance with our logo and our users know they are in a safe and familiar place. 

Users can reset passwords, manage group memberships they own, and access the applications they’re entitled to. This reduces routine IT tickets and allows the team to focus on higher-value work.

“We chose [RapidID] because we wanted a centralized place for our folks to be able to manage their account,” Molder said. “We’re able to really implore people to manage their own work lives with this product.”

Additionally, RapidID supports IDEA’s multi-factor authentication (MFA) strategy and integrates cleanly into its existing security ecosystem. One of the most impactful changes came from rethinking how young students authenticate.

Using RapidID, IDEA implemented QR codes and pictographs for MFA for elementary students, dramatically improving classroom efficiency. Logins that once took 25-30 minutes of class time now happen in moments.

“The QR code badges have been a night and day improvement on how our youngest students log in every day, and the amount of instruction time that’s lost during this process is minimized now,” Molder said.

For older students, IDEA took a different approach: teaching real-world digital responsibility by switching off default passwords. These students manage their own accounts, just like they will in their adult lives and careers.

“Our goal is for our students to show these daily cybersecurity tasks (MFA, passwords) are necessary, which prepares them for the real world, and all the best practices they can implement in their lives outside of school.”  Molder said.

RESULTS

By standardizing identity across states and automating access at scale, IDEA Public Schools achieved improvements across operations, security, and learning outcomes. 

Key results include:

• Scalable Multi-State Operations: A single identity framework supporting multiple SIS platforms and state requirements without duplicating effort.
• Massive Time Savings: “Countless minutes” of instructional time reclaimed through faster student logins, according to Molder.
• Improved Security: Consistent group-based access controls, flexible MFA methods, and centralized authentication.
• Operational Efficiency: Reduced manual IT workload despite supporting over 100,000 active accounts.
• Better User Experience: Self-service account management for staff and students.

“Now that RapidID is our federated IdP, it's shaped the way our entire organization uses our technologies.”  Molder said.

With a centralized identity platform in place, IDEA Public Schools continues to expand confidently—supporting students and staff across state lines while maintaining security, consistency, and a better learning experience for all.