Alumni Spotlight - Issue 15 - ExLA-2

Ignacio Prado

Executive Director of Futuro Academy Charter School

 Ignacio Prado is the founding leader and Executive Director of Futuro Academy, a public charter school in East Las Vegas built on a simple but powerful belief: students can achieve at the highest levels when schools are intentional, consistent, and ambitious on their behalf. A first-generation American and former Teach for America corps member, Prado’s vision was shaped by early experiences witnessing how educational opportunity often depends on zip code—and recognizing that such inequities are not inevitable, but structural and solvable.

After five years teaching in the Clark County School District, Prado joined the Building Excellent Schools Fellowship and completed the Leadership Institute of Nevada’s Leadership Academy, studying high-performing schools nationwide and identifying the principles that define lasting success: purposeful hiring, strong culture, clear values, and disciplined execution. Those lessons became the foundation for Futuro Academy, which opened in 2017 as a tuition-free charter school with a small cohort of kindergartners and first graders. Since then, it has grown into a PreK–5 school serving about 500 students, each challenged and supported to achieve exceptional outcomes.

Under Prado’s leadership, Futuro Academy has consistently ranked among the top Title I schools statewide. In 2022–2025, students performed in the top 10% of all Title I schools on Nevada’s School Performance Framework, while the school earned “Meets or Exceeds Standards” ratings across organizational, financial, and academic frameworks every year since its founding. Prado guided the school’s growth from 13 staff and a $1 million operating budget in 2017 to 43 staff and approximately $7 million in 2024–25, maintaining fiscal strength and academic excellence along the way.

He also led the design and financing of the school’s permanent 45,000-square-foot facility—an innovative project combining New Markets Tax Credit funding and the inaugural Nevada Facilities Fund, resulting in significantly reduced long-term interest costs. Meanwhile, Futuro has fostered an exceptional school culture, with more than 95% of families saying they are likely or extremely likely to recommend the school and consistently exceed annual enrollment targets.

Prado views himself not as the center of his school’s success but as a vehicle for its mission—to prove that excellence is not rare, but reachable. His work stands as both blueprint and testimony that with the right systems, the right people, and the right purpose, every child can thrive at the highest levels.