STEAM Gifted & Talented Academy

CFBISD’s Parent Association for Gifted and Talented has been awarded the 2020 Parent Group of the Gifted Award for their exceptional efforts in supporting the advancement of gifted students. 

CFBISD’s AGT Parent Association has a 40+ legacy of advocating and supporting educators and gifted families. It is the longest sustained parent organization dedicated to serving the needs of the gifted. Their advocacy has supported the increased gifted identification of students in CFB to above 10% of our total student body with impressive increases in demographic groups that have been least likely to be served.

When COVID struck, AGT was ready to jump into action. AGT offered FREE membership. CFBISD parents eagerly joined and AGT’s membership jumped over 500% in a single year.  Over the summer, CFBISD’s gifted families were able to participate in virtual connections, events, academic adventures, and just for fun evening antics.

Under the leadership of president, Cherin Escher, AGT’s mission extended to increased visibility to our School Board and community partners.

Congratulations to our AGT Parent Association leadership for their contribution to CFBISD’s families and their partnership with our Advanced Academics Department.

The STEAM Gifted and Talented Academy at Landry is a new and exciting program housed exclusively at Landry Elementary School designed to serve CFBISD’s Academic Creative Education (ACE) Gifted and Talented (GT) students.  STEAM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics.   It will offer the unique opportunity for ACE identified students to learn with their academic peers in homogeneously grouped classes with enriched curriculum (not grade accelerated) in the four content areas: Math, Science, Language Arts, and Social Studies. It is offered in grades 1 through 5.  This program allows students to take advantage of the enriched Imagine Fine Arts combined with extensions in technology and engineering.

Updates will be available at www.cfbgiftedacademy.com.

ACE students are served on each campus in a cluster grouping model. Cluster grouping is where ACE students are in a general education class and the teacher differentiates through small group instruction with their academic peers.  ACE students in K, 1st, and 2nd are served across all content areas.  ACE students in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade are served in the academic area(s) of their strength (ELA or Math). ACE students, who were previously identified GT in Kindergarten and 1st grade, are reviewed in 2nd grade to determine if their achievement is high in Language Arts, Math, or both. This review determines the content area(s) in which they will continue to be served. Those students who are newly ACE identified in 2nd grade and above are automatically placed in ACE as GT in Language Arts, Math, or both depending on their achievement and ability assessments.  All ACE students who are identified for either ELA, math or both are eligible for the STEAM Gifted Academy.

Homogeneous grouping means that ACE students will be taught in the content classroom with only other ACE identified students. This is an ACE academic grouping model unique to the STEAM Gifted Academy.  STEAM students will interact with all grade level peers in Fine Arts, Physical Education, and after school programming.

Both models are similar in that they are self-contained classrooms; however, the LEAP program, CFBISD’s Leading Exceptional Academic Producers GT program, is for highly gifted students demonstrating achievement and ability at two grade levels above in all subject areas. This program is housed at McCoy Elementary and at Perry Middle School. This is another unique CFBISD program for gifted students who qualify by meeting additional criteria beyond ACE.

The STEAM Gifted Academy will be for first through fifth grades. Kindergarten is not part of the design of the program.

Class size in first through fourth grades are typically 22 students. Fifth grade may expand to additional students according to state guidelines.

Just like ACE students at their home campuses, the STEAM Gifted Academy will follow the district grade level curriculum and state TEKS. Students will also take state tests on grade level.  The difference will be the pacing and additional extensions that the Academy teachers will do to differentiate student learning. Each academic content will offer enrichment to the academic program with the goal of increased student engagement to meet the advanced academic needs of our ACE students.  Planned extensions for math will include lessons from Contexts for Learning Math; science/technology/engineering will include problem-based learning by using LEGO learning units; social studies will learn through hands-on experiences with Geography Labs; and English Language Arts will conduct additional research with Texas Performance Standards Projects.  Academy students will also participate in the Imagine Fine Arts Academy at Landry.

Landry is one of the Imagine Fine Arts Academies in CFBISD.  Students learn and grow through art, music, theater, and dance in a rotation schedule. This additional exposure to the fine arts further enhances the STEAM Gifted Academy experience for GT students.  Auditions for ensembles are open for all of Landry students.

No. The STEAM Gifted Academy at Landry classes will be in English.  World Language is not part of the curriculum design.