Cy Creek GEM Grant Project

Cy Creek HS teacher Wendy Bruner assists two students during a special credit-recovery class funded in part by a GEM grant. 

Cy Creek HS is home to one of five winning teams of the 2014 GEM grants. The school's application sought to take advantage of existing district technology and provide students from grades 10-11 with a way to retake classes after school and on weekends instead of during summer school. Using campus computers and a CFISD-licensed digital credit recovery program, grant money was used to cover off-contract pay for teachers to provide instruction.

“These classes are a great opportunity for students to recapture credits during non-traditional hours,” said Richard Alcorn, Cy Creek assistant principal. 

Alcorn led the team responsible for submitting the grant application. 

The classes will continue through the remainder of the 2014-2015 school year.  

The guidelines for submitting an application for the 2015 GEM Grants can be found inside.cfisd.net.

Cy Woods GEM Grant Project

CFISD band students join Waller and Spring Branch ISD students to form the All-Region band for a special series of concerts.

Cy Woods HS is home to one of the five winning teams of the 2014 GEM grants. Their application presented a plan to give additional students an opportunity during All-Region band auditions by providing tutoring during the summer. The team responsible for this project was made up of Cy Woods teachers Kevin Wood, Cinjin Casillas and Michael Vasquez. Woods acted as team leader.

The weeklong band camp took place during August 2014. The grant money enabled the team to hire professional musicians to work with Cy Woods band students on instrument-specific music fundamentals. The students also practiced the music that would be used at All-Region auditions. These two-hour sessions allowed the ninth- through twelfth-grade students to develop a more consistent and unified approach to playing their instruments. 

The positive impact of the GEM grant project was evident in November when six Cy Woods students earned membership into the UIL Region 27 All-Region Orchestra—a 50% increase from 2013.

The guidelines for application submissions for the 2015 GEM Grants can be found online.

Growing Minds

In 2012, H-E-B named CFISD the large district winner during its Excellence in Education Awards ceremony and awarded the district a $100,000 cash prize. The district chose to distribute these funds using an internal grant-making process, which was named GEM (Gap-Elimination Measures). In the spring of 2014, teams of CFISD teachers submitted applications outlining a variety of projects to implement in the classroom. The top-scoring five applications were selected using a point system. Hemmenway ES was home to one of these winning teams.

The objective of this project was to provide an outdoor learning environment where hands-on activities could be used to increase vocabulary development. The GEM team, led by teacher Alicia Farmer, built their application around research-based strategies. 

The Outdoor Learning Lab was constructed in November 2014 with the help of an Eagle Scout from Troop 574, teacher volunteers and the Hemmenway garden committee. After construction, seeds were planted and the garden was divided, with each grade level taking responsibility for a section. 

Classrooms have already begun using the garden as a teaching tool. A second-grade language arts class recently used the space when teaching sequencing. The garden committee is building a lesson bank for teachers to use. In addition, the committee will select students to join the Growing Minds Garden Club in the spring.

Edit 2/12/15: There were five top-scoring applications for the 2014 GEM grant. The original version of this post had the number as seven.