After years of focusing on elementary enrichment and high school career programs, Clear Creek ISD officials said it’s time to give intermediate students more opportunities.
CCISD’s STREAM of Innovation, in which STREAM stands for an integrated focus in space, technology, robotics, engineering, arts and medicine, officially launched in late February 2025 to serve intermediate schools.
“The state is seeing that we have a lot in elementary and a lot in high school, but intermediate was sort of needing a little bit more,” CCISD’s Innovative Programs Coordinator Laura Mackay said.
The big picture
The first campus for the opportunity was Space Center Intermediate, which offers a focus in engineering.
In the 2025-26 school year, the school started offering specialized interest clubs, a coding elective class for seventh graders and an engineering essentials class for eighth graders, which is a high school course.
STREAM of Innovation has now begun in three more intermediate schools for the 2026-27 school year, with more schools planned for later years.
CCISD has the following STREAM of Innovation schools:
Space Center Intermediate: Began in 2025-26 school year
Focus: Engineering
Engineering Essentials course in 8th grade - high school course
Coding elective course in 7th grade
Specialized interest clubs
Clear Creek Intermediate: Began in 2026-27 school year
Focus: Creative thinking strategies
Clear Lake Intermediate: Began in 2026-27 school year
Focus: Aviation and aerospace
Victory Lakes Intermediate: Began in 2026-27 school year
Focus: Medical science
How it works
Each intermediate school offers opportunities in athletics, fine arts and honors for interested students. However, according to the district’s website, STREAM includes:
Core curriculum projects
Library makerspace with content-connected lessons for students to experience coding, robotics and creative design
Advanced academics
Launch classes for sixth graders, teaching basic executive functioning skills and career overviews. Each school has special launch content based on their pathway.
Interest clubs and community partners that are unique to each school
After the sixth grade launch course, students can opt into a themed elective at their campus in seventh grade and take a high school credit course or do a capstone-style project in eighth grade.
“[At Space Center Intermediate] we have a direct high school credit [in engineering], and then they're going right into the more advanced engineering courses at the high schools,” Space Center Intermediate Principal James Dinardo said. “So as a freshman, they're going to be sitting in a year two engineering course. They're able to take it really far.”
Looking ahead
To continue expanding opportunities for intermediate students, CCISD officials said they are planning to offer STREAM programs at Bayside Intermediate and Creekside Intermediate in fall 2027.
Along with expanding to two more campuses in 2027, a drone course will be added onto Clear Lake Intermediate’s STREAM program in the 2027-28 school year, according to district documents.
Teacher committees and community partners with CCISD are still planning what themes should look like for intermediate campuses that are not yet a part of STREAM. By 2030, CCISD has a goal for every intermediate campus to offer more robust opportunities, Mackay said.
“You just plant the seed and it grows … and then we get to keep these amazing people in our community,” said Sharon Lopez, CCISD’s executive director of secondary schools. “We’re building our community from within.”
