The Ruby Young Talented and Gifted Academy offers classes led by tag-certified educators. Academically gifted learners are challenged and stretched to reach their full scholastic potential.
Our newly reimagined campus offers accelerated learning opportunities for scholars in grades K through 8 who want to learn agricultural and environmental science, drone flight, and more. Our campus is committed to facilitating growth academically, socially, emotionally, and artistically in all of its students.
Scholar Key Experiences include:
Guided Field Experiences (hands-on experience in Science, Technology, and Agriculture)
Drone Academy
3D Printing
Coding
Personalized and Blended Instruction
Business and University Partnerships
DeSoto High School Agriculture Department Partnership
Small Class Sizes
Community Gardening
Student Council
Athletics (WMS),
National Junior Honor Society
PTA
Prior to Ruby Young TAG Academy... it was RYPSA
RYPSA stands for Ruby Young Personalized-STEAM Academy and was grown out of the State Action Fund Grant started at DeSoto East Middle School by the A-Team at the time (Travis Anderson, Elizabeth Bostic, Brittany Torres, Montwanette Taylor & later Raisha Allen in 2020-21). Our inaugural principal was Noel Greenwood.
The campus was originally written to be a hybrid for 6-8 on the DeSoto East Campus. Through multiple iterations due to the changes in the district it was eventually turned into 3-8 P-STEAM campus that was housed at the former Ruby Young Elementary Environmental Elementary. The concept of the campus was essentially to make sure that students & staff experience and embrace all elements of STEAM, CTE (including agriculture, job skills etc.), SEL (Social Emotional Learning), Personalized Learning (via intervention, stations, technology etc.) and make community connections to become lifelong learners.