Good News About Good Schools
May 22, 2006 Students becoming AVID learnersBy LINDA TRIMBLE
News-Journal Education WriterDELTONA -- Roberto Lewis felt he had a choice: Be cool or be smart. He could slide by in his classes and have plenty of time to hang out with friends. Or he could take on a heavy-duty academic program that might benefit him for the rest of his life. Roberto chose smart in the form of a program that is a key ingredient in Volusia County schools´ efforts to close the achievement gap between minority students and their white counterparts. He now carries about a B average in the Advancement via Individual Determination program, known as AVID. Developed 25 years ago by a teacher in San Diego, the program is designed to identify average students with the potential to do better and push them into higher-level courses with a safety net of support to aid their success in preparing for college. "It´s not a watered-down honors program. It´s a college-prep program," said Linda Armour, Volusia´s AVID coordinator. And that means a student´s academic potential has to be balanced with a commitment to hard work, said Deltona High AVID teacher Lynelle Colon. Students and their parents must sign a contract making that commitment before being admitted. VYou can select a student who is average, but they´re OK with being average," Colon said. "If they don´t have that will and determination, when it gets tough they want to bail." Roberto and fellow sophomore Lizette Santiago have both had days like that but said they´ve learned through the program to set their sights on a long-term goal and stick with it. Increasing the scope of the specialized program has been a long-term goal for the school district. When the program was introduced at Deltona and New Smyrna Beach high schools three years ago, the intent was to expand it to other middle and high schools two at a time. That wasn´t fast enough to satisfy Volusia County Superintendent Margaret Smith, who made closing the achievement gap a top priority when she took office in 2004. The Advancement via Individual Determination program is now offered in six of Volusia´s nine high schools and for eighth-graders in eight of the 13 middle schools, serving nearly 700 students this school year. Taylor High School and New Smyrna Beach Middle will add the program in August. Extensive teacher training is a cornerstone of the program, with 87 Volusia teachers and guidance counselors attending a weeklong seminar in Atlanta last summer. More Volusia teachers will be trained this spring and summer Students in the local program are assigned to specially trained English, math, social studies and science teachers. They also use an elective course in the program one period a day in which they learn everything from note-taking skills to teamwork. Small-group tutoring sessions led by college students or advanced high school upperclassmen are scheduled twice a week. Unlike some tutoring programs, these sessions employ a guided questioning technique that helps the program´s students learn to work their way through academically challenging material. Volusia students enrolled in the Advancement via Individual Determination program tend to have fewer disciplinary referrals and carry higher grade-point averages than the overall student body, Armour said, even though they´re taking higher-level courses than before. The AVID program is now used in 2,300 middle and high schools in 36 states and 15 countries, with about 93 percent of its graduates going on to college. Volusia school officials are hoping to recruit more minority students to begin the program next year. The school district´s Latino Advisory Committee recently recommended stepped-up efforts to enroll Hispanic students in the program´s West Volusia schools. Early enrollment reports for next year seem on track, Armour said. West Volusia Area Superintendent Robert Moll expects Hispanic enrollment in the program to grow as more parents learn about it. Both Roberto and Lizette had initial doubts about the harder work the program would require of them but are glad now they chose to enroll. "It teaches you to be self-determined. That´s something you need in life," Lizette said. "One thing that makes it easier is the synergy we have. It´s one big team. We work together; you feel you have somebody." And Roberto found there´s even the chance to look cool by being smart. After catching a glimpse of Roberto´s report card, a classmate told him, "Wow, man, you´re really smart." Roberto realized he´d made the right choice. "That felt good hearing him say that."
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