Albert Lea calendar opponents say AVID curriculum is an alternative

By Jenae Hackensmith, Austin Daily Herald

AUSTIN — The first year of AVID is underway at Austin High School for ninth- and 10th-grade students.

Educational Services Director John Alberts and teachers Kristi Beckman, Jessica White Stanley and Kari McDermott presented the AVID curriculum at the Austin Public Schools board meeting Monday afternoon.

“What we’re doing is looking for students in the middle and pushing them up,” Beckman said.

Opponents of a proposed extended calendar in Albert Lea have cited the AVID program as an alternative way to improve test scores.

AVID stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination. The program focuses on students who land just below advanced placement level classes with the hopes to challenge them and get them into those classes. The overall goal of the program is to get students into college.

“The kids that we are looking for are very determined, whether they have all the skills already, whether they know all the strategies,” Beckman said. “They want college, they have high goals, but they just might not know all the practical things they need to know in order to get there.”

The students who fit the program get B’s and C’s and maybe a few D’s on average. They are students who have expressed an interest in college, but don’t quite have the means to get there yet. They may be the first in their family to go to college, and they may be underrepresented or have a lack of support at home.

Currently, the Austin district is hosting the program for ninth- and 10th-grade students, but leaders hope to expand it to 11th grade in a year, and 12th grade in two years. There is also talk about moving the program to younger students.

“As we get to know the program, we can start exploring the different levels of AVID,” Beckman said.

AVID students each have a binder where they keep assignments as well as other paperwork. They are colored green for the color of scholarship money. The binders are checked every Friday and are worth 100 points if they have met the set guidelines and filled out the correct paperwork.

Every Monday and Wednesday, students, work on curriculum; and every Tuesday and Thursday, students work with Riverland Community College tutors, who help them ask questions and guide them toward the answers. Fridays are set aside for speakers, field trips and collaboration. The students have to fill out tutorial request forms for each day they will work with AVID tutors. Alberts said many times the students end up answering their own questions when filling them out, because they are forced to go back through their own notes.

“They end up being almost self-help documents,” Alberts said.

The tutoring groups have students present their question at the front of the room, and the tutors take notes for them and help them figure out the answer to their question. The tutors have been funded with an Office of Higher Education grant for both this and next year. After a few years, the teachers will be qualified to train the tutors.

There are currently five female college students and one male tutor, who coaches soccer and is a tutor at the YMCA.

Not only do students learn from the tutors, they also learn from their peers.

“We have really created a family of learners in our classes, and they back each other up but they also call each other on when they’re not doing what they’re supposed to be doing,” White Stanley said.

The program will take field trips to Winona State University and St. Mary’s hospital within this first year, in hopes to help show students how to be successful and where they could end up if they get through the program and high school successfully.

Each year, the AVID curriculum is different. Students can choose to participate in future years.

Beckman is hopeful for the future and is excited to see where the program will take students.

“I think there’s benefit to the system as a whole, and I think we’re lucky to be starting it and just learning more about it,” Beckman said. “And as we go forward it’s something that, start small and do it well and then look at how it fits with our initiatives in the district.”