Leadership magazine Nov/Dec 2015 V45 No 2 | Page 35
Since its inception, AVID has reduced
the achievement gap and sent millions of
students to college who may not have had
the opportunity. Additionally, 89 percent
of AVID students remain in college after
two years. Collectively, we contend that
the skills and determination of AVID students are key factors in keeping them in
college. AVID founder Mary Catherine
Swanson believed in “holding students
accountable to the highest standards, and
providing academic and social support,”
which in turn would allow the students to
“rise to the challenge.”
OUHSD has made this commitment
by placing AVID programs at all of our
comprehensive high schools. AVID began
at three district schools. Oxnard High
School, along with its staff, attained the
distinction and recognition as an AVID
Demonstration School. In the fall of 2014,
OU HSD moved toward a schoolw ide
AVID program by AVID Center, which
has spread districtwide.
For many years, the AVID program existed only within AVID elective classes to
serve as tutorials for students in the program. An AVID-trained teacher led the
tutorials, aided by college or senior student tutors trained in the AVID Tutorial
System. The classes would break down
into a differentiated model, where students worked on assignments from core
classes such as math and English, allowing students to be tutored in challenging
areas. By using this methodology, while
mentoring the students academically and
personally, students in AV ID are immersed in a “college-going culture.”
The AVID model traditionally served
st udents who lacked a col lege-going
culture at home. Now AV ID can serve
students in a schoolwide model. It is our
district’s overarching goal to have AVID
strategies immersed in every classroom
at every grade level. Not all schools are
able to make this leap, but Oxnard High
School moved to a schoolwide model in
the fall of 2014.
The def inition of AV ID schoolwide
varies from school to school. Schoolwide
is def ined as a “strong AV ID program
that transforms the leadership, structure,
instruction and culture of a school, ensuring college readiness for all students.”
According to Dennis Johnston, the director of research for AVID Center, the
most vital schoolwide strategy initiative
is the use of WICOR (Writing, Inquiry,
Collaboration, Organization and Reading).
W ICOR has enabled OHS to incorporate “Critical Reading” throughout the
school. This reading strategy increases
reading levels and understanding for English learners and all students. OHS has a
student population of more than 15 percent English learners, which makes this
campaign essential to literacy and vocabulary acquisition.
The third and final AVID schoolwide
campaign added the “Essential Question,”
which frames a unit of study as a problem to
be solved that also connects and applies what
students learn back to the real world. In addition, objectives are posted in each classroom daily, weekly, by lesson or by strand.
Along with AVID EL, this strategy has
propelled our English learner population
toward academic success.
AV ID CEO Sandy Husk , who has
seen our program develop, stated: “The
Oxnard Union High School District exemplif ies the process by which a school
implements a schoolwide approach. By
leveraging the four main areas of AVID,
instruction, systems, leadership and culture, all of which are skillfully deployed
at OUHSD, the benefit of having AVID
strategies immersed in every classroom
benefits all students and effectively closes
the achievement gap.”
A teacher’s perspective
Research shows that the number of
English learners will continue to grow.
These students enter our classrooms with
unique and diverse educational experiences from their native countries, and
most have had little, if any, exposure to
English. Specialized programs have been
developed to overcome their educational
shortcomings and advance their English
development so they can be successful
in school, including English as a Second Language (ESL). At OHS, these
secondary students are recent arrivals to
the U.S., and they usually do well by advancing to intermediate levels and even
advanced levels, where they are in mainstream content classes.
In recent years, there has been another fast-g row ing g roup of d istinct
students entering the World Civilization class. Their oral skills are similar to
native speaking students, but they have
major def icits in their reading sk il ls,
with some as low as second grade. They
have pronounced diff iculties in their
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