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1801 HARVEY MITCHELL PKWY. S., COLLEGE STATION, TX 77840 | FRIDAY, Feb. 26, 2021 | VOL. 26 NO. 4 | THEROARNEWS.COM
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bridging the gap
AVID program aids student success in high school, prepares participants for college medha sarin & myla cathey section editors With college admission policies fluctuating, grades becoming increasingly more important than test scores, and many colleges transitioning to virtual learning, it’s never been harder to aim for post-high school education. Fortunately, there’s a program that teaches just that. AVID, which stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination, is an international organization that guides students through their schooling and prepares them for what comes after, teaching everything from organization and learning strategies to college and scholarship research. “It’s to help students close [the] opportunity and educational gap,” ninth grade AVID teacher Katie Hager said. Students must complete an application process to join AVID. Although they can’t apply once they’ve hit 11th grade, there are a variety of ways to enter the program before then. “Some students are recommended for AVID by teachers, counselors, [or] administrators, and [for] some students, their friends might be in it, so they apply to be in it as a fun elective class that will help them,” Hager said. “It depends on what school they went to or if their parents were like, ‘Hey, I think this would be good for you.’” AVID serves a community which has traditionally been left behind, 10th-
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12th grade AVID teacher and campus coordinator Grace Stanford says. “In our community, it’s going to be predominantly students that are low SES [socioeconomic status] and students of color,” Stanford said. “Many of these students will be the first generation to go to college, or to seek beyond high school. It has not always been easy to find the path to college admissions if you weren’t somebody who had the guidance of a counselor or a parent who had done it.” For example, junior Precious Ahaneku will be the first in her family to pursue college in the United States. “[Without AVID], I would probably not know anything much about college,” Ahaneku said. “My family’s foreign, so they didn’t go to college here, [and] they don’t really know the routes or all that stuff to take. But AVID is helping me take all those steps.” In some cases, underrepresented students have the potential to be successful in school, but go unnoticed and therefore don’t receive the guidance they need, Stanford feels. “If you’re that quiet kid who sits in the back and does just enough that you don’t cause problems, you can get three or four years before a teacher really talks to you,” Stanford said. “Well, you might have already missed being tracked. You might not have been identified as GT. You might not have been pushed into the enrichment program because you never spoke.” According to senior Na’lyiah Rooks,
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AVID is also supportive when it comes to expenses regarding college, because AVID helps pay for AP exams, SAT testing, ACT testing, and college waivers. “It’s really a great thing, especially for the minorities of Consol,” Rooks said. “I feel like it benefits them because, when you come from a place that’s unrepresented, AVID really helps you get your ideas out and helps you out with your goals.” SYSTEMS AND CULTURE Years nine and 10 of AVID are about navigating school. AVID teaches a variety of skills to help students in their other classes and in the community-- from writing, reading, and annotating strategies to service projects and team-building activities, as well as some college research. “Teaching freshmen is just helping them figure out how to work through the high school expectations, setting the high expectations for them to meet,” Hager said. Junior year is when focus beyond high school greatly increases, with class activities like building college spreadsheets, self-identifying discussions that can help for college essays, and applying for scholarships. “They have a dream school or reach school, a solid good fit, a fallback and probably Blinn, a two year. That’s our five college plan,” Stanford said. “We’re already looking at the deadlines for when applications are due.”
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