Heidie Dunn waits patiently at her desks to help her students in AVID, the new elective course offered at MCHS. Knowing that the services she is providing are making an impact on the school in a positive way.
Starting last school year at MCHS, AVID or “Advancement Via Individual Determination,” is an elective course now offered to incoming ninth graders that will last until they graduate. This elective, focused around college readiness, was introduced to our school by English Teacher Heidie Dunn and is meant to give students the support they need and push them to their highest academic potential possible so they can be accepted into any college of their choice.
“AVID is a class we started last year at the Freshman Campus,” Dunn said. “It is a national organization and is a place for students that fall in the middle tier academically, like 40-60% achievement on standardized tests, and in the middle range for GPA could use a little push to get higher academic achievement for students interested in college.”
The course itself requires students to fall with a 2.0-3.5 GPA, the first generation of students in their family to attend college, a highly motivated learner, two letters of recommendation and an application for students to be considered for the course. Dunn also explained how the course is designed to save students money for college tuition once the students complete the course
“Our goal is to take them [students] through 4 years of the elective program,” Dunn said, “and that by the time they graduate, they can get into the college of their choice with as much money as possible to go towards tuition”
The big idea of the course is to teach students study skills and organization in the classroom, as well as how the college application process works and provides guidance for college admission as well.
Though the class is offered to all incoming freshmen who meet the criteria, the application process takes a while for families and Dunn explained that it is much more complicated “simply taking the class” to make sure students in the program want the full benefit of the course offered.
“It’s actually much more complicated than choosing to be in it [AVID],” Dunn said. “So we take the kids that match all of the data (GPA and 40-60% standard test scores) when they’re eighth graders, and we call them down to their middle school cafeteria, and we talk to them about the program. They have to apply. They go through an interview process, and they are selected to be in the program.”
Despite AVID being a new program to MCHS, it is a nationally recognized organization and is in more than 7,000 schools and in 47 States in the U.S., worldwide It is used by over 2 million students. AVID was originally implemented and created in 1980 when founder Mary Catherine Swanson founded the organization in Clairemont High School in California to help her underrepresented students succeed. Similarly, Dunn’s initial interest in the program came from her view that all her students can succeed with enough effort and work.
“You can never judge a book by its cover, that’s the number one thing [i’ve learned in my teaching career],” Dunn says. “As students of all shapes, sizes, ability levels or whatever come in my class, you can’t expect too little or too much of any individual student. I think for me, that’s something I’ve always believed in, probably because that’s how I was raised, but reinforced year after year to not write students off ever.”
Dunn’s view of her students and their limitless ability level inside the classroom is one of the benefits students will see with the new program. According to data from Avid.org, in Illinois out of the amount of all high school seniors that took AVID, 75% said they took one class of rigor, 99% graduated on time, 81% applied to a four year college and 93% were accepted into a 4 year college. These statistics show many of the potential benefits MCHS students could gain from taking AVID.
Dunn finishes helping her last AVID student of the day before the final bell rings, and as she is walking out of her classroom, she feels good knowing the services she is providing to her students through AVID are impacting their lives in a positive way.