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Friday
March 29th, 2024

1 20 20 avid school boardThese LHS AVID students listen to a presentation supporting AVID during the most recent USD 480 school board meeting Monday evening. Many people were at the meeting to speak in support of AVID’s use and how it helped them. L&T photo/Elly GrimmELLY GRIMM • Leader & Times

 

AVID has been an integral part of the curriculum throughout USD 480 for the past several years, including seeing Liberal High School being recognized as an AVID demonstration school. 

Recently, however, discussion has started regarding phasing AVID out of the LHS curriculum and Monday evening, students, teachers and parents voiced their concerns to the USD 480 school board. 

“AVID is not a program, it is a system, and it’s one that works,” LHS AVID coordinator Luz Riggs began. “AVID’s mission statement says ‘AVID's mission is to close the achievement gap by preparing all students for college readiness and success in a global society.’ It’s something that should be implemented for all students, and it’s something that should be available to all students. Are we doing that? Yes, and we have been doing that since 2007. We’ve had trainings for teachers and currently, we have 52 certified teachers at LHS, and 30 of them are AVID-certified. The AVID system works. We have excellent representation of that at LHS and we hear praise about that from other schools who come and visit us and they want to know how in the world did we implement AVID with training for the teachers, because not every district has that. Why did we do that? Because in 2007 we had excellent leadership who wanted to implement this and wanted to see this last a long time. AVID implements strategies that apply to every subject and every lesson, which helps every student in every classroom, and the teachers have the autonomy to choose how those strategies are implemented. AVID also allows every student to apply – however, not every student gets in due to various circumstances. And every teacher has the choice to become an AVID elective teacher, but not every teacher wants to do that, and again, that’s up to them. But even if the student or teacher makes the choice to not be part of AVID, shouldn’t they have that choice? Of course they should.”

Former LHS AVID student Karval Bombaywala also spoke to the board. 

“The school district adopted the slogan #everylearnereveryday, but with this discussion happening tonight, where exactly is that happening?” Bombaywala asked. “Every student, every one of them in here, should have the resources and everything else available to pursue their education and their dreams. The leadership at the high school, by wanting to phase out AVID, is taking away every one of these students’ dreams of not just graduating high school, but also pursuing their career dreams. And AVID is not just the classes themselves like math and English – they are also lessons in time management, collaboration and research skills, among other things. These are not skills that are being taught every day, these are skills that are learned throughout four years of these AVID lessons, and they are being translated into so many more areas than anyone realizes. They are being translated into college work, work in grad school, and in a lot of ways, at work in the professional world. For each board member here, would you hire someone at your businesses who has no time management or skills like that? Because I certainly wouldn’t. And that is just one of the things AVID helps students do. It’s ridiculous to even think about phasing out AVID because by doing that, that is crushing every one of these students’ dreams. This district should be making sure every student is as successful and prepared for life, and AVID helps with that. If this board rejects keeping AVID at LHS, I want them to look into the face of every student here tonight and tell them ‘You can’t do this,’ because that’s essentially what you’re doing if AVID is phased out.”

Current AVID teacher Amelia Adams then spoke before the board. 

“First and foremost, as you all know, we’re currently going through the redesign process throughout the district and we are waiting to fully see how all of that turns out,” Adams said. “AVID is currently the only academic program we have at LHS that teaches our students writing, organization and other useful skills. When the AVID teachers heard about the decision to phase out AVID, we were dumbfounded. Only one of us AVID teachers was selected by our building principal to serve on her committee to phase out AVID – not even our AVID director of 13 years was asked to give any input or take part in any discussion regarding this, and neither were any of the other AVID teachers or students or their parents before this decision was made. When I asked what program would replace it, our building principal said that was being looked into, but it puzzled me that the decision was being made to phase out AVID without a replacement lined up – do you know how long it takes to implement a program and have it be truly successful? We’ve had a strong, successful AVID program in USD 480 for 13 years, so how could it be dissolved basically overnight? When we told our AVID students about this, they were devastated and asked why they were not notified or told about this since there’s so much about their education that’s at stake with this and they asked me what they did that made the school want to get rid of AVID. These strategies are available to all students, and all students have the chance to apply to be part of this. Every AVID student graduates from high school, there is no dropout rate for those students. AVID does so much for our students and it should not be phased out.”

Current LHS AVID student Melvin Le also spoke in support of AVID. 

“AVID has impacted my life both academically and personally in so many ways,” Le began. “When I was a freshman, I was so confused and lost and my biggest fear was being just a glimpse in everyone else’s eyes. When I started following the AVID procedures, particularly with SLANT, I began to stand out to people and I began doing so much better. It’s helped me so much in life and at school through a lot of tough times. When I was a freshman I decided to join the debate team – at first I was kind of skeptical and I was afraid I would fail and not be a great debater. But my biggest problem was I was so disorganized and so lost and every time I’d go to a tournament, I’d lose all my papers and lose my train of thought. So after some soul-searching and looking at the AVID procedures, I realized a lot of those things made sense and I started implementing them in different ways. And AVID isn’t just academics, though it has helped me in my schoolwork, but it also teaches life skills like public speaking and being interviewed for jobs and things like that. And there are so many rewards you get from being part of AVID and going through it. I’ve heard one of the reasons AVID is being phased out is because it’s too exclusive and isn’t really school-wide, but that’s simply not true – every student has the chance to apply to be part of this and if there’s one year you don’t get selected, you can apply again and be part of it the next year, which is exactly what happened to a friend of mine. I’m fortunate to be part of AVID and surrounded by such amazing people.”

The last person to speak at Monday’s meeting in support of AVID was local parent Enrique Franz. 

“Thank you to the board for allowing us all to speak tonight,” Franz began. “After my own experiences with all of this, I definitely agree that AVID is such a game changer and I’ve had my children in the program and I know many other parents who have and I’ve heard nothing but positive things about it. My children have had so much success with AVID, they were both in it when they were in high school and now my daughter’s in college doing very well, and part of that success is because of what they learned through AVID. This is a democracy the last time I checked and there were not the people involved with this decision who should have been, and the process that probably should have been followed was not, which is dangerous. And all of the teachers in the district are amazing and they inspire their students every day. We need to do a better job of communicating with everyone. I’d encourage everyone here to look into this and talk to the LHS administration and the school board members here tonight. AVID is such a good program for our students and it should never be phased out.”

USD 480 President Alan Brown then praised everyone who spoke at the meeting and said discussions regarding AVID would continue taking place.