Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
College Coach: English teacher Mary Schlink has taught AVID classes at Monroe Middle School for the past three years. AVID is a program that helps 'average' students get into college and stay there.
20-year-old program helps the 'in-between' students succeed
The program functions with one main goal: get students into college
By Erin Mayes
Some students, who are intelligent but do only average work, have the capacity to go to college, but many of them never do. In many cases, these students are culturally underrepresented and financially in need. Without special help, these students are the ones who are in danger of falling through the cracks.
These are the students that the AVID program is specifically designed to help.
AVID, which stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination, is a program that has one major goal for its students--getting them into college and keeping them there. And, astoundingly, it works. About 92 percent of AVID students go on to four-year colleges, and 89 percent of those are still there after two years.
Mary Schlink, an English teacher, has taught AVID classes at Monroe Middle School for the last three years and said that, although it may seem early for her seventh- and eighth-grade students to be thinking about what colleges they want to attend, they are already doing so. She displayed several poster boards on which her students had listed information about colleges that interest them.
AVID operates as a year-long elective at Monroe. Students attend all of their regular classes and then come to their AVID classes for a little extra push. On Mondays and Wednesdays, Schlink does class work with her students, covering the normal curriculum. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, tutors hired by AVID come in to the classroom and students bombard them with questions, usually about math.
On Fridays, Schlink takes the class on field trips. So far this year, her class has visited Stanford and Santa Clara universities and the nursing and restaurant management schools at Mission College. They also went to the Intel Museum and the Harlem Dance Theater. When they're not on field trips, Schlink invites guest speakers to talk to the class. Last Friday's speaker was an FBI agent.
"It's a very rich, full curriculum," Schlink said, adding that her students have shown marked improvement in their other classes. "They do cultural things, too."
Schlink said AVID helps students understand their communities so that some day they can give something back, whether it's money or time.
Once students graduate from middle school, they move on to the AVID program at high school. Currently, Prospect High School offers the program. Del Mar High School had it, but may be phasing it out because of budget cuts. No other high schools in the Campbell Union High School District offer the 20-year-old program, and Monroe is the only school in the Campbell Union School District that offers it.
"I don't think anyone knows enough about it to want to take it on," Schlink said.
The high school AVID program is intensive and concentrates on getting students into college, by helping them with SAT preparation and writing college applications.
"Because the goal is always to get to college," Schlink said, smiling.
Her own experience with the program has rejuvenated her teaching, she said. After she attended the training program a few years ago, she came away "thrilled" with what she'd learned. Although Schlink had a lot of confidence in AVID, she said she was nervous when, during the first year AVID was being taught at Monroe, administrators decided to put her eighth-graders in Algebra I--a class that high school freshmen would normally take.
Her fears were for naught, as the students did well. She credits the tutorial sessions with helping the students the most in the area of math. In fact, about half of her students this year have done so well that they're going to study sophomore math next year.
While most students who start the AVID program stay in it, they are not obligated to. Schlink is also authorized to give unmotivated students the boot, which she kindly called "exiting."
However, most students do stay in the program, and while it may not make schoolwork simple, it definitely gives them an edge.
"I don't think high school's going to be easy for a lot of them but I think they have more direction than a lot of students," Schlink said. "Our students show a lot more focus.
Campbell, California
