What is AVID?
AVID, Advancement Via Individual Determination, is a global nonprofit organization dedicated to prepare students with the necessary resources for college and a career. Their mission is to close the achievement gap by preparing all students for college and other postsecondary opportunities. Established more than 35 years ago with one teacher in one classroom, AVID today impacts nearly 1.5 million students in 46 states and 16 other countries/territories. AVID aims to cultivate intrinsic motivation by creating a vision of academic success; to create and promote a belief that academic rigor is expected, possible, and attainable which leads to positive self-esteem and self-confidence; and to generate stronger students and teachers through the development of a consistent way to think and process information.
What is AVID Elementary?
AVID Elementary (grades TK-5) is the foundational component of the AVID College Readiness Systems where routines and methodologies are designed to be embedded into the daily instruction in all elementary classrooms, across entire grade levels, for every AVID Elementary student, to maintain school-wide structures.
What is AVID Secondary?
AVID Secondary (grades 6-12) is an essential component of the AVID College Readiness System and is designed to enable schoolwide implementation of AVID’s proven instructional methodologies and content area best practices to improve outcomes for all students. AVID Secondary goes beyond the AVID Elective course to affect an entire campus or district by creating a college-going culture that increases the number of students who enroll and succeed in higher education and their lives beyond.
What does it mean to be an AVID Demonstration School?
AVID National Demonstration Schools are exemplary models of the AVID College Readiness System.
Demonstration Schools undergo a rigorous validation process and are required to be revalidated every few years to ensure high levels of implementation, with quality and fidelity to AVID strategies schoolwide.
Schools and districts interested in implementing AVID, or expanding AVID in their districts or at their schools, can arrange to visit a National Demonstration School and experience a highly successful AVID System in action. At an AVID National Demonstration School, visitors can observe:
- AVID as a schoolwide approach to college readiness
- Evidence of student achievement schoolwide
- Strong and committed leadership to college readiness for all students at both school and district levels
- A center of learning for AVID best practices schoolwide
- A committed team of trained AVID educators dedicated to successful implementation of the AVID College Readiness System for all students
- Models for excellent inquiry-based AVID tutorials—both in the AVID Elective and, in some schools, selected content classrooms
- A showplace of the commitment and synergy that a strong AVID System creates for schoolwide college readiness.