Schoolwide/Districtwide

Even in the early days of AVID, a "goal of AVID, beyond academic achievement for program students, is to create or enhance a college-going culture at the school that supports high expectations and levels of achievement for all students." The Schoolwide AVID Program Essentials address the need, and requirement, for professional development and action planning by a school team so that by the end of the third year following implementation, AVID would become institutionalized as a schoolwide program and a core function of the school’s efforts to meet the needs of all students.

The schoolwide initiative is to create college-going campuses where all students graduate college-ready.

AVID is schoolwide when a strong AVID program transforms the leadership, systems, instruction, and culture of a school ensuring college readiness for all students."

Definitions for the AVID Schoolwide Domains:

• AVID Schoolwide Leadership: sets the vision and the tone that promotes college readiness and high expectations for all students in the school.
  
  
• AVID Schoolwide Systems: when systems are in place that support governance, curriculum & instruction, data collection & analysis, professional development, and student & parent outreach to ensure college readiness.
  
  
• AVID Schoolwide Instruction: when the entire instructional staff utilizes AVID strategies, other best instructional practices, and 21st Century tools to ensure college readiness for all students.
  
  
• AVID Schoolwide Culture: when the AVID philosophy progressively shifts the system of beliefs and behaviors thus increasing all students meeting college readiness requirements.

Schoolwide Case Studies

AVID National Demonstration Schools are exemplary models of the program and demonstrate the very best AVID methodologies and strategies. Demonstration schools provide some of the best examples of schoolwide AVID.

AVID Center invited these demonstration schools to participate in a case study, describing their journey to a schoolwide program. The goal was to help show other schools how AVID strategies, implemented throughout a school, could impact the lives and futures of all students.

Twenty-five schools were selected to present best practices and experiences and their case studies provide relevant and thoughtful advice for schools just beginning the journey of implementing AVID schoolwide.

Five stand-out case studies were chosen to share their information at AVID’s 2009 National Conference pre-Conference:

Falls Church High School, Falls Church, VA
Pleasant Valley Middle School, Wichita, KS
Ramona High School, Riverside, CA
Stonewall Jackson Middle School, Orlando, FL
Wichita North High School, Wichita, KS

The final, overall case study, Journey to Schoolwide AVID, features a compilation of the 25 individual case studies.  It breaks out common elements and strategies schools had in order to grow AVID schoolwide.

Want to learn more?

ACCESS Research Journal, Issue 14.2, 2008 Spring features the following articles about Schoolwide/Districtwide: