The Owatonna AVID program is growing. The program is currently home to 84 students at the Owatonna High School. AVID stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination. AVID is a national program and is offered to over 800,000 students in the U.S. The program is set to target the “middle” percentile of students. School officials select students in the middle percentile and ask them to apply before the school year. Once a student has applied and is accepted, AVID becomes a daily class, ran as a skinny for the whole year. The teachers for AVID are Mrs. Lauren Gendron (freshmen), Mrs. Angela Sager (sophomores) and Mrs. Kristen Andrix (juniors). The teachers are looped- students have the same teacher each year they are in the program. Mrs. Andrix stressed the importance of being with the students the entire time. She said, “As an AVID elective teacher, I’m a teacher, a mentor, and sometimes, a parent.” Next year will be the first year it is offered to seniors, with Mrs. Andrix being the teacher. Extending the program to all grades next year means close to 100 students will be involved throughout the year.

AVID students are not required to stay in the program for four years, but it is recommended.

AVID focuses on learning aspects inside of a theory called WICOR. WICOR stands for Writing, Inquiry, Collaboration, Organization and Reading. In short, AVID is a class that prepares students for AP classes and for college. AVID also focuses on preparation for the SAT and/or the ACT. The AVID program goes on several college visits throughout the junior year and teaches financial aid and how to write a strong resume. Students may also bring in harder problems or something that they don’t understand from a class, and their AVID teacher and class will help them through it. Students are required to use a organizational form of note taking called Cornell Notes for all their classes. Cornell notes are “clean” and make studying from notes easier. It’s not just the students that make AVID effective, but also the staff. Owatonna AVID coordinator Mrs. Halverson said, “I think we’ve been successful because Mr. Randall did a lot of research before introducing the topic to us, also, the teachers within our program are very dedicated to it.” Things are definitely looking bright for the Owatonna AVID program as it continues to grow.