At the Citi Foundation, we commend AVID on their efforts

At the Citi Foundation, we commend AVID on their efforts and are pleased to support their invaluable work. The Citi Foundation is committed to the economic empowerment and financial inclusion of low- to moderate-income individuals and families in the communities where we work so that they can improve their standard of living. Globally, the Citi Foundation targets its strategic giving to priority focus areas: Microfinance, Enterprise Development, College Success, and Financial Capability and Asset Building. In the United States, the Citi Foundation also supports Neighborhood Revitalization programs. The Citi Foundation works with its partners in Microfinance, Enterprise Development, and Neighborhood Revitalization to support environmental programs and innovations. Additional information can be found at www.citifoundation.com.

ENSURING COLLEGE READINESS FOR ALL:

Equity, Consistency, Support and Rigor

A BLUEPRINT for Urban Leaders and Education Stakeholders

INTRODUCTION 2

ABOUT AVID 4

THE AVID COLLEGE READINESS SYSTEM 5

THE AFRICAN AMERICAN MALE INITIATIVE (AAMI) 7

LESSONS LEARNED FROM AAMI 10

NEXT STEPS FOR AVID 13

THE VITAL ROLE OF COMMUNITY LEADERS 14

TEN STEPS TO CREATE A STUDENT ACADEMIC SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR YOUR COMMUNITY 15

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www.avid.org

Raise expectations

for students and, with

the right supports in place, they will

rise to the challenge.

INTRODUCTION In city after city across the United States, urban leaders and stake-holders recognize that economic prosperity requires a high-quality education system that enables increased educational attainment and ensures success for all students. The educational attainment of a city’s population increases the income of its residents and the city’s overall prosperity. Per capita incomes are strongly correlated with levels of educational attainment. To put this in perspective, if America’s 51 largest metropolitan areas increased four-year degree attainment by one percentage point, then the nation’s aggregate personal income would increase by $124 billion. i Unfortunately, for decades now, education systems in America’s major cities have struggled to support all students. Many of America’s urban centers face persistent and troublesome achievement gaps that separate racial and ethnic minority students from their peers. A glimpse of these gaps can be seen in the nation’s high school dropout rates. In 2011, just five percent of America’s white students dropped out of high school. That same year, seven percent of African American students and 14 percent of Hispanic students dropped out.ii This gap is even more dramatic in major cities. The AVID system has been working for 30 years in communities across the country to help all students succeed. Driven by knowledge, experience, and research garnered from working with students, educators, and communities, AVID knows that students from low-income families without a college-going tradition can succeed in high school and graduate college ready—if they have the right supports in place. To achieve this, students need a suite of academic and social supports that are consistently available and that they can readily access. Over the past five years AVID has had the privilege to partner with Citi Foundation to create the AVID African American Male Initiative (AAMI). The goal of the AAMI was to increase the academic engagement and achievement of the participating African American male high school students.

3

Leading the Way to College: A Blueprint for Success

AVID developed Culturally Relevant Teaching (CRT) curriculum and training as part of the AAMI. The CRT curriculum has been integrated into the AVID system to boost professional development and coaching for teachers. This enhancement helps give students in all subgroups greater access to the academic support and rigor required for college readiness. This Blueprint integrates lessons learned from the African American Male Initiative with AVID's experience as a leading college readiness expert. It is designed to help education stakeholders—including school, business, community, foundation, and faith-based leaders: Understand and assess the state of their current academic

support programs;

Enhance and implement equitable, consistent, and rigorous academic supports that help students become college ready; and

Replicate and sustain programs that increase educational attainment, resulting in long-term economic growth and vitality.

Commitment, vision, and support are required of not only school leaders but of key community leaders, including the mayor’s office, city council, businesses, foundations and faith-based organizations. This shared commitment, vision, and support will ensure that successful programs are sustained even during challenging economic and transitioning political times, so that all students have equal access to educational attainment.

iCEOs for Cities; The Talent Dividend, September 2008 iiNational Center for Education Statistics

The Blueprint identifies and explains

Ten Steps urban leaders and

education stakeholders can take to

assess, build, launch and sustain a student

academic support system

for equity, consistency,

support and rigor to keep students on

track for postsecondary success.

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www.avid.org

AVID Advancement Via Individual Determination

AVID was created in 1980 by one exceptional teacher, Mary Catherine Swanson, when the school district started to bus inner city students to the recently desegregated suburban school at which she taught. Many of her fellow teachers thought that these students would not be able to succeed. Mary Catherine under-stood that they just needed the opportunity and the right support. Therefore, she enrolled 32 low-income, diverse students in a class designed to develop their study skills, tutor them in collaborative study groups, and focus on writing for learning. Her strategy worked: over 90% of the students in that first class completed college. For over 30 years, Mary Catherine’s simple yet profound formula has withstood the test of time: Raise the expectations of students and, with the AVID support system in place, they will rise to the challenge. More than 97 percent of AVID high school seniors graduate from high school, and more than 75 percent are accepted to four-year colleges-consistently. Today, AVID is implemented in nearly 4,900 schools in 45 states, the District of Columbia, and 16 countries/territories. AVID now impacts more than 700,000 students in grades K–12 and in 41 post-secondary institutions.

AVID’s Mission is to close the

achievement gap by preparing

all students for

college readiness and success in a

global society.

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THE AVID COLLEGE READINESS SYSTEM College readiness begins in kindergarten and extends through elementary, middle, and high school and into postsecondary education. AVID has evolved from one class in one high school to a comprehensive system that gives students in grades K–16 the strategies and support they need to achieve. AVID's core components are:

Academic support and instruction delivered to students by teachers trained in proven, research-based AVID Instructional Methodologies designed to build students’ writing, inquiry, collaboration, organization, and reading skills;

AVID Curriculum Resources, which are rigorous, sequential curriculum materials integrating the AVID methodologies in all content areas;

Extensive Professional Development to prepare teachers and administrators to implement AVID, to incorporate the methodologies in all classes and to build school cultures with high expectations for all students and a growth mindset; and

Interdisciplinary Site Teams of teachers, counselors and administrators to lead AVID implementation and set quantifiable goals for school improvement based on site data. Teams foster strong collegial support and demonstrate that student success is a shared responsibility.

AVID accelerates under-achieving students into more rigorous courses and then provides them the intensive academic support necessary for success in rigorous courses. AVID secondary school students enroll in an AVID Elective class that incorporates a collegial approach and Socratic methods that specifically target the needs of underachieving students. The school-based peer group for AVID students becomes one that values achievement and supports students in their academic efforts.

AVID Instructional

Methodologies known as WICOR: Writing for Learning

Emphasis on Inquiry

Collaborative Approach

Organization

Reading to learn

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AVID transforms schools and school districts. The system incorporates and gives life to the explicit belief that low income and minority students can achieve at high levels and attend college. This philosophical underpinning helps to change the expectations that teachers have of disadvantaged students. Simply breaking the paradigm and raising expectations is a crucial first step toward closing the achievement gap between racial and economic groups. As the chart below indicates, AVID is making great progress in closing the achievement gap for students in the system. AVID Center. AVID Senior Data Collection. (2012‐ 2013). Study of 34,229 AVID Seniors. Greene, J.P. and Forster, G. (2003). Public high school graduation and college readiness rates in the United States (Report No. 3). New York: Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. *Filipino and Other not classified by Greene and Forster (2003) National data represents the most current comprehensive data available

However, much work still needs to be done to ensure the success of all students. While 91 percent of AVID seniors complete four-year college entrance requirements, only 36 percent of high school seniors in the U.S. complete these same requirements.

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THE AFRICAN AMERICAN MALE INITIATIVE (AAMI) AVID maintains a strong focus on and track record of supporting low-income and minority students. African American students participate in AVID in significant numbers, comprising 18 percent of the more than 700,000 students currently served by AVID. However, recruiting, engaging, and retaining African American male students in the AVID Elective has been a challenge. While 92 percent of African-American seniors in AVID completed four-year college entrance requirements, the data shows that 63 percent of those African American seniors are female. To address this challenge, AVID conducted a review of national and AVID program data to identify systemic barriers to African American student success. AVID engaged key researchers to identify equity issues in education and then held a conference in 2007 to share research findings and best practices. Experts identified several educational practices that infuse cultural competence in education:

Maintaining a proficiency view by focusing on the strengths of the African American male students and believing that they all can be successful;

Developing a scholar identity in African American males;

Encouraging family involvement; and

Mentoring African American males so they believe that they can succeed in advanced-level programs.

With generous support from Citi Foundation in 2008, AVID designed the African American Male Initiative (AAMI) as a pilot project to develop additional supports for African American male students that would increase their academic engagement and achievement. As part of the AAMI, AVID Center developed AVID strategies for Culturally Relevant Teaching (CRT) and made this training available to schools throughout the AVID system. CRT uses the background, knowledge, and experiences of students to inform lessons and methods. It builds on the strengths of the students. With CRT, teachers create a bridge between home and school, while still meeting expectations of the district.

With generous support from

Citi Foundation in 2008, AVID designed

the AAMI as a pilot

project to develop additional supports for

African American male students that

would increase their

academic engagement and

achievement.

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www.avid.org

AVID Center selected the following six high schools with established AVID programs to participate in the pilot project:

Acorn Community High School, Brooklyn, NY Antelope Valley High School, Lancaster, CA James Bowie High School, Arlington, TX Mojave High School, Las Vegas, NV Washington Union High School, Fresno, CA Woodlawn High School, Baltimore, MD

AVID provided professional development and coaching for teachers as each school developed an AAMI design based on their student populations, identified student needs and school culture. In the first year of the project (2008/2009), the schools established explicit equity goals, integrated their equity goals into their AVID Site Plan, attended CRT training and developed their site’s AAMI implementation plan. Each of the schools enrolled African American male students into AVID/AAMI starting in the fall 2009 semester. A total of 162 African American male students enrolled in an AVID Elective class augmented with the school's chosen AAMI strategies. Culturally Relevant Teaching was integrated into the AVID Electives at each school. Teachers in content area classes also began to integrate CRT strategies into their instruction. Teachers used the CRT strategies to create authentic, culturally relevant learning environments that built upon the language, experiences, learning styles, and strengths of the targeted student population. AVID worked with school teams to create student-centric classrooms that shifted instructional practices away from the “sit and get” approach. The CRT approach includes the use of gender specific instructional strategies, including kinesthetic activities, whereby students carry out a physical activity as part of the learning process. By the second project year, the six schools had implemented AAMI in two distinct ways:

Three schools had an AVID Elective class that was taught by an African American male teacher and enrolled only African American male students.

“The initiative allowed me to

reinforce cultural, social and political knowledge about

myself and my peers in relationship to the world around me.”

Tyler Anderson

ACORN Community High School

Brooklyn, NY

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The other three schools enrolled their AAMI students into regular AVID Elective classes (most not taught by an African American male teacher) and held AAMI cohort meetings during an advisory period, during a lunch period, or after school.

To evaluate the implementation of AVID/AAMI at the six schools, AVID hired researchers and consultants to conduct focus groups of students, survey students about their educational aspirations and expectations, interview school site teachers and administrators, and review the program progress and outcomes with the AVID/AAMI staff and site coaches. Students, teachers, school administrators and project staff reported positive impacts on students who participated in AAMI over the four year period. Specifically, students:

Developed a sense of belonging and brotherhood they had not felt before.

Experienced improved school attendance.

Had fewer disciplinary actions (suspensions, expulsions).

Exhibited more self-confidence and self-esteem.

Cultivated stronger interpersonal skills and the ability to advocate for themselves in their education.

Showed an increased sense of responsibility and accountabil i ty.

Reported higher aspirations for their education and anticipation of college completion.

Completed the more rigorous coursework needed to prepare for college.

The African American Male Initiative (AAMI) was a developmental project; the design was adjusted as it was implemented and as the teachers learned from use of AVID CRT strategies and from their experience with students. Therefore, students who started AVID/AAMI in the fall 2009 semester did not experience a full four years of the program design as it evolved over the term of the project. However, these students have just completed their senior year of high school, and their outcome data provides the first snapshot of the impact of AAMI.

“My AAMI family helped me like no

other man has before. They assisted me tremendously like a family and wanted

to see me succeed in life just as much

as I did.”

Hasan Gaines Antelope Valley

High School Lancaster, CA

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A total of 54 of the 162 students who started in AAMI in Year 1 (2009) were still in AAMI at the end of their senior year (2013) - a 33 percent retention rate overall. However, students who were in an all-male AVID Elective with an African American male teacher had a much higher retention rate - 62.5 percent overall. This indicates that African American male students are more likely to stay in an AVID/college preparation course if they are with other African American male students and an African American male teacher.

Those African American male students who completed the first four years of AAMI had some other significant positive outcomes:

Over 96 percent of the students who stayed with AVID/AAMI through their senior year graduated from high school in four years (compared to 52 percent of African American males’ nationwide). This 96 percent high school graduation rate is the same high level seen for other AVID students.

75 percent of the high school graduates were accepted to a 4-year college or university - the same percentage as for all AVID students.

LESSONS LEARNED FROM AAMI AVID studied the outcomes of the student surveys and focus groups, teacher and site administrator interviews, and student retention and success data to identify important lessons learned from AAMI. These lessons are relevant to any student academic support program that focuses on a specific group of students, and include: Students need consistency and continuity in academic and social support.

Leadership and continuity is critical. The success of the AAMI rests upon strong, broad-based commitment across site and district leadership so that the program will continue even if school site leadership and teaching staff changes. School leadership also must provide continuity of vision to ensure that all pieces of the program are in place.

High expectations and a belief in students’ ability to achieve are required to engage and motivate. Many of the students starting in AAMI did not think they could attend college.

“Using culturally relevant training strategies has not only made me a

stronger teacher, but has also given my students a feeling

that they belong in school.”

Jimmy Callendar, educator

James Bowie High School

Arlington, TX

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Consistent, positive messages from teachers, administrators, and peers instilled confidence and motivation while the students gained critical reading, thinking, and writing skills from the AVID instruction.

Students need supportive environments throughout their academic coursework. Culturally relevant teaching engages students in new ways that support learning. All staff in schools with diverse subgroups of students would benefit from training and coaching to incorporate culturally relevant teaching strategies in daily instruction.

Financial support must be stable and reflect leadership commitment to the program. Programs that target specific groups of students cost more, largely as a result of the professional development and extra student activities. Schools and districts must be proactive to identify and prioritize resources needed to implement and sustain a student academic success initiative.

Students need social support in addition to the AVID academic strategies.

An all African American male AVID Elective class with an African American male teacher proved most effective.

African American male tutors, mentors, and role models to support AVID strategies had significant impact on students participating in the program.

Parent involvement is a key to the success of the overall program. Schools suggested that parents be surveyed at the beginning of the school year to gauge their needs, interest levels and available times, so parent activities may be designed to maximize participation.

Community support is essential. Multifaceted programs of this nature require broad community support and engagement, particularly because of the array of external factors (such as poverty and gangs) that can affect student success. Community partners are well positioned to provide advice and support on specific external factors and help ensure long-term sustainability.

“AAMI impacted my academic experience

because it showed me that being smart and a young black male were not bad

things. It pushed me outside of the box to

go above and beyond.”

Darryl Miller-Green Mojave High School

North Las Vegas, NV

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www.avid.org

Students need access to rigorous coursework, including honors and Advanced Placement courses.

Student support strategies that target a specific student population must be anchored to a comprehensive academic support system. In AAMI’s case, AVID served as that anchor.

Students need highly effective African American male teachers. Programs that target student subgroups should ensure that highly effective teachers of the same race/ethnicity are driving the program and interfacing with students. Most of the schools participating in AAMI reported that they did not have enough African American male teachers to meet student needs.

Teachers must be trained in academic support strategies for rigorous coursework (such as AVID) as well as in culturally relevant teaching. The importance of professional development should not be underestimated. Additional professional development for all educators involved in the program is necessary.

Schools want academic and social support systems to be available for various groups of students, depending on the school's student population. Several of the participating schools reported that they encountered resistance to AAMI from other teachers and school site staff – not because it focused on African American males, but because they wanted to see other groups of students (such as African American females, Latino males, Latino females) have access to the same academic and social support structures. This tendency was particularly strong in schools with higher proportions of Latino students.

“It motivated me to stay on track and stay up on my classes. My

program leaders stayed on us to make sure we were doing well in our classes and on campus.”

DeMelvin Stell

Washington Union High School Fresno, CA

“CRT provides an opportunity for

students to access rigorous content that is personal, local and

relevant to their everyday lives and

experiences.”

Candice Logan-Washington, educator

Woodlawn High School, Gwynn Oaks, MD

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“The AVID CRT training was

incredibly powerful for me. As an

English teacher, I began to seek

literature, songs, and poetry from a

variety of cultures to analyze in class, so all students could

identify with the texts we investigated.

Students were proud to share about

elements of their culture that were brought up in the texts. CRT truly

helped me understand my

students in a new way, and it has made

me a stronger teacher!

Jennifer Fuller, Educator James Bowie High School

Arlington, TX

NEXT STEPS FOR AVID

Training and curriculum resources in Culturally Relevant Teaching are now available to all AVID schools through professional development offered throughout the year. To date, over 2,500 AVID educators have been trained in CRT. In addition, AVID Center is keenly aware of the value of CRT for all teachers and is integrating components and practices of Culturally Relevant Teaching in many of its training strands and curriculum resources. The development of AAMI has provided evidence that academic and social support can improve academic engagement and achievement for African-American males. AVID believes these lessons learned can be applied to create similar intensive support structures for other groups of students. A student support initiative such as AAMI depends on strong commitment, support, and implementation at the local level. While AVID can train teachers and provide coaching to schools in planning equity initiatives, the local educational system and the community it serves must take action to serve their own students in ways unique to each community.

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www.avid.org

THE VITAL ROLE OF COMMUNITY LEADERS Schools need help accessing the community support and resources needed to fully implement a student support and success system. Community leaders can provide support in many ways, such as: Advocating for consistency in district and school implementation of the program:

To school and district leaders when a new site principal or district superintendent comes on board.

To the superintendent and school board when budgets and other resources are being allocated.

To the state legislature when education programming and funding bills are being considered.

Helping schools and teachers access community support by making connections to:

Successful community members and college students who reflect the demographics of the school populations and can serve as mentors and tutors to students.

Successful business people, scientists, engineers, physicians, and other adults willing to speak to the students about how they achieved their careers and who can serve as role models.

Community, business, and postsecondary education leaders willing to sponsor student tours of their facilities to introduce students to the range of postsecondary and career options available to them.

Organizations willing to provide scholarships to the targeted students so those students know that someone will help them financially to get through college.

CREATING A STUDENT ACADEMIC SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR EQUITY, CONSISTENCY, SUPPORT, AND RIGOR

Through its experience with AAMI, AVID is uniquely positioned to identify specific steps city and school leaders might jointly pursue to implement (1) student academic supports for all students, or (2) a program anchored to an academic support system that targets specific groups of students. Before this process is started, school and community leaders need an organizational structure within which to meet, review data, and consider options for program design and implementation. A community

advisory team may already be in place within the school district or government processes. The most appropriate group to undertake this review must be identified, and additional education or community leaders should be added as needed to ensure that all perspectives are included in the planning. The planning and implementation process is broken down into the following ten steps:

Review your student data to determine the needs of all students and of targeted populations. Use disaggregated student data to develop a deeper understanding of your target population’s needs. As your team designs, builds, and evaluates

a student success program, you should determine if it is necessary to target a specific population of students. If the data suggests that you should focus on a specific student population, the planning team should develop a deeper understanding of the population’s needs and address those in the design of its program. Questions to consider when evaluating this focus:

Why is the student population underachieving?

What does data suggest?

Are there prohibitive adult attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors that need to be addressed?

What factors are negatively impacting behavior?

How can those factors be mitigated?

Why is academic achievement and engagement so low?

How can it be increased?

®

Creating a Student Academic Support System for Equity, Consistency, Support, and Rigor

®

Assess the state of your community’s student success landscape. Community and school leaders should carefully consider the state of the student success efforts currently in place across the community or within schools that serve the

community. Guided by student graduation and postsecondary enrollment data, leaders should carefully examine current programs and supports to consider which of the following applies:

1. A strong, connected, comprehensive academic and social support and success program is in place across the community. It uses consistency, rigor, and support to promote success for all students.

2. Fragmented elements of a student support and success program exist, but not in all schools that serve the community. Disaggregated student data reveals gaps in opportunities for students.

3. No real student support and success program exists in the community or in schools that serve the community. Disaggregated student data reveals gaps in opportunities for students across the community.

Questions to consider when assessing your student support and success landscape and to identify gaps:

Does my community have an effective, district-wide student support and success program that promotes consistency, rigor, and support for all students?

What does the program look like?

Does the program impact every student in the community?

If a program is in place, what does the corresponding data say about program impact?

Does the program ensure consistency in student supports, participating teachers, instructional strategies, and the use of data to measure need, impact, and results?

Based on the disaggregated student data, which students are the least served and experience the greatest postsecondary opportunity gap?

Do you have adequate access to qualified teachers, mentors, and role models of the same targeted ethnicity and gender?

Do you have the financial resources you need to implement a student success program?

The Planning and Implementation Process

®

Design or enhance your student support and success program to meet the identified needs of your targeted students and address any gaps. Determine ways to:

1. Strengthen and enhance your community’s student support and success program so that all students are exposed to and receive instruction in the student support and success curriculum.

2. Design and implement a student support and success program that promotes consistency, rigor, and support for all students, exposes them to a rigorous curriculum and prepares them for postsecondary success.

Program design should consider:

Schoolwide leadership necessary to set the vision and tone for promoting college readiness and high expectations;

Schoolwide systems that are in place for curriculum and instruction, data collection and analysis, professional development and parent outreach;

Schoolwide instruction that uses the best instructional practices and 21st century learning tools; and

Schoolwide culture where beliefs and behaviors about what students can achieve shifts.

Questions to consider when enhancing, designing and/or implementing a program:

Is there a pre-existing student support and success program in your community that could be scaled up?

If not, what type of program would be needed to meet your community’s needs, based on the data you have reviewed?

Does your school community have strong leaders in place who seek to ensure that all students are college ready?

What type of program could assist your community and schools in promoting a culture that stresses the importance of learning and education beyond high school?


®

Identify clear student outcomes for your program, and use those outcomes to drive program design. Goals should be specific and include measures for success. Outcomes should be designed so that they can be measured and include a

specific timeframe by which they will be achieved. Outcomes should seek to gauge the expected shifts that will result from the student support and success program, including student and teacher beliefs and attitudes, academic classroom behaviors, and instructional strategies. Additional research and data should be collected and analyzed to identify specific strategies and tactics that support the goals and outcomes of the program, including the use of culturally relevant teaching approaches for targeted student groups. Questions to consider when identifying teacher and student outcomes:

What aspirational goals should drive the design of the student support and success program? For example, 100 percent of students enrolled in college-preparatory courses? One-hundred percent of students applying for postsecondary enrollment in 12th grade?

What incremental outcomes are necessary to ensure achievement of the full goal?

Based on the current culture that exists in your community or schools, what outcomes should be identified to ensure a full shift in culture?

What academic, classroom, and instructional strategies must change to enable this cultural shift? How might you articulate that outcome?

Identify key external partners and thought leaders who can help enhance and sustain the work. Key partners and thought leaders should be identified fairly early in the process. They should be engaged once sufficient research is in

place and a direction for the program has been identified, but prior to the adoption of the final design of the student support and success program. Ultimately, community partnership and thought leaders can enrich the program design, provide guidance and suggest external expertise. Questions to consider when identifying and engaging external partners and thought leaders:

Which external partners in the community have a vested interest in helping build and sustain a student support and success program?

Which business partners might lend their expertise?

Which foundations might have an interest in engaging directly in the work?

Which faith-based organizations might be committed to its development?

If targeting a specific group of students, which community role models might be tapped for long-term engagement and partnership?


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Select schools in which to pilot a student support and success program. The community planning team should be strategic about where to pilot. It should ensure that leadership and staff are supportive and willing to position the effort in a way that impacts the entire school.

Pilot sites should agree to a clear set of expectations for implementation and should display a readiness for program launch. Teachers and leaders should be excited about the opportunity and willing to go the extra mile to ensure program success. Questions to consider when selecting schools:

Which schools in your community demonstrate a distinct need for such a program?

Which schools have leaders in place to ensure the success of the effort?

Which schools have teachers who are open-minded, believe that every student can achieve with the right supports, and are willing to try something new to enhance student success?

Implement Your Student Support and Success Program. Ensure that the school's teachers, staff and administrators are ready to provide the strongest support possible for students. Each school site needs to develop its own implementation plan for their student support and success program.

Implementation steps include: 1. Build on a strong academic support foundation. As noted above, the academic

support system serves as the foundation for the student social support program, providing the specific academic strategies that students need to succeed in their coursework. If the school site does not have an academic support foundation (such as AVID), one should be selected and implemented before the student social support structures are put into place.

2. Identify the financial resources needed to implement and sustain the program throughout participating students' time in high school.

3. Identify key teachers to run the program.

4. Train key teachers in academic support structures and CRT.

5. Create your course structure and schedule.

6. Develop and conduct outreach to parents and students. Ensure that parents know what the students will be doing and how they can support their child's academic success. Obtain parent input into the design and scheduling of parent and family activities.

7. Ensure that all teachers have a base of knowledge in academic support and CRT. Provide larger-scale training sessions for all teachers at the school site so that students encounter academic and social support in all of their courses.

8. Enroll students in the program course.

9. Get parents involved in program activities.

10. Arrange and schedule tutors, mentors, and community activities.


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Ensure fidelity of implementation. Fidelity in program implementation is critical, particularly in the early days of implementation. To guarantee fidelity, leaders should:

Ensure that protocols and templates are in place at pilot sites. Additionally, coaching and site visits will be necessary to provide the technical support needed for overall implementation success. While local site flexibility is important to address specific needs, consistency across program implementation is of equal importance.

Provide consistent support and professional development for teachers and leaders to achieve desired outcomes. Professional development might focus on culturally relevant teaching and instructional methods.

Measure results regularly against program goals. Use formative and summative data to gauge the program's success—and, if necessary, make mid-course corrections to strengthen the approach. This step also helps communities make the case for replicating the program.

Questions to consider for ensuring fidelity:

What types of protocols or guides might be necessary to ensure the program is implemented consistently and with fidelity across schools or sites?

What professional development opportunities will be needed to ensure that teachers are best positioned to help students achieve success in this rigorous environment?

If a specific student population is targeted, what culturally relevant training might be necessary?

How might the community use existing data structures to help measure the success of the program?

Track student and program outcomes. In step four, you identified the outcomes you expect from the program. Determine how you will measure those out-comes and how to collect data to assess progress toward achieving targeted

outcomes. Collect and review data regularly as a team to assess how well the program is working. Questions to consider when tracking student and program outcomes:

What data does the school system already have that can serve as indicators of success?

How will the team be able to access this information?

Do we need other information to be able to track program outcomes? For example, do we need to interview participating teachers and school leaders? If so, how will we do this?


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Communicate and publicize the success of the student success program and replicate it across additional sites. Finally, once good data is in hand, communities should use that data to explain the program's impact on student

achievement and college-readiness. If the program is achieving and exceeding its goals, then its successes should be broadcasted to partners, parents, and the broader community. Such successes help make the case for replicating similar programs aimed at all students. On the other hand, if the program has experienced challenges or has not met its identified objectives and goals, then the program leaders should be willing to authentically share lessons learned and steps they plan to take to strengthen the program in service of its students or targeted student population. Questions to consider when communicating and publicizing the success of your student success program and replicating it:

How can you leverage external partners to help communicate and publicize the results of your student success program?

How will leaders determine long-term program replication goals?

What is your community’s approach if your student success program falls short of meetings its goals?


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NOTES


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NOTES


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NOTES

For more information, please visit www.avid.org or contact the Division Office for your community:

CALIFORNIA DIVISION

Robin Kisinger, California Director 9246 Lightwave Avenue, Suite 200

San Diego, CA 92123 (858) 380-4800

[email protected]

CENTRAL DIVISION Dr. Wendell Brown, Central Division Director

11044 Research Blvd, Suite A420 Austin, TX 78759 (512) 669-5900

[email protected]

EASTERN DIVISION Robert Logan, Eastern Division Director

3 Corporate Boulevard, Suite 118 Atlanta, GA 30329

(404) 963-9300 [email protected]

WESTERN DIVISION Karen Lewis, Western Division Director 5889 Greenwood Plaza Blvd, Suite 210

Greenwood Village, CO 80111 (303) 436-2200

[email protected]

AVID CENTER HEADQUARTERS Granger Ward, Executive Vice President

9246 Lightwave Avenue, Suite 200 San Diego, CA 92123

(858) 380-4781 [email protected]

Documents

At the Citi Foundation, we commend AVID on their efforts