Thanks to a grant from the Nike School Innovation Fund, Newberg School District administrators said they feel they have a powerful new tool to address some of the district’s major priorities, namely the graduation rate and achievement gaps at the middle- and high-school levels.

The district will receive approximately $120,000 to accelerate college and career readiness by installing the highly-successful AVID (Advancement via Individual Determination) program in grades 6-12.

After receiving word that the high school and two middle schools had been awarded the grant, the school board approved the addition of an AVID course to the curriculum at its April 14 meeting.

“Enough of us have experience with working with AVID in the past and have watched how pivotal it has been to create a pathway so that students who have some risk factors in their life, but have very much the skill set and potential to make it, can succeed,” Superintendent Kym LeBlanc-Esparza said. “We can provide the infrastructure so that can happen.”

Students must apply to become part of an AVID cohort, which takes an elective class that rigorously instructs them on learning strategies, student skills and a curriculum designed to help them succeed both in high school and in college.

Newberg High School principal Mark Risen and district director of teaching and learning Stafford Boyd told the board that they will begin implementing AVID in the ninth grade in the fall and add a new cohort with each incoming freshman class. Risen added he hopes to have two sections of AVID classes in the first year, but that he has seen schools successfully offer three per grade.

“The results are unbelievable,” Risen said. “If you look at any of the national data on AVID and its impact on kids, not only do those kids do really well in high school and get a diploma in their hand, but it’s unbelievable how many AVID kids go on and do really well in college also.”

LeBlanc-Esparza said she was especially pleased that the district’s two middle schools received the grant so that a continuous program can be built from grades 6 to 12. Chehalem Valley Middle School already has one small AVID cohort, but will be able to expand its program school wide.

“Everybody who has had any kind of involvement with it has a deep understanding of how great of a leveraging point that’s going to be for students to succeed,” she said. “It’s going to be huge.”

Written by: Seth Gordon