Teacher training gets fed grant up and running

The Yuma Union High School District has accepted the first installment of a competitive grant aimed at ensuring all students are capable of completing a college preparatory path.

The Advanced Placement Incentive Program of the U.S. Department of Education made $12.4 million available to the nation's schools. Among 154 applicants, Yuma was awarded $2.4 million.

Included in the grant with YUHSD were co-applicants District 1, Crane and Somerton school districts, noted Terry Lowe, District 1 grant writer.

One of the key components of the APIP grant is the Advanced Via Individual Determination (AVID) program. AVID is an approach to increase the existing curriculum to provide support for students, especially the low-income and first generation college bound, to be successful in a rigorous program, Lowe explained.

On Monday, Nov. 24, at Vista South, 221 E. 26th St., an all-day teacher training session will get under way to get AVID up and running for the fall of 2009 for those schools adopting the program the first time.

AVID has been in operation for the past three years at four Yuma schools: Fourth Avenue Junior High, Ron Watson Middle School, Gila Ridge and Yuma high schools. It will now expand to nine others: Gila Vista, Woodard, Castle Dome, Crane, Centennial and Somerton middle schools, along with Kofa, San Luis and Cibola high schools.

Lowe said that AVID emphasizes the "hidden curriculum," which is knowing how early in high school each student needs to have a five-year plan in place. The five-year plan instills in all eighth-grade students the idea that education extends beyond completion of high school and includes a minimum of one year post-secondary education.

AVID works in two ways, she noted. The first part provides for an elective class separate from other content areas that meets one period a day and focuses on organizational skills needed to succeed at college level work.

This includes students knowing how to manage their time and organize notes in order to use resources effectively. They also need inquiry skills where they cultivate the initiative to not only ask frequent questions but pose their inquiries at a deeper level of investigation. Time is also set aside two days per week for tutoring in all content areas.

"It's all the things they need to do to be on track for college," Lowe said. "Advance placement (AP) refers to classes only at the high school level. So what we're doing in District 1 is teaching advanced level math, for example, to prepare student to take AP calculus.

"They need to take high school level algebra in the eighth grade if they want to get the good scholarships. And they need to know how to work in study groups independently, to figure things out without having the teacher there all the time."

The second goal of AVID is to raise the rigor of instruction throughout the content class periods of math, science, language arts and history.

"If you raise rigor schoolwide, some students will need support to be successful. That's why there is the AVID classes," Lowe said. "If you make classes more challenging, then you need to refine the way classes are taught to ensure all students are successful."

Part of the APIP grant will also go toward Transitional Growth Training. This is opportunities for teams of middle and high school teachers to meet together to make sure curriculum is aligned in a seamless manner. That way students proceed from lower to higher grades without gaps and build upon what they learned from the previous year.

The grant also covers the Explore Test that will be given next January and each fall thereafter and evaluates skills in all subject areas plus an interest inventory.

The inventory will probe each student's possible career interests and whether they have the necessary skills to pursue their chosen field; if they need extra tutoring in that area; and provides opportunities for high school guidance counselors to meet with middle school classes to craft the five-year plan.

Finally, the grant requires the inclusion of a critical needs language. This is a nontraditional language that will serve U.S. global needs such as Chinese or Japanese and will require AP classes, but this facet is still in the planning stage, Lowe said.

---
William Roller can be reached at wroller@yumasun.com or 539-6858.