AVID

• Instruction promotes:
  • WICOR Strategies
  • 21st Century Skills
  • Student Leadership Skills
  • Goal-Setting/Monitoring
  • Rigor for All
     
• Systems support:
  • AVID Site/District Teams
  • Professional Learning    
  • Secondary AVID Elective Classes
  • Equity and Access to Rigorous Courses
  • Data Collection and Analysis
     
•  Leadership ensures:
  • Strategic Planning
  • Modeling of Expectations
  • College Readiness Mission and Vision
  • Career Readiness
  • Distributed Leadership Approach
     
•  Culture fosters:
  • College Awareness and Preparation
  • Common Belief in Student Success
  • Family and Community Involvement
  • High Expectations for All
  • Positive and Safe Learning Environment

Avid Application

AVID Application Link

Dear Students and Parents/Guardians: 

Park Hill South welcomes all incoming 9th grade students to apply to the Park Hill South AVID program. AVID, Advancement Via Individual Determination, is a college readiness program at PHS that is designed to increase school wide learning and performance. It accelerates student learning, uses research based methods of effective instruction, provides meaningful and motivational professional learning, and acts as a catalyst for preparing students to be college and career ready when they leave high school. AVID is not an ‘at risk’ program. AVID is a college and career preparatory program and is currently being used in over 3,500 schools throughout the country. The application process is open to all incoming freshmen. 

How does my child get accepted to AVID? 

Students are accepted into the AVID program after a careful screening process. Students need to fill out the online application located HERE and submit it by the Friday before Spring Break. Selected students will be interviewed at Lakeview Middle School and Walden Middle School by a panel of teachers and counselors. From the application and interview process, decisions will be made on acceptance into AVID. Parents and students need to understand that participation is voluntary; however, it is the student who needs to be committed in order to be successful. 

What is required of an AVID Student? 

AVID students are not only enrolled in our school’s most challenging and rigorous classes, but also enrolled in the AVID elective class. The elective class, held within the regular school day, provides support, academic monitoring, and tutoring. In this class students learn organizational and study skills, work to think critically, ask probing questions, and participate in enrichment and motivational activities. Students keep track of assignments and are required to take daily notes in all academic classes. Notebooks are graded weekly for content and organization by college tutors. In addition, students are taught study skills, test preparation, time management, and the writing process. 

What Can Parents do to Support AVID Students?

Communication between the AVID teacher and the parent(s) is essential. At home, parents can see to it that students are doing their homework in a quiet place with few interruptions. In addition, stressing your belief that your student can succeed in high school and attend college will also motivate students to work harder and achieve more. 

 

Avid Site Team

AVID Coordinator: greg williams

Purpose:  To work with Administration, Site Team and Staff in realizing School-Wide AVID as a means to strengthening the core instruction at Park Hill South High School, in turn increasing access to and equity for college and career readiness for all students at Park Hill South.  Mr. Williams oversees and schedules the AVID tutors, drives the AVID School-Wide goals and direction by sharing techniques and materials to help staff members work with students, facilitates AVID Site team meetings, and coordinates AVID parent involvement activities.  

Site Team Members listed below meet on the first and third Wednesdays every month during Staff Collaboration time.

• Greg Williams
• Jon Sobbe
• Brad Jones
• Melvin Walker
• Bret Howren
• Chris Leibrand
• Laura Deering
• Angela Siegel
• Margot Malikoff
• Kerrie Herren

WICOR Model

AVID's proven learning support structure, known as WICOR, incorporates teaching/learning
methodologies in the critical areas of Writing to Learn, Inquiry, Collaboration, Organization, and Reading to Learn.  WICOR provides a learning model that educators can use to guide students in comprehending concepts and articulating ideas at increasingly complex levels (scaffolding) within developmental, general education, and discipline-based curricula.  Furthermore, the WICOR model reflects and promotes the expertise and attitudes that will serve students well in their academic lives and careers.

HOW DOES AVID HELP STUDENTS BECOME COLLEGE READY?

AVID’s curriculum is centered around research-based best practices, called WICOR strategies:

• Writing – Daily writing, such as Cornell note-taking, learning logs, quickwrites and reflections, process writing, peer evaluation, et al
• Inquiry – Building inquiry into daily lessons with the use of skilled questioning techniques, Costa’s Levels of Thinking, Socratic Seminars, investigations and question-guided research
• Collaboration – Fostering teamwork skills through activities like Socratic Seminars, Philosophical Chairs, group activities and projects, peer editing, etc.
• Organization - Building organizational skills through time management, binder organizational system, backwards-mapping agendas and goal setting, and organized note-taking.
• Reading – Building reading skills in every subject through deep reading strategies, note-taking, graphic organizers, vocabulary building, and summarizing

The WICOR model can be found in all PHS classrooms.

Upcoming College Visits

• November 10, 2023 - Freshmen to William Jewell College
• November 13, 2023 - Sophomores to Northwest Missouri State University
• December 7, 2023 - Juniors to University of Missouri - Kansas City
• April 9, 2024 - Seniors to Avila College
• April 16, 2024 - Juniors to University of Missouri
• April 23, 2024 - Sophomores to University of Central Missouri
• May 1, 2024 - Freshman - Park University

William Jewell Visit - November 10, 2023

Maple Woods Community College Visit 

 

Northwest Missouri State University