This year, seniors have been working on college applications; however, AVID students have been focusing on college applications since freshman year.
AVID began in Chatham County in 2006. The program has grown from 75 students in three classes at three high schools to 438 students in 18 classes across all high school grade levels and at one middle school.
“AVID is a national program and at Northwood we are a very small chapter in a huge organization,” said Alex Hart, the 2018-19 AVID Coordinator at Northwood High School. “Our main focus is to arm students with study skills, organizational skills, and life skills that will give them a college-going awareness.”
AVID is a four-year program that is introduced to students their eighth grade year.
“It’s all year long so you do lose out on a class, but as a senior, I am okay with that now because I am ahead of everyone with the college application process–so it’s really beneficial,” senior Shayla Baldwin said.
AVID helps with any questions that students have about college or any questions that they have about life in general.
“[AVID] is just such a good program for freshman to come into with transitioning into high school because you already have that backbone and support,” senior Cheyenne Hampel said.
Hart says that being the coordinator of AVID is like coaching; you have to support the students in the program.
“We have about 95 kids in the program and we do consider ourselves to be a family,” Hart said. “When you’re that tight in a group, there is a lot of coaching involved from a relational standpoint and [you are] always checking in on your people and making it sure that they are good. We work through some good times and work through bad times, but overall, the kids are the reason that I love being a part of this program.”
Hampel and Baldwin would both recommend that incoming freshmen join the AVID program. They say that being in this program really helped them understand the college process better.
“If freshman are really clueless about college or what they’re going to do or the next steps, [AVID] really helps a lot,” Baldwin said. “All the teachers are motivated to help you and that’s honestly what’s helped me get to the point where we are now.”
Baldwin explains that when people think of AVID they think of students that come from financially disadvantaged backgrounds.
“There are people [in AVID] whose parents went to college and they’ve graduated,” Baldwin said. “It’s really for students that need the extra support in high school.”
AVID has been beneficial to many students that are now in college.
“Northwood students that are now in college are so gracious to mentor current students at Northwood and come back and speak,” Hart said. “The fact that they can be so far removed from the program after graduating and still want to come back and take part of it– it really says about the type of kids that we’ve had.”
— By Emma Quasny
