As a veteran AVID Principal, I thought that starting AVID at a new school would be easy to implement. Get the right people in the right seats and we’ll be off on the WICOR fast track. As the Saturday morning college football commentator Lee Corso would say, “Not so fast my friend.” It takes a lot more to make AVID successful on a campus than simply ensuring the right people are in place. What we’ve learned is putting the right systems in place and walking the loose-tight line are two key components to our success, especially when working with so many who are new to AVID.
Systemic Implementation
For educators, there are few authors out there better than Rick DuFour and Michael Fullan. I have had the great pleasure of hearing Dr. DuFour present many times at PLC Institutes and always walked away with a new piece of learning. Recently, our administrative team has been reading the book, Cultures Built to Last: Systemic PLCs at Work (DuFour and Fullan, 2013), which reminded me of some of the steps we’ve taken on our AVID journey. While the context is a little different than systemic implementation of AVID, the concepts are similar. On the concept of building systems, DuFour and Fullan state, “It is about everyone doing their part in two aspects: being as good as one can be during individual and collaborative work and being aware that everyone needs to make a contribution to improving the larger system” (p. 18). This takes time, energy, and dedication, which is especially difficult as systems are being built in other academic and extracurricular areas throughout the school.
Additionally, when we first opened our school, we had few people who understood what they were signing up for with regards to AVID Schoolwide implementation. However, we just kicked off our third year, and we now have more people who understand their defined role within the AVID College and Career Readiness System. For example, counselors are stepping up to schedule college field trips and our World Languages department chair is preparing to lead an AVID Parent Night for our parents new to Eastmark.
Systems also require monitoring. At our Site Team meetings, team members are bringing back their successes and challenges related to their individual assignments. When team members are having challenges, we work together to help them overcome them. For example, our AVID Site Team lead had difficulty accessing student data to complete reports for our AVID specialist and AVID Center. So, the Site Team worked together with our front office staff to get the Site Team lead access to the data she needed. Empowering staff and helping them resolve their challenges will only help us reach more students.
Walking the Fine Line of Loose-Tight
One of my favorite songs is “I Walk the Line” by Johnny Cash. There are a lot of inferences that can be drawn in parallel to the line we walk as school leaders. The loose-tight dilemma is well documented in that if we are too tight, or too top-down, meaningful work doesn’t happen. If we are too loose, it seems like more of an invitation to get on board rather than being direct. Returning to Cultures Built to Last: Systemic PLCs at Work, DuFour and Fullan say, “Directed empowerment [is where] . . . the system establishes a few tight priorities or parameters or nonnegotiables. . . . Within those tight parameters, people are empowered to be creative and have considerable discretion regarding how they will pursue the priorities” (pp. 39–40).
As we first opened our doors, we tried to be too tight in our implementation. What we expected and how we wanted it documented were discussed more than how teachers were going to go about doing the work. This year, we started by providing teachers time to discuss how they were going to implement two of our site goals, the focused note-taking process and specific disciplinary literacy strategies. In the last two years, we’ve focused more on what we see from the students rather than relying on teachers to collect documentation to submit in our data collection form.
Wrapping Up
Being asked to open a brand-new school is such a great honor. Implementing AVID Schoolwide is a journey that sometimes can be fraught with potholes, detours, and obstructions. While it can be overwhelming, identifying the best systems and walking the loose-tight line will help ensure students’ needs are being met as they’re exposed to WICOR best practices throughout the school. As educators, we want our students to learn, grow, and feel empowered to take the next steps in their educational journey. AVID Schoolwide is merely the vehicle to get there. I wish you well on your journey.
