The Story of AVID

Advancement Via Individual Determination began as an idea Mary Catherine Swanson had in 1980, when she was working as an English teacher at Clairemont High School in San Diego. The school, which had a strong college-going culture and a fair number of high socio-economic students, experienced significant demographic changes as a result of court-ordered busing. The veteran teaching staff became demoralized, feeling that they could no longer produce academic excellence because of their changing population and because the changes to their school had been beyond their control. They felt powerless.

Mary Catherine, who was Clairemont’s English department chair, felt that there had to be a way that the underserved students now coming to Clairemont, most of whom had never been in rigorous classes, could be successful in a challenging curriculum. Thus, she took on the responsibility of organizing a support system that included tutors, note-taking, writing as a tool of learning, and, most importantly, open discussion between students and staff about how students learn best.

The AVID elective course soon developed, and Mary Catherine found herself in the middle of an exciting learning process, as the first 30 AVID students were allowed access into the school’s rigorous curriculum, which had previously been accessible to educationally disadvantaged students. Critical to AVID’s success was the fact that Mary Catherine had academic credibility with the staff and that she was assisted in developing the curriculum by Jim Grove, who ran Clairemont’s prestigious honors seminar program. The results for the first group of AVID students were gratifying. Of the 30 students, 28 went on to four-year colleges, and two went on to community colleges. These graduates were the first in their families to attend post-secondary education.

It wasn’t long until Mary Catherine was asked to disseminate the program throughout San Diego City Schools, and in 1986 she was brought to the San Diego County Office of Education to disseminate the program throughout the county.

The mission of AVID still focuses on providing access to four-year colleges for students in the middle capable of completing a college preparatory path, so that they achieve success in a rigorous curriculum and become part of the mainstream activities of a school. Today, AVID is an international program, adopted by over 3,500 middle and high schools in 45 states and in the District of Columbia across 15 countries. In 2007, 88% of Hispanic and African American AVID graduates in California completed the UC/CSU "a-g" course requirements. Among the 8,830 California AVID graduates last year, 98.4% were accepted to, and planned to attend a university or college.