Grantee: / AVID Center
PR Award Number: / U411C120039
Project Title: / Improving Student Outcomes in a Rural Context
Project Director: / Denise Wren

Amount of Award: / $2,997,879
Length of Award: / 01/01/2013-12/31/2017
Absolute Priority: / Serving Rural Communities
List of Partners: / The School Districts of DeSoto County,
Hardee County, and
Highlands County.
Other Partners: South Florida State College (SFSC), and the Heartland Educational Consortium.
Project Website: / http://www.avid.org/res_i3.html
Description of Project: / The project hypothesizes that a collaborative of secondary schools and colleges serving a rural area can vertically integrate college readiness best practices, rigorous coursework and student support strategies to significantly improve student achievement and success. The project utilizes the AVID College Readiness System as the foundation for the student support strategies. The project will train teachers and faculty from feeder patterns of middle schools, high schools and colleges to implement AVID instructional methodologies in their classes and facilitate vertical teams to develop and create a manual of the vertical systems development process.
Project objectives: Develop a comprehensive vertical alignment system to increase student access to rigorous classes and create a college-going school culture; Train and coach 60% of each secondary school's teachers and 60 SFSC faculty in AVID methodologies; Enroll at least 6.5% of each school's students in an AVID Elective class; Increase the number of students who enroll in a postsecondary institution by 10%.
Expected outcomes by the end of the five year project include a 5% reduction in the number of students who do not advance from ninth to tenth grade; a 5% increase in the high school graduation rate; a 10% increase in the number of students who enter college; and a 10% increase in the number of project students who succeed in their first semester and persist to a second semester of college.
Number of students served: 800 students in the AVID Elective; 7,670 students school wide.
Project Evaluator: / Mary Visher

Susan Sepanik

Organization: / MDRC