Youth

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Co-Chairs: Mrs. Sheryl Aiello & Mr. Mark Cass

Monthly Meeting: Every third Sunday of the month, 3-4pm, Brady Faith Center (404 South Ave., Syracuse)

Two years ago the Youth Task Force stood before this public meeting and asked Superintendent Dan Lowengard to ally with ACTS in expanding the AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) program.  The Task Force believed that we needed to find successful efforts and programs and make them available to a much broader group of students.  To that end our hope was that many more of our teachers would become schooled in the AVID techniques so that many more of our students would benefit from the success that this program brings.

At that time, the original 21 students in the first AVID class were seniors. All of them graduated and went on to college.  At that time, there were a handful of trained AVID teachers.  Today:

  • Over 350 teachers have become trained AVID teachers.
  • There are 100 AVID classes reaching approximately 2,150 students in the AVID Program. The graduation and college acceptance rates continue to hover near 100%.
  • AVID classes are offered in 18 Schools: 13 Middle Schools and five High Schools.
  • The Henninger quadrant has “adopted AVID” and additional teachers have been trained in the AVID strategies to be put to use in their teaching.

AVID students also take Advanced Placement courses which have been extremely beneficial to their preparation for college.

It is clear to the Youth Task Force members that AVID plays a vital role in supporting the Say Yes to Education effort and that some additional students still need access to programming and its strategies.