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Connect Canyons
Learning is about making connections, and we invite you to learn and connect with us. Connect Canyons is a show about what we teach in Canyons District, how we teach, and why. We get up close and personal with some of the people who make our schools great: students, teachers, principals, parents, and more. We meet national experts, too. And we spotlight the “connection makers” — personalities, programs and prospects — we find compelling and inspiring.
Connect Canyons
Ep 101: Here’s What It Takes To Earn National Distinction For College-Readiness
Merriam Webster defines the word avid as characterized by enthusiasm and vigorous pursuit. That's exactly how students in our five AVID schools pursue their education with the goal of graduating college- and career-ready.
AVID stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination, and it's a research-backed college prep program which is offered at 7,500 schools across the country. Five of those schools are right here in Canyons School District. Eastmont Middle, Mount Jordan Middle, Glacier Hills Elementary, Sandy Elementary, and Jordan High School. Now, Eastmont is leading the charge having just been named an AVID Demonstration School, a rare distinction shared by only 1 percent of the nation’s AVID schools.
In this latest episode of Connect Canyons, Eastmont Principal Stacy Kurtzhals and Instructional Coach Susie Baer Young explain the work that goes into becoming an AVID Demonstration School, and how AVID is changing how teachers teach, and students learn.
Episode Chapters
00:27 Introduction to AVID
We learn what AVID means and how it is used in the classroom.
01:43 Understanding AVID's Impact on Students
Kurtzhals and Young outline how they’ve seen AVID directly impacting students in how they learn and grow.
02:34 Eastmont's Journey to Becoming a Demonstration School
The steps it took for Eastmont to become one of a handful of schools in the country where other educators look to for guidance on how to be an AVID school.
10:29 AVID Elective and College Readiness
We learn about the difference between attending an AVID school and how students can take separate AVID classes.
13:43 Encouraging Parent Involvement
How parents can get involved in their children’s educational journey.
Welcome to Connect Canyons, a podcast sponsored by Canyon School District. This is a show about what we teach, how we teach and why we get up close and personal with some of the people who make our schools great Students, teachers, principals, parents and more. We meet national experts too. Learning is about making connections, so connect with us experts too.
Speaker 2:Learning is about making connections, so connect with us. Merriam-webster defines the word avid as characterized by enthusiasm and vigorous pursuit. That's exactly how students in our five avid schools pursue their education, with the goal of graduating college and career ready. Welcome to Connect Canyons. I'm your host, frances Cook. Avid stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination, and it's a research-backed college prep program which is offered at 7,500 schools across the country. Five of those schools are right here in Canyons District Eastmont, middle, mount, jordan Middle, glacier Hills Elementary, sandy Elementary and Jordan High School. And now Eastmont is leading the charge, having just been named an AVID demonstration school. Now that's a lot to take in. So today I'm joined by two people who can help us to understand what AVID is and how it's impacting hundreds of students across the district. Joining me are Eastmont Principal, stacey Kurtzals, and Eastmont Instructional Coach, susie Baer-Young. Thank you both for being here, thank you, thank you. Let's start with the basics, susie, can you tell us what AVID means when it comes to the daily education of our students?
Speaker 3:AVID is a program that focuses on college and career readiness, and it teaches students skills to be successful in the classroom but also outside the classroom. So ultimately it impacts students by what they're learning, but it also helps teachers learn how to teach better and to engage students better. I'd like to dig a little deeper into that learn how to teach better and to engage students better.
Speaker 2:I'd like to dig a little deeper into that, and you know, part of the AVID curriculum is emphasizing reading, writing, research, collaboration and I find these ones so interesting note-taking and study skills. So how is all of that implemented?
Speaker 3:Well, a lot of it's implemented through the teachers, because they learn these skills to be able to better teach the students, and so we do a lot of professional development focused on those skills to be able to reach those students.
Speaker 2:Now, last month, Eastmont was named an AVID demonstration school, and that speaks volumes to the dedication of Eastmont's educators and their students alike. Stacey, can you tell us what being a demonstration school entails?
Speaker 4:So we've been working with AVID in our school for 12 years, so it's been a long road. Over the last six years, we set a goal with our school to become a national demonstration school, and so we really had to hit a lot of markers from AVID National I believe there's 60 at least Wow and you have to collect data over time showing that you're working towards these goals. So that includes academic goals. That includes showing the things that you're doing within the classroom. So we're really working hard to make this a school-wide thing, not just a program and an elective.
Speaker 2:You mentioned, avid's been part of the school curriculum for 12 years now. What have you seen, as a principal, as an instructional coach, in terms of students' achievements, as AVID has been implemented into the school?
Speaker 4:It's actually been really exciting. We started with AVID looking at how we can get students organized. Organization was our big downfall for students when they come to a middle school from an elementary. So going from one teacher to going into eight different teachers and how do you keep yourself organized? How do you know what you need to do each day. So that was kind of where our starting point was and that's what we focused on the first couple of years was just having a binder system that we taught every student to use so that everybody had the same thing. We actually provide those so that students are prepared with the same materials as well.
Speaker 4:So that was kind of our starting point. From there we moved into note-taking strategies and this was before Susie even joined me. But we moved into note-taking strategies and at the time when we were looking at AVID, AVID was really focused on that student in the middle, that possible first-time college student who, or nobody in their family, had gone to college. But AVID itself has morphed into a college system for every student and it hits students from our special education students who are in our special classes, all the way to our advanced students, and there are strategies and skills that they can use and apply for the rest of their life.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:Something that we've also seen as we've implemented AVID, especially after COVID.
Speaker 3:We noticed that teaching really changed during COVID and a lot of that went to online schooling and using Canvas and those are all wonderful systems and supports, but what I noticed as a coach was that teachers stopped having their students collaborate with each other, so it was a lot of the teacher talk and then the students maybe doing the work independently, but there wasn't as much collaboration. So in the last like three or so years, I've been working really intentionally with teachers to help them improve their collaboration in the classroom so that students are actually talking to one another and they're processing with another and they're problem solving with one another, which ultimately deepens the inquiry. Yeah, While it did start as kind of an organizational system, it now is kind of we're seeing it across all of the indicators of WICR writing, inquiry, collaboration, organization and reading and as we're working on all of those elements, we're seeing the rigor of the teaching go up and that the students are able to meet those expectations and we're also seeing our student scores increase as well increase as well.
Speaker 2:It sounds to me, too, like it's not just focusing on getting a good grade, but all of the little tidbits that you, as you're in school, you don't really realize how much those note-taking skills or organizational skills are going to help you down the road in your career, in your personal life. I mean my pantry can be a mess sometimes and I need to just organize that. I mean my pantry can be a mess sometimes and I need to just organize that. Never mind, whatever your workday influence is, how are you seeing students utilize that and are you seeing a change in them?
Speaker 4:I really think we are. We've really turned the note-taking process over to the students by the time they're leaving our school. So when they come in they're learning the process, they're learning how to do that and by the time they're leaving our school they're learning or they know which types of notes benefit them best for what they're doing and they're able to make that choice themselves. But then they take that note taking process a step further where they're applying it and they're using those notes to study, which I was never taught how to study when I went to school. So you know, it's just, it's really a lot of strategies and things that make students successful as they progress on in their career, educational all of the things that are happening later in their life.
Speaker 3:And just to build off of that, I would also add that AVID really encourages positive relationships between teachers and students, and so one thing that our AVID students are very much aware of is how much their teachers care for them and their belief that they can be successful, that they can go to high school, that they can be successful, whether that is in a normal four-year college program or in a vocational degree. That's completely different. In a vocational degree, that's completely different. So one thing that our students I think also feel from our teachers and just a huge shout out to eSmart teachers is that they love the positive relationships and they work to build that intentionally into their lesson plan. So it's not just, yeah, the note-taking is amazing, the collaboration is amazing, but it's also students feeling the safety and the security to learn and this trust. And I think that's also what makes AVID a little bit different than just the run-of-the-mill classroom and what that safety allows is for teachers to push students to go deeper in their learning.
Speaker 4:And that's where we're getting the growth from our students. Students who normally would give up have the confidence to do things that they wouldn't normally do because they know their teachers believe in them and they've created that safe space within their classroom so that they are able to take that risk. And it's okay to make a mistake, and the only way to learn is to make a mistake and to do something again and to build on your learning.
Speaker 2:You know I think that's completely evident in the school. When it was announced that Eastmont was becoming an AVID demonstration school, you held this wonderful assembly. You know, executives from AVID flew out here to be part of it. You had the students. It was just beautiful to see them cheering as you introduced teachers. Just beautiful to see them cheering as you introduce teachers. And just even, stacey, as you were up there talking, I mean I felt like I just left a concert, like my ears were ringing afterwards because they were genuinely so excited about what was happening, whereas I'm standing there going, I don't really know what this means. So, stacey, now that Eastmont is a demonstration school, that means people are looking to you and your staff and your school all across the country.
Speaker 4:It's kind of awesome Right here in Canyons.
Speaker 2:That's beautiful. So are they coming to Eastmont? Are they, you know, touring the school? Are they calling you? How does that work being a designation school?
Speaker 4:So that's part that we're still learning about. But we do know that we will hold what's called a showcase, and so during the showcase we do open up the doors to people who want to come in and see the school in action. We really work on giving them kind of I've seen a couple showcases where they highlight things that are happening within their school. So you have a purpose of the showcase, not just a random walkthrough. But we also have had schools already reaching out to us this year looking at our scores, so it's been kind of awesome. We had a different district that came and did a walkthrough of our school just because they could compare us and see what we were doing. That they weren't, and so that was kind of a big pat on the back as well. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Now there's you're an AVID school, but there's also an AVID elective. Can we talk about what that is?
Speaker 4:So the AVID elective is a class that students take to learn deeper skills. In this process they really focus on a thing in class called tutorials, but of course, we can't get there until we get to those relationships that Susie was talking about. So they do tutorials and what that is is really like a college level study group. So they're in a semi circle surrounded by the person who is leading it and it's a student and they have created what they call the problem, the point of confusion within their problem. So, whether you know, math is always the one that tends to come out because there's a lot of hard things in math, and so the kids work through how to solve the point of confusion that the student is having. So they don't tell them the answer in a tutorial conclusion that the student is having. So they don't tell them the answer in a tutorial. They help the student to use their tools to figure out how to problem solve themselves.
Speaker 4:Wow, and it is the most powerful thing to watch, because these kids don't know that. They know how to find it and when they figure out that they can work through it and do hard things and get to the answer themselves and that they had the answer all along, the confidence that comes out of them. It goes out into the rest of the school. So, in addition to the tutorials, the students are also doing things like they do binder checks because they need to make sure that their organizational skills are there. They do grade checks to make sure their grades are staying in check. They set goals for themselves. They look at college and career planning. They do a lot of things that are college and college related. They go on those field trips. They've been to the University of Utah and they've been to UVU Weber State, so they go and see those possibilities that are out there.
Speaker 4:So it's really awesome for them to get those outings because, like I said before, the AVID elective is where this all started and that was really focused on that student in the middle, that possible first-time college student, first-generation college student, and so a lot of them don't know that these opportunities are out there. And when you get into the high school level of the AVID elective, the high schools are really focused on the how to do this. So they're really focused on how to apply for scholarships, how to apply to colleges, and I know that a couple years ago I don't have a data point from this year, but a couple years ago there was 23 seniors that were in the AVID elective at Jordan High School and they made about $1.5 million in scholarships themselves Wow.
Speaker 2:Just those 23?.
Speaker 2:Just those 23 students. That's amazing. It's really cool to hear that the college whether it's college, whether it's careers, that that preparedness is coming earlier in life is that that preparedness is coming earlier in life. You know, when I was in school, it wasn't until maybe our junior year that you know our counselors would be like hey, so where do you want to go to college? What do you want to do? I don't know. So to hear that you know students are already picking up on those skill sets and already setting those goals at an early age. That's really beautiful. If parents want to know more about, say, whether it's permitting into Eastmont Utah is a school choice state or about joining the elective class, what should?
Speaker 4:they do. Come on in, have a conversation with us. We love to talk about it. We're very passionate about it. If you couldn't tell, we're happy to answer phone calls. They can email me whatever's easiest. I'm happy to answer anything, but we are taking permits. We're a very small school and we would like to build up our school and share the wealth. We've got some great stuff going on.
Speaker 3:Also, those parents need to know that we have top-notch teachers at our school who are working extremely hard to incorporate a lot of engagement and a lot of rigor, but also like scaffolds appropriate scaffolds into their teaching. And so, for those parents who are looking to maybe switch schools or to come to Eastmont, just know that you are in for a treat. You will be meeting a lot of amazing teachers.
Speaker 2:I mean, you know, teachers of the Year, yep, new York Times bestselling author.
Speaker 4:Exactly Just a few, just to name the Year Yep, new York Times bestselling. Author. Exactly Just a few. Just a few, just to name a few, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:What would you say, as educators, is your biggest takeaway from AVID?
Speaker 3:I think okay, first it's relationships.
Speaker 3:I know I mentioned that earlier, but when you recognize how much relationships can enhance your educational experience and you see that in action, I think first that is the most important thing to know is that AVID enhances relationships. When relationships are enhanced, as Stacey mentioned before, learning can enhance. So that would be my first takeaway. My second takeaway would be that rigor is very possible in a middle school setting and that if you want your kid to be challenged, you want them to understand the AVID program. And I'm not just saying the elective that's wonderful, for sure do the AVID elective but that when teachers understand how much power they can leverage with the WICR strategies and how that can enhance the thinking that the students are doing and the buy-in from the students. And it's not just teacher talk down to the kids while the kids write notes, the kids, the teachers are talking. That leverages the learning opportunities for students and their thinking increases. And they are the ones doing the work and doing the collaboration. I think those two are my top two and I would ditto those for sure.
Speaker 4:But adding on to that, I think it's really important that one of the big focuses of AVID and the mission statement of AVID is that we close the opportunity gap. And yes, we always are looking at achievement, but there is a gap in opportunity for our students. That opportunity knowledge for our students, that opportunity, knowledge To know how to navigate these systems and to know that these systems are possible for every student is something that is very important to me and that I'm very passionate about. And I believe that every student has the ability to move on to whatever they want to, whether that be straight into college, straight into a career. I want every student who walks through the doors at Eastmont to leave knowing that they have the ability to do that.
Speaker 2:Amen. Yeah, I was. You know, I was going to ask what message you would like to share about the work going on at Eastmont, but I kind of feel like you just hit the nail on the head. Yeah, what would you like people to know about the work at Eastmont, about AVID, about just the incredible things going on here at Canyons?
Speaker 4:There are. You know Susie kind of hit it earlier but there are the most dedicated teachers that I have ever worked with on the staff at Eastmont that I have ever worked with on the staff at Eastmont. They are putting in the time to make sure that what they are teaching is relevant, what they are teaching is rigorous and what they are teaching is something that students can take beyond their classroom and apply. And I don't know that you get that in every situation in every classroom. I haven't, I mean, when I went to school myself. I guarantee that there are things that I sat through that I have no idea because I tuned out. But with the instruction that's happening at our school, there's no time to tune out. Our teachers are on it and they are just rocking it and they are the most dedicated people that I have ever worked with.
Speaker 3:I would also echo what Stacey said about the teachers.
Speaker 3:Of course I work really closely to the teachers so I can't say enough good things about them.
Speaker 3:But I also think that there's a culture at Eastmont that is not always something that you feel at other schools, and I think that a lot of that goes to the teachers, that a lot of that goes to the students and their families, but also a shout out to the administration for all that they've done to create that culture. And so I think if anyone walks through our doors, we might have like the oldest building in the district, but you will feel the culture coming in and you will feel how much everyone is there to work together and to work together as a team. And for those of us who've played sports I played a lot of sports growing up there's nothing like it when you have a team that you know has your back, and that is what it is like to be at Eastmont. It really is a team that you feel safe and trust and you feel like you can be pushed and you can go the next level, but you have people there to support you through it all.
Speaker 4:And I do want to say we couldn't do all this. There's some really cool key players at the district level. Jesse Hennifer has been our guidance for AVID all the way through from the district and Jay Rudell is amazing as our district level AVID coordinator Also no longer with us anymore in our district, but Bryn Cook was very, very relevant to getting AVID going in our district. So awesome people to getting AVID going in our district.
Speaker 2:So awesome people. It's really great to hear how everyone from every level whether it's elementary schools, middle schools, high schools at the district, our instructional coaches you can see that work coming together and, like you said, when you set foot in Eastmont, every time I've walked in there the students are happy to be there, they're excited to learn and, like you said, you feel it. You can feel that team camaraderie Stacey's sitting there wearing her team Eastmont jersey right now. Go Patriots.
Speaker 3:I would have worn mine, but I was at a Christmas party for the district. Shout out to my instructional coaching friends. Shout out Love it Go.
Speaker 2:Patriots Go instructional coaches and thank you both for being here. It's beautiful to hear the work that's being done at Eastmont and we can't wait to see what the future brings. As an avid demonstration school, we can't wait to show you Awesome, thank you. And thank you for listening. If there's a topic you would like to hear discussed on the podcast, send us an email to communications at canyonsdistrictorg.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to this episode of Connect Canyons. Connect with us on Twitter, facebook or Instagram at Canyons District or on our website, canyonsdistrictorg.
