Dr. Rick Ramirez, a national AVID staff developer and owner of Champ U LLC, shares his journey from teaching history to becoming an AVID elective teacher and coordinator. He emphasized the importance of AVID's relational capacity and strategies in transforming students' lives. He describes some of his more impactful experiences, including being a US Marine, a boxing champion, and a guest on the Ellen Show. Ricky is a National AVID Staff Developer and a driving force in mentoring and hel...

Silvana Vasquez, a former AVID student from San Gorgonio High School, shared her journey from San Bernardino to Harvard University. She joined AVID in her freshman year, and benefitted from the time management, organizational skills, and WICOR strategies that she learned in her AVID classes. Silvana's dream of attending Harvard began in fifth grade and was fueled by her AVID teachers' support. She faced challenges, including a rigorous application process with personal essays and maintaining ...

Dr. Myrtice Salmond is new to RIMS AVID, but she's certainly not new to the AVID world. Myrtice embarked on her journey with the RIMS AVID team, about a year ago. Prior to RIMS AVID, she made significant contributions at the Orange County Department of Education where she supported AVID advanced placement and english language arts programs. Her AVID expertise comes from the fact that she really has done it all. Her career in education includes roles as an AVID tutor, AVID teacher, AVID coordi...

Our guest today is an incredibly popular and knowledgeable member of the RIMS AVID team. Tommy Stokes has known since sixth grade that he was going to be a teacher when Miss Finney taught him AVID stuff before there was even AVID. In seventh grade Mr. Fratt made him want to be a history teacher. And in 11th grade he met Mr. Tibbels, who helped shape him into the teacher who knew every student and their stories. He started teaching at Moreno Valley High School in 1998, where he was a baseball ...

Tracy comes to us at SBCSS from Hemet Unified, where she was the Assistant Superintendent of educational services for six years. The 10 years before that she held all sorts of leadership roles from assistant principal to principal to Director of Professional Development. Prior to her time with Hemet Unified she was an elementary school teacher and site based instructional coach in Palm Springs Unified. Tracy brings such a passion for students and an incredible wealth of knowledge to her posit...

Today's episode is a conversation with Dr. Kari Penny, the Avid District Leader for Desert Sands Unified School District. Keri's passion for AVID and the success of all students is obvious. When given any chance at all to talk about AVID you simply cannot rein her in. Kari is the glue that keeps AVID going strong in the district, the biggest cheerleader and the driver of the AVID bus at Desert Sands. Tweet us @rimsavid Just for our high school students @rims_avid Email: rimsavid@sbcss...

When we think about avid many times our first thought is secondary and the elective, but there's a whole world of avid elementary out there creating great systems and changing the lives of the littlest avid babies. One of those schools is Dr. Carreon Academy in Indio and part of desert sands Unified School District, we have the opportunity to speak with a group of their avid elementary students ranging from second to fifth grade. And we are not exaggerating when we tell you aren't going to wa...

We were talking about how, in the AVID world, when you talk to Avid students and former AVID students, and you ask them, you know, how did you get from where you were to where you are now, and 99.999% of the time, they say it was their AVID teacher, and that their AVID teacher was the one who made the difference their AVID teacher is the one that, you know, got them on the right path. And so we started thinking, you know, we so often ask our kids in AVID to pause and reflect, and look back on...

Today, we have an incredibly special treat for you. We can't talk about AVID without talking about kids, and what the AVID experience means to them. So who better to ask about how students feel about AVID than actual AVID students. Today we're talking to a fantastic group of students from Oak Hills High School. Tweet us @rimsavid Just for our high school students @rims_avid Email: [email protected] Check out our website rimsavid.org Music by ItsWatR from Pixabay - Cali

Speaking of AVID Rockstar, we definitely have one in the studio with us this morning. In order to have a truly successful AVID system that is district wide, you need to have some key players, you need strong avid teachers, coordinators, admin, tutors and students. But to really make it work you need a strong and passionate district liaison. In our region we have some outstanding DL's, but none more passionate about AVID than our guest today. Charlene Guerra is the powerful force behind AVID i...