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Clinton City Schools outlines multi-year AVID expansion, adds elective seats and summer training
Summary
School leaders told the board they will expand AVID programs to two elementary sites and add a ninth-grade AVID elective next year, send teachers to summer institute and start with a single high-school AVID section in 2025-26.
Clinton City Schools officials told the school board on Feb. 18 that the district will expand its AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) program to additional campuses next school year and add a ninth-grade elective at Clinton High School.
The update, delivered by district administrators, said Butler Avenue and Sunset Avenue schools will adopt AVID schoolwide for 2025‑26, Sampson Middle School will continue AVID secondary electives for grades 6–8, and the high school will pilot one AVID elective section for ninth grade next year, with an initial class size of roughly 20–30 students.
District staff said the move is intended to create continuity across grade levels: "WICR stands for writing, inquiry, collaboration, organization and reading," a district presenter summarized, saying those instructional strategies will be used from elementary through high school to teach organizational and academic skills.
Why it matters: AVID is designed to boost college- and career-readiness through explicit instruction in study skills, focused note taking and organizational systems. Board members asked how the district will select students for the elective and how the phased rollout will affect schedules and other electives such as band.
Details and rollout: Presenters said Sampson Middle currently has about 101 students enrolled in AVID elective classes and that the district will funnel students into high school AVID as they transition from eighth grade. Selection for the elective is by application, teacher recommendation, interview and rubric scoring; essays are blind-scored and interviews are scored by teachers. Students must reapply year-to-year.
Administrators said the district will send roughly 43 teachers and staff to AVID Summer Institute this year for training. They also described plans to use a "skinny" scheduling model at the high school (pairing AVID with another course such as an honors class) so students can keep credits and still access AVID instruction.
Questions from board members focused on: how students reapply year-to-year, whether AVID elective students can still take band and other electives (staff said yes, schedules have been adjusted), how many sections the high school can sustain, and retention of students who try AVID and later wish to leave (staff said they typically encourage students to remain at least one year and place struggling students on probation rather than immediately removing them).
The presenters said AVID is a multi-year effort: the district will start small, monitor outcomes and expand grade levels over roughly a five-year horizon if implemented with fidelity. Staff also noted a plan to report back to the board with end-of-year AVID data pulled by the AVID coordinator so trustees can track student progress.
Board members asked about evidence of AVID's impact; administrators pointed to other North Carolina demonstration sites where AVID schools report higher graduation rates and scholarship dollars, and said the district will gather local metrics as the program matures.
Ending: District leaders asked the board to view the AVID expansion as an ongoing implementation that will be scaled over several years and assessed with school-by-school data rather than a one-time rollout.
