A class offered at Davenport schools is taking middle of the road students and pushing them to the top.
AVID, which stands for Advanced Via Individual Determination, is specially designed to prepare young students for college and future careers.
"We handpick 25 to 30 students per grade level who want to go to college, but don't necessarily have he support they need to do that. So we're just giving them that support," said Jessica Bishop, an AVID elective teacher.
In AVID, students are taught specific skills and behaviors to help them in higher education. Skills like leading a group project, asking each other questions, and taking advanced notes.
"There are three parts to the AVID curriculum. There are curriculum days, tutorial days, and enrichment days. So for the tutorial days, the students lead themselves through a process of figuring out things they’re confused about by asking questions. they don’t tell anyone how to do things, they always ask them questions so they can figure it out themselves," said Bishop.
"On curriculum days we work on things like time management, organization, goal setting, all the things that they need to be successful in college. On enrichment days we go on college visits, we go on job shadows, we go on field trips, we have all kinds of guest speakers from around the community come in and talk," Bishop said.
The class has been offered at JB Young and Sudlow Intermediate schools for four years. It's now also being taught at Davenport Central High School to the group of AVID students who graduated into the 9th grade.
"These students are going to college, they know they’re going to college, they even know what college they’re going to," Bishop said. "It just makes them realize that they can do anything they want to do if they work hard for it."