Next year the AVID class will be available for a handful of freshmen who have applied as an elective and will go throughout high school with the help of English teachers Kerri Dorris and Sarah Milosh. AVID, which stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination is a program that helps students with high academic potential prepare for entrance to colleges and universities.

“We’re starting with our first freshman class next year, you get recruited through recommendations and your criteria like what your GPA is,” Milosh said.

There will be a teacher in every core subject who will be trained this summer so they will be able to mentor and support future AVID students. Dorris will be the AVID elective teacher for next year along with many more teachers in futures years. She has had experience teaching it in previous years in different schools.

“I actually taught it about nine or ten years ago when I was at Boswell,” Dorris said.

Teachers including Dorris and Milosh visited the Azle junior highs and met with, and interviewed, students who had applied. They had to select 23 students from each school because of the limited class space.

“AVID is not only for the selected students; it’s a campus-wide initiative,” Milosh said.

Dorris and Milosh both have taught AVID in the past and have had a lot of success with their students. Milosh had been an AVID tutor for two years and taught it for nine years. One of the first students she taught started her freshman year off by throwing a dictionary but ended her senior year by graduating, going to San Angelo University, graduating with honors, joining the airforce, entering law school, and is now in Germany finishing her time as a paralegal in the airforce. When the president was inaugurated, Joe Biden walked down the steps of his plane and that same young lady walked alongside him in her full dress escorting him.

“I have one of my AVID graduates from 2011 who’s going to be speaking at the AVID induction in August, and doing pretty well as well so I’ll let him tell his story,” Milosh said.