AVID Monthly Newsletter

Welcome back to another amazing year at Akins, the best high school on the planet! We are so thankful for all of your support of our AVID program and students this past semester. We need your help to get documentation for AVID Certification. Please click on the links below to add awesome AVID strategies you are using in your classroom:

Writing

Inquiry

Collaboration

Organization

Reading

Sixteen of our seniors have been accepted to 26+ colleges! Way to go, seniors and AVID teacher Chistina Garcia-Mata! We know these AVID students are off to great places.

Jose Luna-Espinosa is a Dell Scholar Semifinalist! Please congratulate Jose on this amazing accomplishment.

Sophomore Tina Le is our AVID student of the month for December! The following students were the student of the month for their grade level:

9th: Justin Gonzalez

9th ECHS: Alishba Ali

10th: Tina Le

11th: Brianna Bucio

12th: Elisa Maldonado

This will be a busy semester for the AVID program as we recruit incoming 9th graders and also current Akins students. If you know of any current 9th graders who would benefit from AVID, please reach out to us. I will be sending out a flyer to post in your room for 9th grade students who are interested. Look for it in an email soon!

Our AVID strategy of the month is Focused Note-taking. We are revisiting this strategy since it is so important in knowledge retention. To me, one of the most important steps is getting students to go back and review their notes. This will help them retain the information and do well on tests and quizzes. FNT is the most common AVID strategy used across campus. Here is a refresher of the FNT Process.

Process for FNT:

1. Take notes: Teacher determines a purpose, selects a format, creates an essential question and notes for students.

2. Process Notes: Students should go back over notes, revise, highlight, etc.

2. Connect Thinking: Students should ask questions, think beyond notes, connect to prior learning.

4. Summarize/Reflect: Students reflect and think about their notes, make a summary of what they've learned.

5. Apply Learning: Students should use notes to review/study.

For more information, click here for a slideshow presentation.

Our students enjoy team building activities on Fridays! 9th and 10th grade students recently built holiday towers out of gum drops. Mrs. Grumbles and Ms. Forde's students love competing against each other in basketball and football. Mrs. Garcia-Mata's seniors played musical chairs recently on Fun Friday and had a blast! Ms. Martinez's students love playing football!

Please feel free to reach out to us at any time regarding our students! Click on the link to see all of the AVID student per grade level.

Aimee Finney (AVID 1 and Debate)

Aleisha Forde (ECHS AVID 1)

Christina Garcia-Mata (AVID 3 and 4; Green Tech Academy Coordinator)

Teresa Grumbles (AVID 1 and 2; Site Coordinator)

Paty Martinez (AVID 1 and AVID 3; SEL; Basketball)

In addition to our AVID elective teachers, these leaders also serve on our site team. If you are interested in joining the site team, our next meeting is January 15 at 4:45 pm.

Susan Thames: Assistant Principal (New Tech)

Margarita Moreno: Counselor (Green Tech)

Sarah Nickel: Counselor (AHA)

Melinda Van Horn: Counselor (ABLLE)

Annette Gutierrez: College and Career Counselor

Lora Alaniz: CTE teacher (AHA)

Elisha Aldana: Math teacher (ECHS)

Christina Berry: Math teacher and STEM Academy Coordinator (STEM)

Melissa Contreras: Social Studies teacher and ABLLE Academy Coordinator (ABLLE)

Katie Delmore: Social Studies teacher (Green Tech)

Christina Jenschke: Science teacher (ABLLE)

Rebecca Redland-Sturzl: English teacher (Green Tech)

Loraine Tijerina: CTE and SEL teacher (SS)