It may have looked like a game night with 20 small groups doing activities, but there was a goal to Glacier Hills’ recent family night.

“It was our family night where parents learned first-hand about the goals behind the AVID college preparedness system,” Principal Julie Winfree said. “We incorporate WICOR intentionally into everything we do so together with students, so we ran the families through all these activities based on it.”

AVID or the Advancement Via Individual Determination, is a national college readiness program that has been around for more than 40 years. It’s been in Utah for 14 years and in seven school districts.

The program is designed to hold all students to high expectations by using the learning model, WICOR, which stands for writing, inquiry, collaboration, organization and reading, she said.

“It’s a learning model that engages students so they’re more empowered in their learning,” Winfree said. “The idea is in every lesson we incorporate each part of WICOR; that's going to help kids hold on to their knowledge better.” 

During the evening, each activity intentionally was built around a different focus – such as writing and organization were included when the groups created and presented a poster that included their team name, cheer and symbol, said school achievement coach Jeni Wariner.

“We had groups cheer after they presented their poster; it was super fun,” she said.

Winfree appreciated how the groups worked together as a teams.

“I loved that the parents were a part of it, but they didn’t take over or do any part of it and that a teacher was there just for support,” she said.

Wariner said there were activities for each letter in WICOR. Some were challenging, but fun and engaging.

“With our collaboration activity, we used bandanas. Each person took the corner, and they had an upside-down cup with a ball placed on top. The ball had to stay on the top of the cup as they moved from one side of the gym to the other,” she said.

Another favorite activity was a 10-minute word scramble called, “Word Storm,” fondly referring to Blizzard, the school’s Yeti mascot. It was the reading focus of WICOR.

“We had a bunch of letters, and they had to come up with as many words as they could as a team in a set time limit. Some of them came up with 70 words. It was wild, but everybody had so much fun,” she said. 

Winfree said the goal was to get families to understand what AVID is and expose them to WICOR.

“We wanted them to know what WICOR looks like in an AVID classroom,” she said.

The night was organized by Jay Riddell, who oversees AVID throughout Canyons School District. Currently, AVID is in Jordan High, Eastmont and Mt. Jordan middle schools, and Sandy and Glacier Hills elementaries.

Glacier Hills began the AVID program last year.

“We were creating Glacier Hills from two schools – Bell View and Edgemont – and they had very different cultures and different focuses – and as we were figuring out how to bring these two schools together, and where we were to start, this became apparent that it was the answer,” Winfree said. “AVID gave us a new language for both groups to form one community and it pulled in everything that our district already did. It wasn't something new. It’s a system for organizing it and presenting it in a new way.”

Winfree said with every reading and math lesson, teachers incorporate the WICOR strategies.

“The rigor of AVID is important for these kids. It’s especially important to those bubble kids, those who haven't had a family member who’s been to college. So one of the things we're doing is providing every child with a binder for organization. It starts simple in kindergartners, but it builds so by the time they're going to Eastmont or Mt. Jordan, they know how to organize and can use that skill. We’re also using our collaboration spaces in every lesson, so they’re learning how to talk to each other and how to engage with each other,” she said.

Warner continued: “If we can get them feeling comfortable sharing their ideas and knowing how to have that academic discourse with each other now, that's going to carry through the middle school and high school. It’s some of these WICOR strategies we're teaching intentionally so they will be more prepared for academic success.”

That intent is carried into other activities.

As part of the school’s recent college and career week, Glacier Hills held an assembly, and scheduled Asst. Superintendent McKay Robinson and a Jordan High AVID student to talk about college and college readiness, Winfree said.

“Our fifth graders will go on a field trip to go see one of Utah’s universities this spring, it's part of our initiative. We’ve also started getting parents to talk about college and had a parent night to talk about college scholarships and Utah’s 529 savings plan,” she said.

Winfree said teachers are excited about AVID; it’s a total commitment by the staff.

“An awesome piece is we get to take teachers to a training, which isn’t common at the elementary level,” she said. “We’ve taken a cohort each year and this coming summer will be the rest of our staff of 90. It’s fun, because it’s a good bonding opportunity, but also it has a leadership aspect. Each teacher attended a different session so afterward, they shared what they learned with other faculty and became the ‘expert’ for that on our staff. That empowered our teachers and helped our whole faculty be able to incorporate those AVID strategies.”

Winfree said when she introduced AVID to the Glacier Hills faculty, a few members balked, resisting implementing the new approach; after training, they fully believed this would improve their instruction for students.

“By the time they had those two critical days of training, they could tell you what AVID strategy they were working on, and how they were going to implement WICOR in their lessons. We had planning time there, which was helpful, so they worked on ‘how I'm trying this,’ and talked to others about what worked. We’ve been able to reach back to the instructors and they get back to us immediately with resources and ideas. It’s been a supportive community focused on student learning. Our kids are benefiting from AVID with more intentional instruction.”

Winfree said because of the success of Canyons’ five AVID schools, the school district is talking about incorporating some AVID strategies districtwide.

She is planning on hosting additional family nights.

“The goal was to get families to understand what AVID is and expose them to WICOR so parents better understand it,” Winfree said about the 150 community members who participated at the event. “It was a successful night, seeing some of the students lead out the activities, teaching their parents these strategies. I loved it. It was amazing.”