AVID and SDAIE tutors were spread out disproportionately across class periods this year, with a surplus of tutors in first period, according to senior AVID teacher Steven Kahl. This occurred because many senior academic classes were scheduled from periods two through six, leaving many seniors with their first periods available to tutor.
AVID is a class designed to prepare students to become first generation college students, while SDAIE is an English class formulated for English learners.
Freshman AVID teacher Kristin Cardenas said that both freshmen AVID classes as well as the sophomore AVID class were moved to first period to accommodate the tutor disproportion.
“There are a lot of seniors who have holes in their first period,” Cardenas said. “We knew we could fill in holes in senior schedules this way because first period would have an abundance of senior AVID tutors.”
Cardenas also said that this year, the junior AVID class split into two different periods because of its large size.
Now that we are actually living the reality of not all being together, it’s not as lively and loud, and I miss that–the sense of community
According to AVID junior Marco Torres, AVID teacher Lee Casem had brought up the idea of the AVID junior class split toward the end of the last school year. She encouraged the AVID class sophomores, at the time, to voice their opinions.
“It was pretty much split. Some people were for it; some people were against it,” Torres said. “I personally thought it was a good idea. Junior year is an important year and I felt like I wouldn’t be able to get one on one help with Ms. Casem and the tutors had it been a bigger class.
“ I can already see the difference, everyone is so much more focused on their work and the tutor to student ratio is great,” Torres said.
AVID junior student Hannah Cappal also ultimately voted for the class split, because, according to Cappal, the AVID students would be able to work more efficiently. However, she noted she felt that there was a loss of a truly bonded AVID community.
“Now that we are actually living the reality of not all being together, it’s not as lively and loud, and I miss that–the sense of community,” Cappal said.
Torres added that Casem strove to keep the strong connection between AVID junior students by creating a student council, which was assigned to be in charge of planning AVID junior bonding events.
AVID teachers Kim Rogers and Lee Casem declined to comment.