Jeanette Wolfberg is reporting for The Columbia Paper the Hudson Board of Education at two recent meetings discussed implementation of the Advancement via Individual Determination, or AVID, college-preparation technique being utilized in the district. AVID has now reached all 5th graders and a group of 7th graders this year. With AVID, “teachers can still teach in their individual way, but the material is the same” across grade levels, Superintendent Maria Suttmeier said. All students get lessons in the same skills, knowledge, and organizational techniques. AVID students, in all grades, have a loose-leaf binder organized the same way with the same color tab for each subject. The binders are checked and graded once a week. The district has enrolled the help of 11th and 12-grade students to help individual 7th graders in the AVID program with academic problems twice a week. Mark Brenneman, principal of Montgomery C. Smith Elementary School said that AVID “brings us together as a district” with the same expectation in all classes. Read the full story in The Columbia Paper.