AVID Newsletter

AVID Community Night on April 23rd was a great success and really showcased the many strengths in our district and the incredible work students have put forth this year.

We had awesome attendance with over 500 people!

Thank you, everyone, for making this night so well-attended, positive and fun!

Check out more photos on our instagram page!

Denise Rose with Youth Changing the Community Collaborative had such a great time talking to kids about their plans for "when they leave school!" Many students mostly had an idea of their career plans! Parents, grandparents and/or the adult in students' lives were asked:

1. What do you want to do after you graduate?

2. What did you want to do when you were 18 and what are you doing now?

Each week, we will feature a collection of staff members from each school at random!

When you see these amazing people, make sure to tell them THANK YOU for making our district the best place to be!

(click the 'expand arrows' icon to the top right of each photo to enlarge it)

In April, teachers collaborated as a district to learn about and align writing to learn strategies! HCSD#3 has the most dedicated team of teachers!

...who can you spot doing incredible things at each of these schools?

👏 Henry L. Slater is an AVID-Certified School! 🎉

Mission: Empower all students through high expectations to embrace learning and achieve personal success.

Vision: Embraced – Educated - Empowered

Mrs. Davis's Kindergarteners are building strong problem-solving skills in Math - one step at a time! Using 3-column notes helps students solve, show, and explain their thinking. We're growing confident little mathematicians every day!

Kindergarten is rocking the note-taking process! Miss Ellibee introduced the three-column note-taking strategy, and students are already off to a great start. As they begin learning about seasons and weather, the class worked together to explore the four seasons, describing each one with both words and pictures.

Ms. Olson’s kindergarten class practiced AVID Writing by drawing and composing short, complete sentences about their favorite seasons, practicing proper capitalization, spacing, and punctuation to strengthen their early communication skills.

Mrs. Crawford's 1st graders worked really hard on their Animal reports. The students used 3 column notes to write down facts, created a flip chart, and then made a final writing assignment. Here is an example of Henry Cronin's Animal Report about Hippos.

Miss Johnson's first graders got to collaborate with their buddies from Mrs. Marshall's fifth-grade class to turn their three-column notes into a report on their favorite animal!

Ms. Hildebrand’s class collaborated with Mrs. Davis’ 3rd graders to do animal research and complete notes that will be used for their informational writing project.

Students in Mrs. Burns’s second grade class demonstrated how they mark up a text. In their reading story “From Tree to Baseball Bat” students marked the sequence of events, vocabulary words, interesting event/ideas, and any questions they had. Then shared those with a partner before having a class discussion.

Miss Weil's second graders did a philosophical chairs activity, debating if students should get allowance or not from their parents.

Miss Weil's class is also working on 2-column AVID notes to help them learn and remember their math words for measurement.

Mrs. Wilke’s 2nd grade class was using a graphic organizer to take notes in math. In these pictures, Alice and Lilith were working on their objective and essential question for measurement: How do I know whether to measure an object in inches or centimeters?

Students in Mrs. Davis's 3rd grade class are working through a Weather and Climate science unit! In these pictures, we are investigating temperature differences between room temperature, ice and warm water. Students learned how to read an analog thermometer, worked with their teammate to record temperatures in a chart, and then transferred that data to a graph!

Mrs. Fenton's 3rd graders were working on their weather unit, experimenting to see how clouds hold water vapor, at what point precipitation occurs, and then graphing their results.

Her class is loving this weather unit! Students have become cloud inspectors and can examine clouds to tell whether they are storm clouds. They can name and describe clouds after their cloud research. Students then recorded observations in their Weather Journals.

Her students were also studying hurricanes. They read an informational story about a hurricane, annotated their magazines, and recorded facts they learned about hurricanes. They later were able to apply these notes to their design project to create a shelter against hurricanes.

Malachi and Aren in Mrs. Baddeley's class were working on their design for their weather project! How to build a house that can withstand rain and wind.

Mrs. Baddeley's class then did rain and wind testing to see if their structures were weatherproof. They have been learning about weather and especially hurricanes and how we could engineer a house to withstand a hurricane! This house passed the test!

Students in Mr. Weibles class wrote either a fraction or decimal, then passed it to their neighbors. The neighbor would write the number in the opposite form (fraction/decimal). Finally the entire group would share and check it with each other than call their teacher over to check that they all have it correct.

In Mrs. Bertrand’s classroom, we finally received the books we created together at the beginning of the year. It took a lot of hard work and dedication, but the finished result made it all worthwhile.

Mr. Eillibee and his band students visited Miss Howes's class and showed off some of their great skills!

Brayson Kohl, in Mrs. Marshall’s 5th-grade class, shared his Egg Drop design for the annual 5th-grade challenge. Students created designs to see if they could protect their eggs from breaking when dropped from the gym roof. Brayson did a great job explaining his creative design and how it would help protect his egg from the fall.

Slater students gathered to join the excitement of the annual 5th-grade Egg Drop Challenge, eagerly watching to see if the 5th graders’ designs would survive the fall. The event brought the school community together as students cheered on the creative designs and celebrated the results of each drop.

The firefighters joined fifth graders for the egg drop and that was so much fun! Abby brought in her dad and his crew and the students were able to ask questions about that career and what it takes to be a firefighter. This was such a cool day to see so many interesting careers in firefighting.

Writing + collaboration = great learning in library! Third graders worked on answering comprehension questions as a group from "Sideways Stories from Wayside School."

Cecil and Genesis collaborated in a fast-paced “Popcorn Party” word game, strengthening vocabulary, spelling, and rhyming skills by building words with common endings in Mrs. Trent's reading group!

These students in Mrs. Knox’s reading group worked together to practice their skill of ending blends. They had to read the words and then match it to the correct picture.

Mr. Oliver has been teaching 5th graders to play the ukulele!

Evan and Patrick have been loving collaborative water play together!

Sahallie, Brooklyn, Codie and Zivah worked as a team to do their sit-up test!

Avery, Jase, Sage, Ari, Payton and Kyree running the PACER test. They had great perseverance!

Mrs. Marshall’s 5th graders rose to the challenge of a quick-write poem with tricky parameters, stretching their thinking and resilience in SEL with Ms. Henshaw. Through this AVID-centered activity, students practiced focused writing strategies while learning how manageable, “tolerable” stress can strengthen problem-solving, perseverance, and confidence.

Mission: Our mission is to provide staff and students with a Safe, Respectful, Responsible, and Professional Environment to learn.

Vision: Hines Middle School empowers students to grow into Honest, Mature, Scholarly leaders.

Mr. Moss's AVID 8 students visited Sewell's Taxidermy and learned about the career field of taxidermy and learned life lessons of hard work and staying academically focused in high school.

AVID 8 students also visited the Head Start Early Childhood Center to connect with local pre-school students!

6th grade students, in Mr. Tiernan's computers class, worked with partners to complete a quick write brainstorm of possible online activities where people leave part of their digital footprint.

Mrs. Ayling's students worked on discovering what lengths triangles have to be in relation to each other through inquiry, organization and data collection.

Mrs. Ayling students participated in a Jigsaw activity. The same number cards were home group and same color cards were expert groups.

They also collaborated to measure diameters and circumference to discover pi

Ms. Bull's students love painting rocks and bird art!

Students in Mrs. Sorenson's class explored natural and synthetic materials and their uses by creating a bouncy ball with glue, borax, water, and cornstarch. A chemical reaction occurred creating a polymer that could be molded into a ball and bounced!

Mrs. Cate's 6th-grade science class used the AVID Jigsaw method to create Animal Body System posters.

Students in Miss Hughes’ ELA class recently engaged in a collaborative, inquiry-based activity centered on escaping Mt. Olympus. As part of our current novel study of Percy Jackson, students were challenged to make connections between the text and Greek mythology through teamwork and critical thinking.

Students will continue participating in weekly “quests,” where they will build on these skills and compete as teams to earn points, deepen their understanding of the text!

Ms. Nonnenmacher's students were working with partners; one student performed the specific fitness move while the other partner recorded their results. They completed these moves at the beginning of the quarter and now are completing them again at the end of the quarter to show growth, data tracking, and ownership. They are collaborating with each other and keeping one another accountable.

Social Studies

7th graders in Ms. Doty's class engaged in an AVID-style learning experience by taking guided notes as a class, building a strong foundation of understanding about the Silk Road. They then applied their knowledge creatively by designing their own Silk Road board games, incorporating key concepts such as trade goods and the challenges travelers faced. To bring the activity full circle, classmates played each other’s games and provided thoughtful feedback, evaluating how clearly the rules were explained and how well the games represented the items traded and dangers encountered along the Silk Road.

In Mrs. Moss's Health class, students identified the major organs of the digestive system and explained their functions, including ingestion, digestion, absorption, and elimination. The activity emphasized collaboration, inquiry, and reflective learning aligned with the AVID WICOR framework.

Mrs. Moss’s sixth grade health students participated in an engaging AVID activity by creating informational books about how to take care of our bodies. Students researched topics such as washing our hands, taking care of our hair, skin and nails, hygiene, and dental care, then organized their learning into creative, age-appropriate books designed for younger students. This project encouraged inquiry, organization, writing, collaboration, and critical thinking while helping students practice communication skills and build confidence in presenting information.

Mission Statement: Empowering students to learn, grow, and lead.

Vision Statement: To foster a community of learners where curiosity, critical thinking, and academic excellence equip students for success through an AVID framework.

Alyx and Natalie in Mr. Ellibee's AVID Elective class were working on their grad plan posters for AVID community night 2026! Students in the class needed to create a “large” one pager that included their current plans for their future endeavors. Students were excited but also encouraged to keep a positive mindset with these posters as some were still a little unsure of their plans!

Ms. Kokesh's drawing students participated in a calligraphy lesson that incorporated AVID writing strategies, focusing on slowing down, building intentionality, and improving the clarity and quality of their handwriting. Here is Hanna.

This is how Mr. Johnson's students take structured notes in Spanish class. The columns clearly present different forms of the verb: infinitive, the "I" form, and the command.

In Mrs. Bauer’s Study Skills class, students completed a career research project where they selected a career, researched key details, and created a business card-style poster to present their findings. This activity supported WICOR by engaging students in inquiry and reading to gather information, writing to summarize and communicate their learning, and organization through structuring their final product. Students also had opportunities to collaborate and discuss their career choices with peers.

Students in Ms. Howes’ geometry classes apply writing and collaboration as they explored the essential question, “How can I explain the properties of special parallelograms (rhombus, square, rectangle)?” Student teams randomly drew a shape and determined whether it was a rhombus, square, or rectangle based on its physical characteristics described by theorems/corollaries. Students justified their choices, “if a parallelogram is a square, it is also a rhombus and rectangle, but a rhombus or rectangle can never be a square because of square corollary.” Students then wrote equations for the side lengths and solved for their variable based on their shape (i.e. all of a squares sides are equal so they can set them equal to one another to solve for x). By using writing to answer questions about math, students were able to describe the qualities of shapes, algebraic expressions, etc., further depending their understanding of the concepts.

In Mr. Paul's class, a student, using AVID strategies, demonstrated organization and inquiry while creating or reviewing content on the screen. The quiet environment and individual seating arrangement support concentration and self-management. This moment reflects AVID’s emphasis on student ownership of learning, critical thinking, and effective use of technology to complete academic tasks.

Ms. Kokesh's advisory students completed a reflective writing activity, using AVID strategies, to thoughtfully consider and explain their elective choices during forecasting.

English

Ms. Toney's English 10 students collaborated with fellow students to recite/perform the spell from "Macbeth." This also built relational capacity amongst students to increase confidence by participating in a fun activity. Also, it allowed students to further their comprehension of the tone and characterization within the scene.

While 9th grade students in Mrs. Banks' class read "Romeo and Juliet", they have the chance to learn about Renaissance culture...specifically, Dance.

Students in Ms. Smith's biology have been writing daily exit tickets as a way to process and assess learning from the day's lesson. Each day is a different prompt.

Her students completed a WICOR-based lesson that required reading a scenario based mystery involving blood types and genetic traits, applying the information to create a non-linguistic diagram (Pedigree Chart) to identify the genotypes and phenotypes of an entire extended family. From that information they were able to solve the family mystery and conclude who stole the money from the safe.

Biology students also participated in a WICOR based lab using gel electrophoresis technology. The lab required students to read and apply knowledge about food dyes to the process of separating dyes by molecular weight, size and polarity of the dye molecules and then predict predict which dyes on Skittles matched for FDA approved reference dyes. After completing the reading and making prediction they then loaded the four reference dyes and dye samples from four colors of Skittles into the gels. After running the analysis they then analyzed results and wrote summaries based on their findings. This required reading for information, organizing information and materials, collaborating with their partners and classmates to efficiently conduct lab procedures, inquiry into predicting and analyzing results and then writing summary answers.

Students in Mrs. Bailey's class were working to complete their color coding of the three types of elements on the periodic table of her Bohr Model Project.

Students in Ms. Danchok's freshman Health class did the worksheet "See, Think & Wonder" to put their thoughts and opinions in writing on other classmates' Drug Culture cartoons.

In Mr. Brucks’ 10th grade advisory class, students participated in a game of freeze tag to build collaboration skills, teamwork, communication, and positive peer relationships through a structured group activity.

Mr. Horrell's students worked on installing joist hangers on a new shed build in construction.

This 11th Grade New Deal Research project in Mrs. Wassom-Paul's class prepares students by strengthening AVID skills in inquiry, research, organization, and communication through the study of local Oregon history. By investigating New Deal landmarks from the era of Franklin D. Roosevelt, students connect national policies to their own communities, analyze primary and secondary sources, and present their learning in a professional format—building the academic and real-world skills needed for college, career, and civic engagement.

Students in Mr. Young's World History took part in a Stalin Document Based Question essay writing unit. Students first had to analyze primary sources in the DBQ, then form a thesis/essay outline, and finally craft their essays.