PUSDAVID

October 24, 2024

What Great AVID Principals Do Differently

By Brett Bowers

AVID Vice President, School District Leadership

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Among all professional positions within a school, classroom teachers play the most critical role in student success. There is no one more impactful on a student’s achievement than a high-performing teacher. Yet, an abundance of research in the field confirms school principals are nearly as influential on student outcomes. The lynchpin of a school both organizationally and culturally, a great principal’s impact cannot be understated.

Great principals can be the source of much good across a school. Great AVID® principals are just as influential, but they aren’t just powerhouse leaders in general. Great AVID principals lead and own AVID as part of their playbook for excellence—ensuring it plays a critical role in their success, the success of all students and staff, and the success of the school site overall.

Here are ten ways great AVID principals lead differently...

They understand AVID’s purpose on the campus.

Great AVID principals don’t just express support for AVID or act as AVID cheerleaders. Instead, they have a clear understanding of the role AVID is intended to play on the campus—why it’s there and what it’s meant to accomplish. Great AVID principals hold and express a deep commitment to college and career readiness for all, providing a context for AVID’s initial implementation and growth over time. In doing so, they guarantee teachers understand why AVID exists at the school site and how it can support them in their work.

They set and relentlessly communicate a clear, AVID-informed vision for instruction.

Great AVID principals ensure the entire instructional staff understands what high-quality teaching and learning look like across content areas and grade levels. They create a clear vision for effective instruction, articulating its components in a way that is both comprehensible and actionable for educators. Great AVID principals weave college and career readiness expectations into that vision, helping all staff understand what it looks like to prepare students for life beyond K–12. And when that vision for instruction is created, great AVID principals communicate it over and over, infusing it into their central messaging about the identity of the school. They champion the instructional vision and ensure it echoes throughout every conversation about instruction and instructional improvement on the campus.

They understand how AVID can spread across a campus and lead accordingly.

Great AVID principals appreciate that AVID has maximum impact when it influences teaching and learning in all classrooms across the school. Further, they know that level of reach and impact takes time. They also understand that a top-down, directive approach to leadership does not produce staff investment or lasting change. Great AVID principals understand that the AVID Elective (secondary) and classrooms across a grade level (elementary) are intended to serve as model classrooms for the school. When AVID has powerful results in those spaces, AVID as a concept gains credibility and interest from other educators. As such, great AVID principals ensure excellence in those model classrooms. Just as importantly, they create visibility for what goes on in them so other educators can see the impact and join the movement.

They position WICOR® as support for rigorous expectations.

Great AVID principals understand all students need—deserve—rigorous academic preparation. As such, they insist on it, opening access to advanced coursework while at the same time eradicating curricula taught below grade-level standards. Great AVID principals also understand the inclusion of carefully selected WICOR strategies into lesson plans can provide students the scaffolding and support needed to succeed in reaching these high expectations. While WICOR is a tool for helping students access and master challenging content, WICOR strategies alone do not necessarily ensure rigorous academic preparation. Great AVID principals focus on students’ access to on-grade-level or beyond standards and content (the “what” of rigorous learning) while positioning WICOR strategies as support (the “how” of rigorous learning) needed to achieve those outcomes.

They continually model WICOR strategies for staff.

Great AVID principals know that one of the most powerful ways to influence the culture of teaching and learning at their school and to improve the quality of instruction across classrooms is to model effective use of WICOR strategies in their everyday work with staff. Great AVID principals use every gathering of instructional staff—committee meetings, staff meetings, team meetings, etc.—to employ carefully selected WICOR strategies authentically with adult learners. In modeling WICOR for staff while serving in the meeting facilitator role, great AVID principals show educators when and how to use select strategies. Along the way, they reinforce the cultural expectation that authentic engagement and rigorous learning should happen everywhere in the school—both in and beyond the classroom.

They set instructional expectations for themselves and others.

Great AVID principals are not heavy-handed or dictatorial in their leadership. At the same time, they understand that only through expectations and accompanying follow-up can a school promise a quality educational experience for all students. As such, great AVID principals take time to ensure staff receive the training and support needed to grow in their practice, including the effective use of WICOR strategies. But, they don’t stop there. Great AVID principals collaborate with educators to set expectations for WICORized lesson planning and instructional design to ensure the school’s vision for instruction comes to life for students. Great AVID principals don’t just send staff to AVID professional learning and attend alongside them. They translate those experiences into tangible expectations for themselves and the staff so students are sure to reap the benefits.

They spend time in classrooms and give focused feedback around WICOR.

Great AVID principals don’t just champion the vision for instruction or set expectations around the purposeful infusion of WICOR strategies into lesson plans, they also spend as much time in classrooms as possible. In doing so, they see firsthand the extent to which the site’s instructional vision is coming to life and teaching and learning expectations are being met. And even more importantly, great AVID principals take the time to offer teachers both celebratory and constructive feedback focused on school-level expectations for classroom practice.

They take ownership of AVID.

Great AVID principals realize they can’t do it all. As such, they delegate authority to others and believe in diffused leadership. At the same time, great AVID principals understand that full delegation of anything sends a clear message to staff that whatever has been delegated—while important—is not as important as the things the principal opts to hold close. Great AVID principals maintain an active role in AVID implementation, leaning on colleagues like the AVID Site Team and AVID Site Coordinator to do their part, but never fully handing over the leadership of AVID to others.

They create high-functioning teams that lead and leverage AVID.

Great AVID principals hold true to the belief that all educators should be members of productive, collaborative teams—teams that allow teachers to share best practices, support one another, balance the workload, and unify their efforts. As such, great AVID principals ensure there is a strong, engaged AVID Site Team on the campus that includes diverse members as well as themselves. They invest in the Site Team as a leading force in AVID’s implementation. But, they don’t stop there. Great AVID principals ensure PLCs, grade level teams, or whatever other collaborative structure is in place for teachers to work in groups are functional and include AVID leaders and experts. When teacher teams include AVID-trained staff who are actively integrating WICOR into their lesson planning, those AVID experts can share their work with others, encouraging the organic spread of AVID across departments and grade levels.

They ensure AVID isn’t “one more thing.”

Great AVID principals recognize that educators are faced with a myriad of demands that split their focus, their effort, and their time. Further, great AVID principals understand that every time an improvement effort like AVID is brought to a school, it has the potential to create one more draw on educators that can fuel burnout and initiative fatigue. That’s why great AVID principals actively infuse AVID into the work of the school instead of having it stand alone as one of any number of siloed campus initiatives. Instead of having isolated AVID professional development presentations for staff, for example, great AVID principals focus on the goals of the school and integrate AVID as a solution to reach those goals when appropriate. As a result, AVID is not one more thing for teachers but instead becomes part of their ongoing core experience as members of the staff.

The principalship is one of the most challenging jobs in a school or school district. Countless demands pull on the principal’s metaphorical sleeve, begging for that leader’s time and attention. Great AVID principals are subject to all those sleeve tugs. Still, they make a conscious commitment to lead and own AVID, integrating it into their work just as they integrate it into the fabric of the school. In doing so, they make AVID ubiquitous—a defining element of the systems, leadership, instruction, and culture at the site—while promoting college and career readiness for all.

Brett Bowers is AVID’s Vice President of School District Leadership. Before joining AVID in 2019, he served as principal of two award-winning comprehensive high schools outside Milwaukee, Wisconsin. At both schools, he helped lead the investigation, launch, and refinement of AVID. Homestead High School, the school he last led, was named an AVID National Demonstration School during his tenure and was revalidated after his departure.