Site Teams

AVID Site Team Overview and Resources

The AVID Site Team works to close opportunity gaps and promote college and career readiness for all students by implementing and sustaining AVID throughout their school. The Site Team provides a balanced representation of school leadership and teachers who foster collective educator agency and action through collaboration around AVID strategies and shared responsibility for student outcomes.

The AVID Site Team is led by the principal and AVID Site Coordinator, who provide the strategic vision for AVID at the site and ensure alignment with schoolwide goals. This distributed leadership is essential for a thriving, impactful AVID Site Team.

On secondary campuses, the AVID Site Team consists of the principal, a counselor, the AVID Site Coordinator, the AVID Elective/Excel Elective teacher(s), and at least four core content teachers. Their primary purpose is to support the AVID Elective/Excel Elective, ensuring that students engage in rigorous learning by placing them in classrooms with AVID-trained teachers who incorporate AVID strategies into daily instruction.

On elementary campuses, the AVID Site Team consists of the principal, the AVID Site Coordinator (unless the principal serves as the AVID Site Coordinator), and a minimum of three grade-level teachers implementing AVID. They ensure that students experience daily rigor through AVID strategies and provide consistent experiences for AVID students within and across grade levels.

AVID Site Teams drive schoolwide change, establishing effective teaching practices and collaboration around AVID strategies. They use the AVID College and Career Readiness Framework to promote rigorous content and instruction, developing a college-going and career-ready culture for all students. They guide the implementation of the four AVID Schoolwide Domains—Instruction, Systems, Leadership, and Culture—on their campus as they engage in the Continuous Improvement Cycle (Plan, Do, Study, Act) to set data-driven goals, design and execute action plans, and monitor their progress over the course of a school year.

While the work of the Site Team is yearlong and continuous, summer professional learning is an opportunity for Site Teams to have focused collaboration time to evaluate the impacts of their plans from the previous school year, share and integrate new learning, and develop their plans for the upcoming school year. No matter what your school timeline looks like, high-impact Site Teams create time to regularly engage in their work.

Whether your team is attending summer professional learning or you are creating your own dedicated work time, AVID provides a portal of resources to support the ongoing, year-round work of Site Teams. To understand more about the work of the Site Team, please watch this informational video.

District Directors should ensure that sites understand the need for highly effective Site Teams and support site leaders in leading the AVID Site Team to drive program implementation.

Site Team Portal and Suite of Resources

The AVID Site Team Portal is your go-to resource to plan, implement, and grow the AVID College and Career Readiness System at your school. The portal includes three sections that guide a Site Team’s work: Summer Learning, Year-Long Learning, and Site Team Resources. As new resources are developed and revised, those will be marked with a ⭐ to indicate an update.

Principals and Site Coordinators can use the guidance and materials on the Site Team Portal to guide their teams through the Continuous Improvement Cycle as they establish a Site Team Plan for AVID implementation and sustainability.

District Directors play an important role in supporting site leaders by creating awareness of the portal and resources and aligning their coaching and support to these resources.

Meeting the Needs of Your Site: Beginning in the Summer

Site Team Resources are created so that sites can engage with Site Team materials at their point of need. The Summer Learning section is where sites access materials that set the foundation for effective Site Teams and for initiating the continuous improvement process. Site Teams should use the Site Team Experience Guide to determine which modules to begin with and designate a time to meet in the summer to engage with the materials. Site Teams attending Summer Institute have designated time on Days 1 and 2 for this planning.

The materials in the Summer Learning section are designed to be facilitated by principals and Site Coordinators. The learning experience provides the opportunity for differentiation determined by where each site is in the goal-setting process. These two intentional design elements empower sites to take ownership of their goal-setting process from the beginning, regardless of their entry points (Creating a New Goal, Refining an Existing Goal, or Ensuring the Sustainability of an Achieved Goal).

Ideally, a Site Team’s learning experience will include:

  1. Setting the Foundation — Common Content: How Site Teams Leverage Collective Educator Agency to Achieve Student Outcomes
    • New Site Teams or Site Teams wishing to reset their intentions start here to establish a foundation for the role and work of the Site Team.
    • Experienced Site Teams may choose whether to start with the foundation. Site Teams that attended Summer Institute previously may have already experienced this content. However, if participants are all new to the Site Team, the principal and Site Coordinator may want to dedicate time to working through the content prior to beginning the work of setting goals.
    • Sites may also decide to start with the self-assessment in the foundational materials to help launch them into the appropriate goal-setting path.
    • NEW in 2025: All secondary sites should engage in the Overview of the AVID Elective Certification and Schoolwide Recognition Instruments module.
  1. Choose Your Own Adventure – Choose a Differentiated Path for Each Goal You Are Creating
    • Path 1 | Creating a New Goal: Choose this path if you are in Year 1 of site implementation or if your site is looking at a new set of outcomes.
    • Path 2 | Refining an Existing Goal: It may take a site several years to reach desired outcomes. In this case, sites will choose to refine the goal.
    • Path 3 | Ensuring Sustainability for an Achieved Goal: Once desired outcomes are reached, sites need to ensure that all pieces are in place to sustain efforts. This is also an appropriate path for sites that come to the summer learning experience having already developed site goals for the upcoming year. The gap analysis will provide you with an opportunity to expand your thinking around the goals already developed.

The principal and Site Coordinator(s) will use their data and site plan to determine the best fit. This can be done prior to summer.

A District Director serves as a guide and coach for added support to site leadership. District Directors may also support in ensuring that site leadership is aware of the site-based facilitation and that they have identified needed support. District Directors inform and coach sites in making a decision about the appropriate path.

Experience Logistics

Districts/sites have a variety of options for ensuring that their professional learning needs are met. Regardless of the option that you choose, you have access to high-quality materials via the Site Team Portal to guide your experience.

Summer Institute

Summer Institute participants will have the opportunity to engage in scheduled time on Days 1 and 2 that is dedicated for Site Teams. During this time, teams will use the AVID Site Team Portal and AVID Summer Learning Materials to guide their work. To engage fully in this experience, site leaders from each Site Team need to be prepared to lead their team/table through the work, with the support of the District Director. Each team needs to have access to laptops to navigate through the portal. It will be important to note that your assigned space for Site Teams at Summer Institute may have different districts and Site Teams in the room, so exclusive use of the in-room technology by your team/district may not be available. Regional teams are intentional about assigning space to ensure that your district/team has the best experience.

AVID Ignite

Districts that attend AVID Ignite are encouraged to create a designated time for Site Teams to engage in the Continuous Improvement Cycle. This could be before educators attend AVID Ignite, during the same week, or some time following their professional learning experience. The AVID Site Team Portal and Summer Learning Materials are available to support principals and Site Coordinators in the development of goals and action steps for the upcoming school year.

Other District-Supported Site Team Work (Path/District Events)

The Site Team Portal and Summer Learning Materials are also available to districts that host in-district events, such as a Path, summer Site Team retreat, or other site- or district-facilitated events. In collaboration with principals and Site Coordinators, District Directors should identify the format for the work and the Summer Learning modules that best support where they are in the Continuous Improvement Cycle. Site Teams are encouraged to have a dedicated time between the end of the school year and the beginning of the upcoming school year, regardless of attendance at AVID Center-hosted summer professional learning, to analyze progress and create or refine goals and action plans for the upcoming school year.

District Directors support sites attending Summer Institute by communicating the need and empowering sites to lead their work. For teams that attend AVID Ignite or host district events, the District Director should support sites in ensuring that time is allocated for goal setting. In all options, the District Director needs to be familiar with the Site Team Portal content, materials, and differentiated paths to support sites’ unique experiences through the work.

Meeting the Needs of Your Site: Year-Long Learning

Through the AVID Site Team Portal, sites will continue to have access to a suite of resources designed to provide Site Teams with an intentional year-long experience. The Year-Long Learning section of the portal includes Site Team modules that support sites in using the Continuous Improvement Cycle to guide the development, monitoring, and refining of site goals throughout the year. The Site Team meeting modules align with the Site Team Quarters at a Glance and are designed for use during the regularly scheduled Site Team meetings. These modules can be facilitated by principals or Site Coordinators.

Communication and Support

Please see the Summer Institute and AVID Ignite landing pages for specific event details and logistics.

All individuals connected to the Site Team on a campus may attend sessions to prepare for the kickoff of the year-long Site Team work. During these sessions, we will go over navigation of the portal, how to determine the best session for your Site Team as you begin your summer work, and how to engage with the site year-long. See the Summer Learning section of the Site Team Portal for session dates and times.