We talked to Esther S. (pictured left) and Amberle F. (pictured right), two awesome students here at iSucceed. Here’s what they told us about AVID.

What interested you about the AVID program?

“As soon as I was told that I could meet with peers and meet with them to help each other with school, I loved it.” – Esther S.

“I love working with people, that is one thing that I’ve always missed being an online school student, so when I heard about the collaboration of AVID I was hooked!” – Amberle F.

Since joining, what skills or resources have you learned?

“I have found AVID very useful. Working with my peers and being able to learn from them is so nice. It will help me in college and work being able to work better with others and split the work up. Learning how to work to find the answers to a problem.” – Esther S.

“My advisor has been very helpful with my plan for the future. She has helped me with some things that I need to have in place before I graduate that I would have never known about.” – Amberle F.

One component of the AVID program at �Թ���is the group participation projects. What are your thoughts on that, and how has it worked out for you?

“There is something about talking to other students that understand what you are going through that makes it easier to do projects.” Amberle F.

What was it about the AVID program that made you decide on bringing it to iSucceed?

“It has a good track record of producing successful students. Also, I felt we could use the AVID program as a vehicle to help better prepare our college-bound students and to help them earn scholarships and Advanced Ops monies.” – Clayton Trehal, principal

Is there something that you believe would convince more students to join, if they only knew about it?

“I think the biggest hurdle is that it’s an extra commitment. We offer it as a 4th course, and it also has live class requirements that our normal courses don’t. I think many students can get a little freaked out about that, but if they stick with it, they’d find that the course is not too hard and that the live class/learning team requirements are beneficial.” – Clayton Trehal, principal

What do you enjoy most about teaching the AVID class/program?

“I enjoy teaching the AVID elective and seeing students apply the strategies they learn in AVID in their core classes. They are taking more rigorous courses and continuing to be successful while pushing their limits. Collaboration is also a huge part of our AVID program and I love seeing our students work together. Taking online classes can be isolating and make it hard to build relationships. Our AVID students are now meeting up online and in person on their own time to socialize and help each other in classes.” – Tara Downs, guidance

“Being in an environment with a lot of crazy teenagers and a lot of chaos going on, I didn’t ever really focus well on school, I always just liked to goof around and hang out with friends. So, online was a good option because I was able to really focus and be alone instead of having to be in a group with friends and stuff, which was really distracting for me.” -McKaee

“When I was in traditional school, I got really distracted making sure that I was a part of the crowd. With iSucceed, that takes that pressure off, but then, at the same time, you have plenty of time to do your own thing.” – Celine

There are assignments and deadlines, but you can work at your pace

“The way we have our units done is there’s six units per class, five lessons each. We need to do 10 lessons a week, I usually do 15 so I can get everything done ahead of the game and finish a few weeks early…making your own schedule is super important. So, it all depends on you and you need to not be afraid to go by your own schedule. Doing your own thing at your own pace, that does work. I definitely don’t recommend leaving everything for the last week, though. It’s not a good idea.” – Anastasia

If you have a question, you just ask a teacher

“All the teachers are actually pretty good, like, if you make a mistake, they aren’t going to be like, “OK, you’re off the hook” or, “You’re in trouble” or something. They’ll say, “OK, we’ll give you a chance to make that up. That’s kind of the whole motto, it’s not ‘iFail,’ it’s iSucceed.” – Mark

“I also really like �Թ���because you can talk one-on-one with your teacher basically any time you want, whether it’s a phone call, text message, email, they’re always available to talk through stuff with you. If you have any questions at all, your teachers are right there for you.” – McKaee

“The teachers are just really helpful, and they’re kind, and they always reach out if you’re having trouble, and you can always contact them.” Haley

The environment is actually pretty nice

For one:

“When you’re at home, you don’t have to worry about paying for lunch, it’s in your fridge. I just really like that school because I just like the community and the environment. ” – Mark

For another:

“I love going to the (school) events and talking to other students and feeling like I’m not alone. Everyone’s really nice and is like, ‘How are you doing? How’s your courses going?’” – Celine

And you can have flexibility for other things in your life

“I had some trouble with the last school that I went to. It interfered too much with my skating…I like the classes, I like the structure, I like the curriculum.” Haley 

“If it weren’t for iSucceed, I would have never had the time or really the patience to be able to write (my) book, because the struggles with public school, there was so much stress that completely prevented me from being able to publish it, so as soon as I started iSucceed, I had the time to actually start focusing on doing this…” Anastasia

Interested in learning more about iSucceed? Click on the button below:

Ryan is a great student here at �Թ���who enjoys working on his 1980 Camaro and, more recently, bodybuilding.

Bodybuilding and powerlifting wasn’t something Ryan always thought he would do, but life opened the path for him one day.

“I played basketball every year until I injured my ankle and needed to rehab,” said Ryan. “When I was rehabbing, I started lifting a lot more.  I became interested in bodybuilding when I started to see some results. I instantly became addicted to it because of how I felt and the results that I saw. Although it takes a lot of time, it does not feel like a commitment for me anymore…it is more like a hobby.”

It may be a hobby, but it’s something Ryan is pretty great at, which you can see in the video above bench pressing heavy weights.

“Due to my age and living in Idaho there aren’t many competitions or local clubs to join. I work out at Crunch Fitness and we have a small home gym. I train with my older brother who graduated from �Թ���last year along with local body builders.”

It’s really an �Թ���family. His brother graduated from �Թ���and his mom, Karen Lesh, is a counselor here at �Թ���too!

Being the great mom and counselor she is, Ms. Lesh has encouraged Ryan to get the grades he needs to get into the school he wants. After graduating, he plans to:

“Attend BSU to study forensics and criminology. I am considering joining ROTC at BSU. Post graduation I will work for a year and then apply to the FBI. My goal when starting this year was to get all A’s. I needed to get my GPA to a 3.0 to get accepted into BSU and the other colleges I applied to. I am on track to reaching that goal after this quarter.  I will graduate high school with a higher GPA than I thought possible which will hopefully open up some more scholarship opportunities.”

“I became interested in �Թ���because my brother moved over last year as a senior and he liked the flexibility of the school. For me, going into my senior year I only needed six credits to graduate. I chose to become an online student so I could have a flexible schedule to bodybuild and work part time to save money for college,” said Ryan.

To save up for college, Ryan works at Home Depot, where his job includes helping customers load their vehicles and helping them with anything else they need. Ryan says juggling school and work successfully is a matter of setting a schedule at the beginning of every week and sticking to it.

“I like �Թ���because I can create my own school schedule which allows more available hours to work,” said Ryan. “The teachers and staff are available to help whenever I have asked.”

In addition to the teacher’s availability, Ryan’s favorite thing about �Թ���is the flexibility it offers:

“The main benefits are schedule flexibility, good classes and availability of teachers and staff. The flexible schedule allows me to cook my meals and workout two hours a day. I would not be able to work as much and put the dedication and time into the gym if I would have stayed at my previous high school. I have been able to save up a pretty good amount of money for college as well.

For anyone interested in online school, Ryan shares a piece of advice:

“Some people think that switching to online school is easier than being in a building. I can tell you that you do have more flexibility, but the same amount of work. You have to be organized and accountable…I believe that learning to self regulate in online school will transfer to being a good college student.” – Ryan Schmitt, 17

For more information on iSucceed, head here.