SBCSS News and Press Releases

AVID Senior Scholarship Winners Announced

2005-05-12

SAN BERNARDINO – About 1,300 Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) students representing 65 high schools from Riverside, Inyo, Mono and San Bernardino (RIMS) counties will be honored tonight at a recognition ceremony at the University of California, Riverside (UCR).

Among the students to be honored will be 14 seniors who will receive $1,000 scholarships from UCR, California State University, San Bernardino and the RIMS AVID/Community Foundation Scholarship program.

AVID is an international education program that began in San Diego and targets students in the academic middle – B, C and D students – who have a willingness to want to go to college. Typically, AVID students are the first in their families to attend college, and many are from low-income or minority families.

RIMS AVID is one of 11 regional programs set up in California, and this year there are more than 1,600 seniors from the four-county region graduating from high school. The seniors in RIMS AVID reached the followed goals:

Eighty-one percent have been accepted to at least one four-year university (1,321 seniors);

Twenty-four percent have been accepted at least to one UC school (387 seniors);

Nineteen percent have been accepted at least to one private college or university (306 seniors);

Twelve percent have been accepted at least to one out of state college or university (192 seniors).

The following students earned $1,000 scholarships from Cal State San Bernardino:

Jasmine Calderon of Jurupa Valley High School;

Elvia Huizar of Fontana High School.

The following students earned $1,000 scholarships from UCR:

Ingrid Ramon-Parra of A.B. Miller High School;

Jorge Nunez of Pacific High School.

The following students earned $1,000 scholarships from the RIMS AVID Community Foundation program:

Christina Romero of Rubidoux High School;

Luis Enciso of Rancho Verde High School;

Salud Meza Solis and Nadeen Jamil of Murrieta Valley High School;

Verika Dildy of Ramona High School;

Andrea Martin of Santiago High School;

Lindsey Basbas of Rialto High School;

Roberta Smith of Arroyo Valley High School;

Christina Olivas of Bloomington High School;

Christeen Reyes of Granite Hills High School.

Norma Covert-Beard worked in the County Schools Student Services Division for 25 years. She began her career as a special education teacher in 1962, served as principal at Lucy E. Siegrist and Ruth Sumney schools in Hesperia and worked with special education students from High Desert school districts until she retired as a consultant for the parent-infant program in 1987.

“We are proud to dedicate the education center to Norma, who spent 25 years in public education serving the students and communities of the High Desert,” County Superintendent Herbert Fischer said.

Special education students from Apple Valley, Hesperia, Snowline and Victorville currently attend the school, which opened in September 2003. The $1.1 million 4,320-square-foot school, located on 1.2 acres, has about 35 preschool through early elementary students from High Desert school districts.

One of Superintendent Fischer’s priorities has been to build and acquire permanent facilities to house the 6,000-plus special education and alternative education students served by SBCSS. Four more county education centers in Etiwanda, Rancho Cucamonga, Redlands and Rialto are scheduled to open in the next year.