Academics

Catherine Chiang and Daisy Prom
Opinions Editors

It’s the issue that educators at AHS have been trying to solve for years: The achievement gap between Asians and Latinos. While we wonder whether the cause is attributed to culture, apathy or environment, the student panel provided suggestions based on their own experiences.
The panel spoke of the need to motivate students from the very beginning, not just honing in on them as graduation nears. The importance of knowing what our futures should be is the start of constructing a solid road map, which leads to a more meaningful high school academic experience.
Sound familiar? Well the future-planners of AVID are an important resource of our school, a resource that is not available to nearly enough students. The panel shared that making AVID more widely available to students would allow them to be more confident with their purpose much sooner in their high school career. Because AVID is only available to those who have free 0 period and 3rd period slots, really only a fraction of students can be sorted into the period.
Other resources that need to be flaunted and possibly made mandatory for more students who need it is our Crossroads tutoring program. Offering tutoring in both math and English, the after-school program allows for students to have a more personal learning experience with either a teacher or experienced student tutor. It is also important to have stronger teachers for all four years of a student’s high school career. A teacher who does his or her job well is a teacher who is dedicating as much of his or her time as possible to create many successful citizens.
Another suggestion was to make meetings with our counselors more frequent. The counselors here at AHS work tirelessly and passionately, so it is without a doubt that they will want to see as many of their students become successful adults, and for that to happen, there needs to be a new system where students can meet with them more often and more easily. During these meetings, counselors check for whether the student is on track to graduate and whether they have plans after graduation. Having more frequent meetings is like having more frequent reminders of the path they have chosen.