As the AVID program is set to celebrate 45 years of work to help students succeed, they’ve singled out one of Canyons School District’s own as a finalist for a new award, the AVID Global Achievement Award.
Canyons AVID Coordinator and Teacher Specialist, Jay Rudel, is one of a handful of education professionals selected as finalists for the award which is split into six categories such as, district leaders, teachers, and principals. The award is designed to, “spotlight exceptional individuals and teams whose work exemplifies AVID’s core values: high expectations, rigorous instruction, and unwavering support for all students.”
AVID stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination. It’s a research-backed college prep program which is offered at 7,500 schools across the country. Five of those schools are in Canyons School District: Eastmont Middle, Mount Jordan Middle, Glacier Hills Elementary, Sandy Elementary, and Jordan High School.
Rudel has been instrumental in growing the AVID footprint and supporting schools in implementing the program to best effect. His hard work helped propel Eastmont Middle in 2024 to earn recognition as an AVID Demonstration School, a rare distinction shared by only one percent of the nation’s AVID schools.
Rudel began his journey with AVID as an elective teacher at Mount Jordan Middle School in 2011. He then went to Jordan High for a time before becoming the Canyons District AVID Coordinator in 2021.
“I think it gives teachers the focus that all students can learn given the right tools,” Rudel says, “and it puts a lot of the burden on the teacher, but it also puts a lot of the burden on the student to achieve with what the teacher’s trying to get them to do.”
Rudel says it’s about getting students moving, answering questions, devising their own questions, and collaborating with each other. He says the key is creating a relational capacity — student to student and student to teacher.
“AVID is for student success and the way we get students to succeed is through high quality teaching and professional development of our teachers,” he says. “I think at the end of the day, those two things resonate more than anything else. The focus should be on the student, and we get them to succeed by having great teachers and great teacher professional development, and that is our goal here at Canyons.”
Winners will be announced this December at AVID’s National Conference in San Diego, with a livestreamed award ceremony on AVID’s social media.
Rudel will already be in San Diego to present with Jordan High Instructional Coach Amy Guyaux, a presentation he says has already aided teachers in Australia after they presented at last year’s conference.
As for whether Rudel will be among the first to receive the prestigious award, he says his constant reward is working with his team and for the betterment of students and teachers alike.
“Life doesn’t change for me,” he says. “I come in every day, do the best I can, trying to improve each student’s life, each teacher’s life, and each principal’s life that I interact with each and every day.”
