MOUNT VERNON — Five years ago, Ramiro Reyes had never set foot on a college campus.

But later that year, when he rode a bus with his seventh-grade peers to the University of Washington, he saw towering brick buildings, ivy-covered walls and college students who shared his love of learning.

While his mother wanted to see him succeed, she couldn’t do much to help her son navigate his way to college. She had dropped out of school in the fourth grade to help her family in Mexico.

Reyes joined AVID — Advancement Via Individual Determination — in the seventh grade. The AVID program aims to help students learn study skills and ask focused questions, as well as help them along the path to higher education.

In the latest expansion of the program in the Valley, Skagit Valley College will become one of four in the nation to pilot the proven high school achievement program at the college level.

AVID is already in five school districts in Skagit Valley: Anacortes, Burlington-Edison, La Conner, Mount Vernon and Sedro-Woolley.

Skagit Valley College officials hope the program will boost the college’s ailing nursing program graduation rate. Between fall 2000 and spring 2006, more than one in three students in the program did not graduate. Statewide, 22 percent of nursing students don’t finish.

Already Skagit Valley College is sending nursing, science and math instructors to training so they can learn the AVID strategies.

“A lot of community college students don’t have a lot of confidence in themselves as students,” said Harriet Custer, executive vice president of instruction and student services at the college. “They don’t know how to assume responsibility for their own learning. That’s really what AVID is all about.”

Reyes, now a senior at Mount Vernon High School, plans to attend the University of Washington as an architecture or civil engineering major. The same ethic that drove him to pursue college and work two jobs in the summer also allowed him to obtain a laundry list of college scholarships — including a $40,000 Costco diversity scholarship and a $20,000 Dell scholarship.

Reyes said that his mother is amazed to see her oldest son graduate high school and attend a four-year university.

“AVID doesn’t work miracles, but it helps tremendously. ... It prepares you by giving you tools that you’ll use,” he said.

The Mount Vernon School District has had the program for six years, and this June, it will graduate its fourth class of AVID students. The district has the added distinction of having two AVID national demonstration schools here: Mount Vernon High School and LaVenture Middle School.

“AVID is not a small program off to the side,” said David Scott, director of federal programs for the district. “It’s had an effect on the culture of the school and the entire student body.”

Administrators from across the country have visited the district to see how teachers use AVID in the classroom, Scott said.

Sue Bergman, the Washington State AVID director, said of the 29 AVID seniors graduating from Mount Vernon this year, one is a Gates millenium scholar, four are Dell scholars, and as a class, they have earned more than $400,000 in scholarships.

Yadira Rosales is one of four Mount Vernon High graduates attending Skagit Valley College who will graduate from Skagit Valley College in June. She plans to continue her education at Western State and attributes her success to AVID’s training.

“I learned how to be a good student in a college setting,” she said.

College students could benefit from the program’s organizational skills and inquiry methods, Rosales said. She said she learned how to ask questions without being afraid, which she said any college student would benefit from.

The college will pilot various AVID strategies for at least three years, Custer said.

“They are retention and success strategies,” she said of AVID. “If they work, it will pay for itself.”

* Kate Martin can be reached at 360-416-2145 or at kmartin@skagitpublish ing.com.