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Scott Terrell

MOUNT VERNON — For as long as he can remember, Ryan Landingin has wanted to go to college and become a doctor.

Landingin’s family emigrated from the Phillipines to seek a better life in the U.S., and only his mother had graduated from high school. None of his family has attended college.

He didn’t know where to begin.

Landingin learned about a strong work ethic by example. His mother works a 12-hour graveyard shift to support the family.

After three years in Mount Vernon High School’s AVID program, the 17-year-old Landingin looks forward to his future with a smile. He wants to be either a family practitioner or a physical therapist.

“I want to help other people,” Landingin said. “I don’t like seeing people who are sad and frustrated with their lives.”

AVID — Achievement Via Individual Determination — targets academically average students who have an above-average drive for success, Mount Vernon AVID teacher Chris Oliver said.

The AVID class alone does not prepare students for college. AVID has become part of the school’s philosophy.

Mount Vernon High School was recently selected to be an AVID National Demonstration School. It’s an honor that only 100 schools across the nation have received, Principal Dave Anderson said.

“It means that we are representative of what AVID stands for and promotes,” Anderson said.

When students in Oliver’s class glance upward in thought, their eyes meet dozens of felt pennants from colleges and universities across the country: Penn State, University of Washington, University of Colorado.

A section of the white board lists the scholarships his senior students have earned so far. Another section lists registration dates for college entrance exams. One wall lists college-bound seniors.

Two AVID classes have graduated from Mount Vernon so far. Of those 40 students, Oliver said about 37 of them are attending college. The school’s performance is part of the reason the school was chosen for a demonstration site. Another is the use of AVID philosophies in other classrooms at the campus, such as Socratic seminars and a specific way of taking notes.

Most AVID students are part of an ethnic minority, as the scholarship list shows, and students from Oliver’s other classes take notice.

“They notice the names are Hispanic names,” Oliver said. “They don’t see (college) as something that’s open to them. It’s good for them to see.”

Oliver’s classroom is a supportive environment for students who never dreamed they had the tools within them to secure a college education. Everything the students do and hear in the class prepares them for the next step. Sometimes all they need is a little encouragement.

Sara Manrique, 17, wants to be a surgical nurse. But despite her determination to be in one of the most hectic work environments, some things still intimidate her.

“Do I have to take AP English?” she asked Oliver in a small voice. “I’m scared.”

Oliver smiled and assured her it wasn’t that intimidating. It is a lot of work, and she would have a list of books to read over the summer. But it’s not impossible, and it looks good on a transcript, he said.

Oliver recruits students to AVID throughout the year, but the biggest factor in whether they get into the program is often the hardest to measure: determination.

“They have to want it,” Oliver said. “We look at students who really want to go to college, and they’re willing to work hard to get there. These kids take honors and AP classes. They aren’t traditional honors and AP kids.”

Thursday, the class learned strategies for the verbal sections of college entrance exams. Students were assigned to draw the definitions of tough words — such as innocuous, patronize and meticulous — and use the words in a sentence.

The exercise, Oliver said, would help students remember the words’ definitions when test time comes.

One student drew the picture of a bunny to represent “innocuous,” meaning harmless.

Adilene Hernandez, 16, and Maria De La Rosa, 17, had to define the words “patronize” and “meticulous.” For both definitions, the girls drew two girls shopping at Macy’s. The girls patronize, or frequently shop, at Macy’s, explained De La Rosa. And the shoppers also meticulously, or carefully, choose their clothing, Hernandez said.

When Oliver’s class broke into study groups, they immediately set to their task: helping each other with homework.

Manrique’s said the study sessions help.

“Sometimes people are in advanced classes, and they already know a theory when I’m just learning it,” she said.

And, said Oliver, the best way to learn something is to teach it to someone else.

One group of students compared the poetry of Emily Dickinson to Walt Whitman. Perla Santillan, 17, said she enjoyed reading Dickinson’s “Heart! We will forget him!”

“When I read that poem, I felt like her mind and her heart were having a conversation,” she said.

It’s not an unfamiliar scene in Oliver’s class. Hearts and minds have conversations every day on the second floor of Mount Vernon’s Old Main.

Landingin knows the path to becoming a doctor is through a college education, and by the gray hoodie he wore, emblazoned with the word Washington in purple, it’s clear he has a particular destination in mind.

He said he knows he wouldn’t have made it if it weren’t for the AVID program.

“I wouldn’t know how to go to college or what class to take, since my parents don’t know anything about college,” he said, then glanced upward. “It’s like an angel, I guess.”

* Kate Martin can be reached at 360-416-2145 or at .