After completing 12 years on the San Diego Unified School District Board, Ron Ottinger, 47, says he wants to decompress and spend time with his wife MaryAlice and their five children before deciding whether he is interested in becoming a candidate again, perhaps for legislative or congressional office.

Ottinger is continuing his full-time job as the national associate director of the AVID center—AVID being an acronym for Advancement Via Individual Determination. The San Diego-based program with offices at 5120 Shoreham Drive now serves over 100,000 students studying in 1,000 schools throughout California. Between 15,000 to 20,000 additional students are in programs scattered through 29 other states, Canada, and in overseas schools for military dependents. 

Ottinger says he will be concentrating on further expanding the program that was created in 1980 by the group's executive director Mary Catherine Swanson, a former English teacher at Clairemont High School.

Schools involved with the program offer special AVID classes for students who come from low-income families which thus far have not produced college graduates. In the classes, they learn skills to help them become competitive. They are helped with their writing skills, how to take notes, and on various problem-solving skills. Additionally the students receive assistance in filling out college applications.

What is the difference between children who grow up in families without any college background and those whose parents went to college? "If one of our kids is having trouble, we go hire a tutor," Ottinger said. The low-income AVID families "can't do that."

Ottinger began work with AVID 12 years ago, the same time he began his service on the San Diego School Board. Results of the AVID program have been independently tracked by UCSD, Ottinger said. "Ninety-five percent of the AVID students go on to college, with 77 percent going on to 4-year colleges. That is three times the state average."

In Ottinger's own family—in which there are five children by the couple's previous marriages— two sons already are in college, one will be starting college in the fall, and two daughters are at Coronado High School and La Jolla Country Day School. —Donald H. Harrison