Is there anything that could persuade muckraking Tijuana journalist Jesus Blancornelas to lay down his pen?A nearly successful assassination attempt by the Tijuana drug cartel failed to silence him.

“AVID is just a big family and AVID basically helps you with your grades and getting into college,” Ashlee Simmons, 13, an eighth-grader at Hubbard Middle School, said.

Many students in the AVID program in several Tyler ISD schools say it has helped them earn better grades, as well as overcome problems, and it seems like a family.