Harborside eats, sleeps, and breathes high-quality student work. Our staff works extremely hard to create engaging projects that matter. Students are pushed to do what they thought they never could do. Museum quality is ingrained into the minds of our students from the moment they enter our school until they walk across the stage.
We believe that the performance Habits of Success are amplified when students carry a project through multiple revisions paying close attention to detail. This past year we have up the ante of quality in many different ways. The projects are aligned to Common Core State Standards (CCSS) skill targets.
A culture of quality is moving forward through the visible display of student work (classrooms, hallways, and school website), and reflection from the staff on the characteristics of quality (complexity, craftsmanship, authenticity) through our biannual "High Quality Work" protocol. We are proud of how far we have come and are excited about where we are going.
Our expeditions and programs are grounded in Expeditionary Learning's Core Practices, complemented by the staff's expertise in team building, group development and experiential education. Harborside has an award-winning staff that is supported by distinguished community members. Eleven staff members and affiliated community members along with two grade level teams have been named District and State Teacher of the Year or received Distinguished Service Awards.
Visit our High Quality Work (HQ) website to view student projects from all subject areas. Additional links are to High Quality Protocol Summary Sheets for each grade level and electives (below).
Core Practice 29 discusses the importance of beautiful spaces. It is our desire to create an environment that reflects learning.
When one walks the halls of Harborside, one will see high-quality student work framed and hung in our High Quality Student Work Gallery. Museum-quality documentation panels for each expedition cover the bulletin boards. Poster-size photos of students in action - reading complex text, water testing, interviewing veterans, collecting data in a prairie and connecting with their classmates within their crew line the hallway walls. The Habits of Success are prominently displayed as is data that reflects our students' progress and success in learning.
Our goal is to make Harborside a place that invites learning, facilitates learning and celebrates learning.
A collection of tile art designed by students that depict their learning experiences at Harborside.
The mural is the culmination of two years of collaboration that began with a Fund for Teachers Fellowship that allowed Harborside art instructor Sarah Henkel to visit the murals of Jeanne and David Aurelius in the Milwaukee area. These artists create ceramic tile murals in addition to utilitarian works and live and work in Door County, Wisconsin; their studio and shop is Clay Bay Pottery.
Sarah Henkel and Allison Johnson interviewed the Aureliuses to learn more about the process they use and visited all of the potters studios who were members of the Door County Pottery Guild. Henkel then created ceramic and painted work that utilized the processes.
Beginning with the 2013-2014 school year, all students were invited to submit sketches documenting their learning experiences at Harborside. Through the guidance and instruction of ceramics instructor Mandy Mahaffey, these drawings were combined and turned into tiles and paintings that illustrate the Harborside Experience through the lens of the Expeditionary Learning Design Principles.