Harbor@Home

When the world welcomed in the new year in January of 2020, no one could have anticipated how vastly different things would look across the globe a few short months later. As news first broke about a new disease spreading across China, the novel coronavirus was a distant concern in the US. However, as days passed and the ferocity of the virus became evident, Americans braced themselves for the possible eventuality of COVID-19 reaching our shores.

Fortunately for the students and families of Harbor Country Day School, Harbor’s administrators and faculty took action. Always hoping for the best, Harbor appropriately prepared for the worst, allowing learning to continue for Harbor students in a nearly seamless fashion.

Right out of the gates, Harbor’s kindergarten class had their pizza making opportunity despite the cancellation of their field trip to California Pizza Kitchen. Teachers Dana Allen & Nikki Strull personally delivered supplies and instructions, providing students and their families with everything they would need to recreate the experience at home.

Following this wonderful example of many extraordinary efforts, the Harbor faculty continued to go far above and beyond to provide students with a robust and engaging platform for learning in this new virtual ecosystem while preserving Harbor’s clear sense of culture, guidance, and routine.

A continued sense of community was fostered via All School Meetings, class storytimes with Mr. Cissel, Advisory group meetings and face-to-face lessons using many different online learning platforms, including the video conferencing website Zoom. Teachers are following the Harbor curriculum and creating lesson plans that center around of combination of online instruction, recordings, and home-based projects with enrichment taking place in the form of weekly challenges including the Getty Museum Challenge to recreate a famous work of art, a Lego-challenges inspired by famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright and a gratitude through art project that led to the creation of a thank you video message shared with COVID-19 front line workers.

The response from Harbor students and families has been overwhelmingly positive with near-daily thank you messages from grateful parents to Harbor’s Head of School, John Cissel. One family member shared, ‘With all of the chaos going on in the world today, I would like to take a moment to recognize the staff at Harbor for their dedication to the education of our children... Their education obviously goes beyond the basics to inspire a love of learning that will follow them throughout life… I am incredibly grateful to everyone at Harbor who makes such an amazing education possible.’

Harbor embraces the extraordinary in every child while it faces the challenges that come its way.