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Dear Parents,

Our reentry plan

We have been communicating with you quite a bit this summer, so I believe you already know that we have had a Reentry Task Force working since the spring, looking at all of the possible ways we might return to school. Last week, the Governor and the New York State Department of Education released their guidance, and set a deadline for all New York schools to file plans for in-person, remote, and hybrid learning plans by July 31.

Those, happily, are the exact plans we’ve been contemplating and working on. Does this give us a big head-start, like that insufferable kid from college who always finished papers a week ahead of the deadline?! Sadly, no: the specifics that the state is asking for are complex, detailed, and they gave us two weeks. What follows is a very short version of our plan; a longer, more detailed plan will be filed with the state and available to our community quite soon:

I have written this in a somewhat simplified, bite-sized form; again, the detailed plan is taking shape in a long and precise manner. Our approach is conservative and safety-first, and it won’t be entirely fun to wear masks, socially distance, and wash up as much as we’re intending. But it will be worth it: being together, in-person, confers enormous educational value. If being careful and conservative in the extreme allows us to do that, the effort will be well justified.

Our plans are all being developed in consultation with CDC, NY State and Monroe County guidelines and our own Health Advisory Board. Speaking of which, we have added a new member, David Garrison, MD, who is currently an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC). He serves as Medical Director of Inpatient Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Medical Director of C/A Mobile Crisis Team. It is wonderful to have his expertise added to our deep bench! We are also developing plans for remote and hybrid learning, assuming they are needed.

Harley can do this because of the strength of the community, the expertise of our Health Advisory Board, our intentional smallness and low student-teacher ratio, what we’re learning with summer programs, and the strong, clear-minded work of the Rochester health community.

Best,

Larry Frye

Head of School

Students may create independent studies with supervising teachers throughout their Upper School experience or, during Grade 12, they can design Capstone projects—intensive collaborations with Harley faculty and off-campus mentors—involving rigorous academic study and culminating in public presentations. They are empowered to create their own curriculum, set goals, and work on time management skills in order to accomplish their objectives.

Independent Studies run the gamut from The Psychology of Sports to Furniture Design to The Neuroimaging of Alzheimer’s Disease. Capstones, meanwhile, are as diverse as the students who pursue them: Fictional Rochester, Autobiographical Art, Biomimicry Education, Organic Fuel, and Rochester Refugees. 

Indicative of Upper School curiosity and creativity, pursuits such as these distinguish our graduates in college. Through deep dives of this sort, Harley students master more than speaking, writing, and computing: they learn to communicate, advocate, collaborate, organize, listen, and empathize. 

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Citizen Scientists

Joy Moss: Storytelling Roots

In Every Issue

Class Notes

Diane Donniger Award

By the Numbers

From the Archives

What’s (Who’s) New at Harley

Divisional Highlights

Alumni Profile: Vandebroek

Alumni Profiles: Keller

HAC Athletics

2021 Lives of Great Purpose Awards

1000 Words

Commencement 2022

Reunion 2022

In Memoriam

Retirements and Fond Farewells