Dear Harbor Families, 

This week has been another exciting one at Harbor! Thanks to a wonderful crew of parent volunteers - and donations from all of you -  our first annual used book fair has had a strong start! It was such a pleasure to see the smiles of all of our students and particularly our second and third grade leaders, who ran the student sales on Tuesday morning - greeting their “customers”, helping the younger students navigate book choices, and collecting money and making change. In addition to applying their mental math skills, our oldest students strengthened their sense of confidence and leadership as they helped their younger friends in this important role.

Hopefully, your child was excited about the “new to them” books they took home on Tuesday! We still have a lot of wonderful books in the collection - and encourage you to join us to shop the fair this afternoon and tomorrow morning. We also hope you will join us for a very special Family Friday tomorrow morning, when we’ll be joined by our friend and DEI consultant Ashley Nartey for a discussion on the importance of diverse books in our classroom and home libraries. We’ll  build upon the concept of books as “windows and mirrors” - windows into other’s perspectives, cultures, and backgrounds, and mirrors that reflect our children’s lived experiences - and share an assortment of children’s books that represent a beautiful diversity of experiences and perspectives to build empathy and understanding in purposeful ways. We hope you will join us!

As we consider the impact of recognizing and celebrating our differences, please be sure to mark your calendar for the morning of Friday, May 16th for our annual Celebration of Culture! Our cross-constituent DEI Committee, along with music teacher Yuki Wilson and PE teacher Jasmina Hinton, have been planning a morning to highlight our uniquenesses, including performances of songs and dances highlighting the diverse cultural backgrounds in our community. Soon, you’ll receive more information about this year’s family culture project, where you’ll consider, together as a family, what makes your family unique, and represent it by creating a time capsule, which we’ll share in classrooms on the morning of the 16th. We’ll share more information about this special annual celebration as the date grows near.

We look forward to seeing you tomorrow morning!

Warmly,

Leah Musico
Head of School