Dear Harbor Families,

In these final days of 2025, there is a festive energy throughout the building, with class parties, joyful celebrations of winter holidays, and many thoughtful gestures of care and appreciation for one another. Thank you to the HSFA and all those who contributed to the holiday gifts for our teachers. Yesterday, our faculty and staff were showered with gift cards to favorite local spots, along with a delicious Cava lunch organized by our Preschool 4s families. We are so grateful for the generosity and thoughtfulness that make this community such a special place to learn and work.

As we look ahead to 2026, we are excited to share news of a rich and inspiring collaboration connected to our Spiral unit, Art in Three Dimensions! This winter, we will continue our work with Harvard’s Project Zero alongside museum educators from the National Gallery of Art. You may recall that after four Harbor teachers attended a local, week-long Project Zero institute this summer, our full faculty and staff participated in two Project Zero workshops this year, focusing on thinking routines that promote empathy, storytelling, and perspective-taking in the classroom.

Building on this foundation, during our professional development afternoon in early January (following the noon dismissal on Friday, January 16), we are delighted to welcome educators from the National Gallery of Art to Harbor. They will work closely with our teachers on artists’ expressions in three dimensions, exploring how artists use form, space, materials, movement, and scale to communicate ideas, emotions, and perspectives, and how these approaches can be meaningfully translated into classroom experiences for our students. We are also in discussions about a possible school-wide (!) field trip to the museum, where students could explore the Gallery’s rich collections of sculpture, mobiles, installations, and other three-dimensional art forms firsthand.

Each year, at the culmination of our Spiral unit, the Harbor building is transformed into a museum of learning for Spiral Night. This year’s event is sure to dazzle and impress with student-created three-dimensional designs and artwork, so please be sure to mark your calendars for the evening of February 26!

Speaking of community gatherings, we are also looking forward to hosting our annual Martin Luther King Jr. National Day of Service on Monday, January 19, with plans for another school-wide dance-a-thon underway. We have been in touch with Children’s National Hospital as the focus of our community service efforts that day - an experience often described as “a day on, not a day off.” Together, we will deepen our shared commitment to empathy as families learn about and reflect on the experiences of children who require intensive medical care, collect pledges for the dance-a-thon, and collaborate on a meaningful project to support children receiving treatment at the hospital. More details will be shared early in the new year.

As we head into winter break, I wish you time to rest and recharge, moments of connection and joy with those you love, and space for reflection and gratitude as one year comes to a close and another begins. We look forward to welcoming everyone back in the new year, refreshed and ready for all that 2026 has in store.

With warm wishes,

Leah Musico
Head of School