Did you know…
Excellence is a process. The following was used to describe our school setting in part two of the plan:
Lake Harriet Community School consists of two campuses, but is one K-8 program. The Lower campus is home to our Kindergarten-3rd graders and the Upper campus is home to our 4th – 8th graders. Both campuses also support a district wide DCD (Developmental and cognitively delayed) special education program we call WINGS (Working in natural group settings). The culture is based on years of high academic achievement, an active parent community with high numbers of volunteers and strong parent involvement and support of the neighborhood community.
Lake Harriet Community School does not qualify for Title One services and therefore receives no Title One funding. The student population is stable with little change in the socio-economic demographics of the area. There has been a waiting list to enter the school and capacity issues have been a major challenge. There will be relief in the fall of 2013 when a new wing will open at the lower campus and the 3rd grade will move from the upper campus to the lower campus. The student population is primarily white and middle class (Caucasian 81.78%, Hispanic 4.36%, Asian American 5.45%, African American 7.63% and Native American 0.78%). Lake Harriet has a population of 1.09 % English Language Learners (ELL). The parents of these students have signed a waiver for ELL services as Lake Harriet Community School does not have an ELL program on site.
The program at Lake Harriet Community School is a traditional one for K-5 with self-contained classrooms and limited student movement between rooms for reading and math groups. Students in the middle grades program (6th-8th) transition each hour and have an advisory component each day. All children have 15 minutes of recess daily.
The staff is stable, turnover only occurs when someone retires. Our school also has a partnership with an area on the north side of Minneapolis where families may select to send their students to Lake Harriet and the district will provide transportation. This program is called the Expanded School Choice Program.
Our school, under the leadership of Principal Rynchek, sees a balance between the arts and S.T.E.M. (Science, technology, engineering and mathematics) as the link to achieving greatness at our school. “The mission of Lake Harriet Community School is to challenge students to reach their full potential as knowledgeable, skilled, literate, compassionate, and confident global citizens by inspiring a love of learning, embracing diversity, and cultivating creativity, critical thinking and complex problem solving in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM)”. Lake Harriet strives to educate the whole child and provides opportunities for each child to stretch their strengths.