The first Harmony school opened in Houston in 2000. Several Turkish-American graduate students wrote a charter school proposal and received approval from the Texas Education Agency in April 2000, months before the first campus opened in August.
Within ten years, Harmony expanded to thirty-three campuses across the state, reaching as far as El Paso and Dallas. Now[when?] at seventeen years and 54 campuses, Harmony has reached its goal of operating fifty schools and educating 35,000 students by 2020.
The 6-12 Harmony schools have come up with a behavorial system to log what students have been doing. "Positive Behavior Award", or PBA, is awarded to a student when done something good. For example, cleaning the classroom or organizing bookshelves will award the student a PBA.
"Reinforcement Points", or RP, is the negative companion of PBA. They are given when a student does something out of the Harmony Student Handbook. For example sleeping in class or not in Harmony Dress Code (a Harmony Uniform that has a color corresponding with your grade level and khakis).
Academic performance
Harmony Public Schools works to break down the educational barriers for low-socioeconomic students in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields. Its project-based learning method and STEM SOS model requires students to complete multiple hands-on projects per year in select fields, then present their findings to the community. This motivates students to master complex academic concepts and gives them practice at lifelong skills, such as public speaking and communications.[4]
Every Harmony campus passed or exceeded the state's academic standards in 2016, with six of its campuses earning all seven available academic distinctions and two of its districts earning the post-secondary readiness distinction.
In 2011, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) rated 21 of the 33 Harmony schools as "Exemplary" or "Recognized", while the remainder were "Acceptable".[5]
Harmony Public Schools students participate in a variety of competitions because of the school's emphasis on extracurricular activities. Harmony is especially active in MathCounts, FIRST LEGO League (FLL), DISTCO (Digital Storytelling Contests) Science Fair, and Quiz Bowl. Harmony Science Academy of Euless received an award as the 2010 Best School by the Fort Worth Regional Science and Engineering Fair a year after it opened. Harmony School of Excellence achieved first place at Nationals in their rookie year and second place in their third year.[12]
Harmony hosts and organizes I-SWEEEP (International Sustainable World Energy, Engineering & Environment Project), a global science fair where students travel from dozens of countries to showcase their projects. Many Harmony campuses traveled to the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas, for the expo to support their classmates with exhibits.
Harmony's computer and English classes participate in DISTCO. The DICTCO project evaluates educational videos made by students presenting about their research or stories. The topics of choice include Art, Cultures/Religions, Computers/Technology, English Language Arts, ESL/Foreign Languages, Health/Medical, Mathematics, Music, Personal Stories/Reflections, Places/Travel, Physical Education/Sports, Pop Culture, Science/Engineering, and Social Studies.
Management and operations
Financial operations
Harmony Public Schools has a AAA financial bond rating awarded by the state and has received numerous federal grants, such as the five-year $30 million Race to the Top grant in 2011.[13] Five Harmony schools in Austin spent $7,923 per student, about $800 below the statewide average and $1,600 below the average of the Austin Independent School District. Kate Alexander of the Austin American Statesman stated that the system had good academic performance "on a shoestring".[14]
The Harmony Public Schools provides management services for other charter school networks.[15] According to Tarim, Cosmos provides consulting services to the San Antonio charter network School of Science and Technology, operated by the Riverwalk Education Foundation, which has a separate school board from Harmony Public Schools.
In 2015, Harmony received $22,791,460 from federal grants and $229,245,331 from local and state grants.[16]
Business contracting
The Harris County Department of Education assists Harmony Public Schools in its bidding process by reviewing every submission and making a recommendation to the board of directors. The lowest responsible bidder is given the contract. Harmony works with more than 5,000 vendors and its financial interactions are published on the main Harmony website.
Use of H1-B visas
As of the 2016–17 school year, 197 of Harmony's 3,500 employees (approximately 6% of the Harmony workforce) are on H1-B visas. This number was reported to be 292 in June 2011.[17] Most of the employees who are on H1-B visas are from Turkey.
Harmony experienced a lack of qualified math and science teachers in Texas. To alleviate the shortage, Harmony began the Grow Your Own Teacher program, which encourages and financially supports its alumni who earn teaching certificates. This program greatly reduced the number of Harmony teachers on H1-B visas.[citation needed]
Investigation by Office for Civil Rights
Harmony Public Schools were subject to a compliance review by the United States Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, examining whether the system was compliant with Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (prohibiting discrimination on the basis of disability in education programs operated by recipients of federal financial assistance), and Title II of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (prohibiting discrimination on the basis of disability by public entities). The OCR's investigation found that although HPS's admissions policies, procedures, and information provided to prospective students and their parents were prima facie non-discriminatory, the school systems' enrollments of disabled students and English-language learners were significantly lower than for public school districts covering the same geographical areas. In late 2014, the investigation was closed after HPS submitted proposals to resolve the issues identified by the OCR.[18]
William Martin of Rice University said, as paraphrased by USA Today, that "educators' assertions of 'no organic connection' to Gülen are 'accurate,' but that 'their efforts to minimize ties to Gülen, likely from fear of being branded Islamists, bring unnecessary and probably counterproductive suspicion.'"[19]
Schools
Harmony's initial schools opened in areas formerly occupied by stores and leased areas owned by churches; these spaces are typical locations for charter schools. After selling over $645M in state-guaranteed public bonds, Harmony began building its own campuses, although many campuses still occupy leased space.[20]
