By Laura Comppen
Special to The Observer
The words “summer school” can often invoke fear in the hearts of schoolchildren across the country. In Harrison, however, summer school is a wonderland of opportunity and enrichment that students willingly (gasp!) sign up for.
With a staff of 25 teachers and aides, approximately 275 students from grades 1 to 12 voluntarily participated in the comprehensive Harrison Summer Enrichment Program, featuring classes such as architecture & engineering, stop motion animation, playwriting, vegan nutrition, instrumental music & band, environmental science and more.
From learning how to utilize power tools and electrical wiring to make a working lamp from scratch, to creating interesting ways to use trash to help save the environment, Harrison school children spent a sizzling summer of inspiration, enlightenment and creativity like no other.
“The Harrison Summer Enrichment Program offers a wide array of learning experiences for our students. These opportunities begin with language arts, math and health/fitness project-based learning activities as well as gifted and talented at our elementary level. At the middle and high school levels, there is a club-based format incorporating many diverse subject areas such as STEM, financial literacy and various aspects of the arts; and each class culminates with a final project. All these hands-on learning experiences make our students really excited to come to summer school,” Steve Valente, Harrison Summer Enrichment program coordinator said.
Fifth-grader and aspiring playwright Diego Diaz summed up his summer learning experience beautifully: “My class was really awesome. It was fun putting all of our ideas together and writing our own script. We even got to see ‘The Lion King.’”
