News

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Harding Elementary School to become Harding University Partnership School

All Harding School students and staff will board buses and leave the school at 8:30am tomorrow, January 22, for a very special schoolwide field trip. The destination is UC Santa Barbara.

At 9:20 am, Harding Elementary School students and faculty will join UC Santa Barbara educators to celebrate a signing agreement renaming the school Harding University Partnership School. The agreement reflects the partnership between Harding and UCSB’s Gevirtz Graduate School of Education. The partnership will focus on developing new and innovative practices, research and inquiry into new and existing practice, supporting teacher candidates, facilitating professional development and advanced degrees for practicing educators, and creating transformative experiences for students, staff, and the community.

“Partnerships like the one we are developing with the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education at UCSB provide the kinds of reciprocal pathways that we need to learn how to create high-quality learning organizations,” says Dr. Sally Kingston, principal. “Together, I believe that we can traverse the complexities of learning in the 21st Century. I am thrilled with this mutually-beneficial partnership.”

Tomorrow’s program will begin in UCSB Corwin Pavilion with the 9:20am ceremonial signing of the memorandum of understanding. After that event, students will take part in grade-specific activities led by UCSB faculty, staff, and students. These activities range from a “Lagoon Walk” on which pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students will learn about the diversity of birds and other wildlife that use the lagoon while also learning about plants that live in and around the lagoon and how some of these plants were used by the Chumash Indians to “The Magic Planet, The REEF, and The Beach,” during which sixth graders will rotate through three activities that focus on astronomy, earth science and global ecology aligned with sixth-grade standards.

The buses will return to school at 1:30pm.