Most Recent Newsletter in PDF format (about 5mb)
HFS 8th GRADERS IN ANNAPOLIS - MEET WITH COUNTY DELEGATES, ATTEND TALK AT NAVAL ACADEMY (More...)HARFORD FRIENDS SCHOOL’S DI TEAM WINS REGIONAL, HEADS TO STATE TOURNAMENT (More...)
Harford Friends School Granted Membership with Friends Council on Education
Street, MD - February 11, 2008 -
Harford Friends School is proud to announce that it has been granted full membership in Friends Council on Education in its first year of eligibility (More...)
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HFS Students Attend Event at Embassy;
Meet Celebrated Neuro-Surgeon Dr. Ben Carson
Street, MD February 2, 2008 – Harford Friends School students advanced their hands-on studies of global communities with a trip to a fundraising event at the embassy of Ghana on Saturday, February 2nd (More...)
Saturday, September 15 at 7:30 p.m.
Evening of Theater to Support the Highland Community Association and Harford Friends School (More...)
Blueberry Festival, A day of family fun. Saturday July 21st 2007 (More...)
HARFORD FRIENDS SCHOOL TEAMS WITH GOUCHER COLLEGE TO PRESENT LECTURES ON THE PRE-TEEN YEARS (more...)
Harford Friends School Hosts African Peacemaker
David Zarembka of the African Great Lakes Initiative (AGLI) to visit in March (more...)
HARFORD FRIENDS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TO OPEN IN 2008:
Planning Team Formed to Develop Lower School Program, Features Local Educators (more...)
Recent HFS Field Trips
Swan Harbor vineyards and the Maryland Agricultural Education Foundation (MAEF)
COLLABORATIVE PARTNERSHIPS CONTINUE
The collaborative partnership with the Maryland Conservatory of Music (www.musicismagic.com) continues, as do the other partnerships with Blue Dog Art School, Genesee Valley Outdoor Learning Center (www.geneseevalley.org), and Eden Mill Nature Center (www.edenmill.org). In the on-going effort to provide students with a wide range of experiences and expertise, this year’s primary instructor from MCM will be Laura Sarich Farmer. The Coloratura Soprano hails from Annapolis. She received her bachelor’s in Music Performance with an Opera concentration, graduating magna cum laude from Gordon College, Wenham, MA. Ms. Farmer has also studied with international artists at Salzburg College. Her performance credits include “Cousin” in Madam Butterfly and “Spirit” in The Magic Flute, both with Annapolis Opera. She played the lead, “Sylvia,” in Sweethearts with Mount Vernon Players in D.C. and performed as a guest soloist with Arundel Vocal Arts Society (AVAS). She is known throughout Harford County and Baltimore City for directing Performing Arts summer camps for MCM in Bel Air, MD. In addition she serves on staff at MCM as Development Officer and Outreach Manager and as a member of the voice faculty.
The collaborative partnership with Eden Mill Nature Center will expand significantly this year. Over the course of the next several years, HFS students will be designing and developing an adaptive nature trail at the Pylesville facility as a part of the school’s curriculum and service-learning program.
BLUEBERRY FESTIVAL
The proceeds from the annual Blueberry Festival held at the Deer Creek Friends Meeting raised $10,300 for the school. Thanks are due the Home and School Association, particularly HFS parent Marianne Cloeren Donovan, who assumed the reigns of the event and was assisted by many unheralded partners. To name a few: members of the Deer Creek Friends; members of the HFS Board of Trustees; HFS parents; HFS students; the business community; as well as to the extended and growing HFS family of volunteers who made the day possible. Bravo! And Thanks!
BEN’S BALL FIELD FUND
At the request of Christine and Jonathan Huxtable, Harford Friends School’s Board of Trustees released funds from the memorial fund it is hosting in the late Benjamin Huxtable’s name. Ben’s Ball Field Fund was tapped to support upgrades to a field where Ben, his mother and father, and grandparents often played when visiting his grandparents in Annapolis. The Sherwood Boys and Girls Club used the money from the Fund to install a new backstop on its baseball/softball field and to improve the overall safety of the field for players and fans. The cost of the upgrades represented only a small fraction of the more than $81,000 raised to date. The Huxtables continue to seek a site for a memorial field. HFS has agreed to provide space for the field on its eventual campus if no other location is identified.
Honoring Volunteers
(Mara Walter, Harriett Holloway, George Gregory, and Jim Pickard accept the Volunteer of the Year Award from HFS Chairman of the Board, Bill Harlan and HFS Head of School, Jonathan Huxtable.)
HFS honored Deer Creek Friends Meeting for Outstanding Service in Support of Harford Friends School for the year 2005.
“I couldn’t think of a more appropriate setting in which to launch Harford Friends School,” said Jonathan Huxtable, HFS Head of School. “The building, half new and half historic, represents Harford Friends School well. Grounded in a rich tradition of moral development, it provides its occupants with opportunities for intellectual and spiritual growth. The members of the Meeting are to be celebrated. They really made this possible.”
Also honored was Anne Fonda, formerly of Little Falls Friends Meeting, for her volunteer work in 2004. “Anne was instrumental in helping to place Harford Friends School before the eyes of the community. Her media background and commitment to the local Quaker community proved invaluable resources to the fledgling school effort,” Huxtable said.
Workshop participant reflects on the Workable Peace experience at HFS:
"Globally, locally, personally, conflict is a part of the human condition. Handled well, it can create ways to build trust and lead to better understanding of ourselves and those with whom we live. Handled badly, it escalates tensions, creates animosity, deepens distrust causing great and lasting harm."
Harford friends school to Relocate, Expand. Darlington, MD - August 29, 2006 Harford Friends School recently agreed to terms with the Highland Community Association to lease classroom space in the Highland Commons Building in Street beginning in 2007. The school, currently located in Darlington, will move its middle school (6-8 grades) to the facility in the summer of 2007 and will open a 1st-5th grade lower school at the new location in the fall of 2008. See more pictures here.
“We are very pleased to have this opportunity to bring Harford Friends School closer to the heart of the county. It is gratifying to continue the school's development at a building with a rich educational legacy in Harford County. It is an important step toward the realization of our strategic and long range plan to obtain a permanent site and to build the PreK - 12 Harford Friends School in the not too distant future,” remarked Dr. Mary Ellen Saterlie, chairperson of the school’s Strategic and Long Range Planning Committee.
The Highland Commons Building, originally built as a school in 1906, currently houses The Children's Center of North Harford, Highland Senior Center, a collection/deposit branch of the Harford County Public Library, and The Highlands School. HFS will utilize several classrooms for its middle school and administrative offices in its first year of occupancy and will have use of the facility's gymnasium/auditorium. HFS has also been granted daily access to the fourteen acres of athletic fields operated by the Department of Parks and Recreation. In 2008, a full fifteen student first grade and vertically split second/third grade and fourth/fifth grade classes will be offered if demand warrants. The middle school will continue and school planners are hoping to offer a limited enrollment ninth grade program as well.
HFS will not offer a kindergarten due to the presence of an excellent community resource already at the facility - The Children's Center of North Harford, a pre-school and kindergarten.
“The Highland Commons Building is a perfect fit for our growing school. It provides the physical plant, educational and recreational amenities to support and develop Harford Friends School’s enriching academic program,” stated Jonathan Huxtable, Head of School.
The lower school will prepare students for the academic rigors of a Harford Friends School education through a hands-on, problem-solving, joyous approach to "building foundations" of skill, knowledge, and character. The eventual upper school program (grades 9-12) will continue the "hands-on, minds-on" practice of the current middle school. It will be a source of educational excellence, grounded by the values of Quaker education, and provide area students substantive opportunities to "Learn, Live, and Lead" in an attentive, service-oriented, focused academic program.
J. MAURICE AND MARGARET HARLAN FUND ESTABLISHED
The Harlan Fund has been given to HFS by the children of John Maurice and Margaret Bennett Harlan to be used for the purchase of school property or for school buildings. The children, Mary Ellen Saterlie, Elizabeth Harlan Breidenbaugh, Alice Harlan Remsberg, and William Amoss Harlan II, have pointed to their parents’ dedication to their children’s opportunities for higher education as the inspiration in establishing the Fund. Margaret Harlan was a teacher before her marriage, and the combination of her interest in education and the traditional Quaker concern for learning, made education a priority for the family. Members of the Harlan family have been the owners of Fallston’s Belvedere Farm since 1821. HFS chairman, Bill Harlan, and his wife Judy, are the current owners and have made it well known for its educational tours, cut flowers and pumpkin sales. The Belvedere Farm has made its pumpkin sales for one weekend in the fall an annual fundraising event for HFS.
CCBC DONATES MICROSCOPES TO HFS
Harford Friends School received 18 American Optical Corporation microscopes on January 25, 2006, from the Community College of Baltimore County at Essex. Virginia Schurman, professor of microbiology and member of Gunpowder Friends Meeting noted that the college was revamping its science facilities and was purging much of their equipment. She petitioned her lab technician, Karen Roettger, to donate the microscopes to HFS, permission was given to do so. Already students of HFS have used the microscopes to conduct cellular investigation of plant tissue, identify foliar diseases, and observe ice melting. Chris Howells, HFS science teacher, welcomes the addition to her science lab. To find out what else might be on Chris’s “wish list,” call the school at 410 457 5099.
THE STRATEGIC AND LONG RANGE PLANNING COMMITTEE:
“The Harford Friends School Board of Trustees has appointed a Strategic and Long Range Planning Committee to examine the direction of growth for the School. The group consists of Trustees and others with special expertise (Bruce Manger, Architect with CSD which specialized in independent school design and construction; Robert Williams, former Assistance Superintendent in Harford County Schools; and Beth Bowen, Attorney) along with Jonathan Huxtable, Head of School.
The committee is using a 10-15 year projection of school growth beginning with the current Sixth Grade and culminating with the full PreK-12 institution. Issues being studied are:
| Sequence of grade additions |
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Anticipated enrollment |
| Program development |
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Personnel requirements |
| Projected tuition costs |
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Land acquisition |
| Facility utilization |
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Master building plan |
| Financing |
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The committee is developing detailed information to guide the Board in its decisions about the future of the School. Findings and recommendations will be presented to the Board on a regular basis and a final report is anticipated by June 2006.”
THINKING “GREEN”
Harford Friends School students celebrate this theme with a specific study program titled “Agriculture Applied to the Deer Creek Watershed.” To date, they have visited three sites in the Deer Creek watershed for some hands-on learning opportunities: Emory Knoll Farms, Eden Mill Nature Center, and the Holloway farm in Darlington.
As quoted from their science teacher, Chris Howells: “Agricultural and ecological themes including stewardship of natural resources, conservation of ecosystems and envisioning an energy independent future are resonating enthusiastically with our students and our school community!’
Harford Friends Hosts Ben’s Ball Field Fund
On Father's Day, an unimaginable accident took four-year-old Benjamin Huxtable’s life when a stray baseball struck him in the chest, stopping his heart within moments. In his short life, Ben had already shown strong promise as a player and had a great love of the game. In his memory, his parents, Head of School Jonathan Huxtable and his wife Christine worked with Harford Friends School’s Board of Trustees to establish Ben's Ball Field Fund. The school will serve as a repository for contributions to the fund, providing donors with a tax-deductible contribution. At the request of the Huxtables, HFS will release funds to another certified non-profit agency in order to build a ball field in memory of Ben. HFS has also offered to host the field on its campus once a permanent location is found. The fund has received more than $77,000 from over five hundred contributors. A September 10th fundraising effort entitled Ben’s Big League Bash hosted by Chestnut Grove Presbyterian Church in Phoenix, MD (the site of Ben’s pre-school, Chestnut Grove Child Development Center), raised $18,000 of that total.
HURRICANE KATRINA: HFS AND FRIENDS OFFER HELP
A Friend of the school has offered $2,000 toward tuition expenses to any student and his/her family displaced from an independent school by Katrina. HFS is but one of the many Friends Schools in the state seeking to assist. Schools offering help are listed on the NAIS website. As Jonathan Huxtable, Head of School says, “Our capacity is limited, but our desire to assist is large.”
The scholarships seek to recognize students who maintain a level of academic achievement, a love of learning, and embody the Quaker tenets of integrity, simplicity, harmony, community, and equality. The Babikow Memorial Scholarship is awarded to a student who demonstrates a capacity for and appreciation of the arts, visual or performance. The Robert and Julie Hockaday Merit Scholarship is awarded to up to three students who demonstrate a commitment to family, school, and community.
Paul and Beth Babikow, benefactors of the Babikow Memorial Scholarship, contributed the award to honor Paul’s late mother, Ethel Plack Babikow. “She loved new ideas and encouraged all of her children to have an understanding and appreciation of the arts,” stated Paul Babikow, a Harford Friends School Trustee and owner of Babikow Greenhouses in White Marsh.
Mr. Hockaday, owner of Spenceola Antique Center and a commercial and residential developer in the Baltimore metropolitan area, cited Friends schools’ high academic standards, philosophy of education, and dedication to building and strengthening a sense of community as reasons for his gift to Harford Friends School.
“Julie and I are very excited about the new opportunities that Harford Friends School presents for the families of Harford County. The philosophy of the school’s curriculum, combined with the interaction of the community, is a refreshing approach to education,” stated Mr. Hockaday.
“Both of these scholarships are tremendously generous gifts to Harford Friends School, its students, families, and future,” said Head of School Jonathan Huxtable. “The school is honored by the Babikow’s and Hockaday’s confidence in the school’s ability to make a positive difference in the lives of our students, their families, and the generations of students and families to follow.”
Harford Friends School will open its doors to its first class on September 8th. This year’s sixth grade students will be the first HFS students and will include the first recipients of the Robert and Julie Hockaday Merit Scholarship and the Babikow Memorial Scholarship.
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Harford Friends School is the recipient of a $15,000 grant from the Thomas H. and Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.
In announcing the award, Samuel Caldwell, a Distributing Trustee of the Foundation stated. “We firmly believe that a Friends educational program enriches the lives of all children and their families, and we commend you [Harford Friends School] for providing that academic program for middle school students in your community. It is such a crucial age for children and Friends schools have a unique opportunity of providing a nurturing environment for them. We are happy we can have a small part in your work.”
“Harford Friends School is delighted to be recognized by the Shoemaker Foundation as an organization adding value to the educational landscape in Harford County,” said Head of School, Jonathan Huxtable. The Shoemaker Fund, in keeping with the interest expressed by the donors, was established to assist Friends organizations with a particular focus on education and social service.
- Pictures below: HFS participation in the Darlington Fourth of July Parade. HFS won an award for children's participation.
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