It's a four-peat.
For the fourth straight year, Harmony Magnet Academy has been named as a Project Lead The Way Distinguished School as it was announced Harmony was honored as a 2024-2025 PLTW Distinguished School. Harmony was also recognized as a PLTW Distinguished School in 2021-2022, 2022-2023 and 2023-2024.
PLTW honors about 260 schools annually with its Distinguished School Award. Schools who provide PLTW computer science, engineering and biomedical pathways are honored. Harmony was again honored for its Engineering Pathway.
PLTW is a nonprofit organization that serves millions of PreK-12 students and teachers in more than 12,200 schools across the U.S.
The honor is just the latest in a number of honors Harmony has received over the years. Harmony's Performing Arts and Engineering Academies have been named as Distinguished Schools by NAF, a national education program that operates and assesses academies across the country.
And year in and year out Harmony is ranked as Tulare County's No. 1 school and one of the top five percent schools in the nation by U.S. News and World Report.
But it's Harmony's partnership with PLTW since its inception that has launched the school's success, said Harmony principal Jeff Brown. He said a key to Harmony's success has been the establishment of the Pathways program and Porterville Unified School District supporting Harmony being a PLTW school from the beginning.
“It's everybody's commitment,” said Brown about the district, community leaders, staff and students leading to Harmony's success. “To want to do what's right for our students.”
He said that leads Harmony to offer a student-centered curriculum that students want. That has led to an extensive curriculum for students in Harmony's Engineering Pathway which Brown said he believes is what sets the school apart.
Brown said while most other schools provide just one engineering course per year over four years, Harmony offers eight PLTW courses over four years. Harmony Engineering Pathway students begin with an introduction to engineering design course as freshmen and as they progress throughout high school they also take engineering design and development; civil engineering and architecture; principles of engineering; computer integrated manufacturing; digital electronics; computer science principles, including coding; and environmental sustainability.
“I don't know any other school in the country that offers eight Project Lead the Way courses,” Brown said.
He said a testament to how Harmony makes its students college and career ready is when they come back and say what they had taken in high school they didn't take until their sophomore or junior year of college. “That's good to hear that we're preparing our students,” Brown said.
The PLTW Distinguished School recognition honors schools committed to increasing student access and achievement to PLTW programs.
PLTW engineering programs adopt a problem-solving curriculum in which students participate in collaborative real-world projects such as working with a client to design a home, programming electronic devices or robotic arms or exploring algae as a biofuel source.
To be eligible to be a PLTW Distinguished School schools must have students enrolled in at least three PLTW courses and 25 percent of their students taking at least one PLTW course or 33 percent of its students taking two or more PLTW courses. And have strategies in place that support reasonably proportional representation with regard to race, ethnicity, poverty, and/or gender.
For more information about PLTW’s recognition program, visit pltw.org. For more information on the Harmony Magnet Academy PLTW Engineering program, contact Brown at 559-568-0347 or visit harmony.portervilleschools.org.