Dr. Soner Tarim

Dr. Soner Tarim is a founding member and current superintendent of Harmony Public Schools, high performing K-12 public charter schools located in Texas with a strong focus on science, technologies, engineering, and math (STEM) providing opportunities for underserved communities. He is the driving force in creating STEM academies with an emphasis on college-readiness and the tracking of performance metrics of its high caliber students.

A luminary in the Charter School Community, his leadership philosophy recognizes the need to develop meaningful partnerships, maintain open collaborative lines of communication, and leverage relationships with high-level corporate, business, civic, legislative and international leaders to advance the mission of Harmony and opportunities for its beneficiaries.

Over his 24 year professional career, Dr. Tarim has developed innovative educational programs geared to K-12 schools. He is highly sought after as a consultant and as a speaker in state charter & STEM conferences and has distinguished himself as a results-oriented educator with unrivaled expertise and knowledge in developing and managing innovative charter schools.

Under Dr. Tarim's leadership, Harmony has grown to 36 schools and 20,000 students from throughout the state of Texas, many of which have been recognized as academically competitive schools in the nation. Harmony has received numerous outstanding awards and recognitions including the National Title I Distinguished School Award for closing the achievement gap and a Broad Prize nomination.

Dr. Tarim holds a Ph.D. from Texas A&M University and is a trained biologist and ecologist. In addition to his background in biological sciences, he has taught many courses in the field of biology, ecology, general science, and physical education at the high school, college and graduate school levels. Dr. Tarim has spearheaded scientific symposiums and international science Olympiads including I-SWEEEP (the International Sustainable World Energy, Engineering, and Environment Project), the largest science fair event of its kind comprising over 1,000 top-ranked high school students representing 43 states and over 70 nations world-wide presenting and sharing their ideas, experiences, and knowledge to promote maintaining global sustainability. He has also has developed and directed successful after school programs.

Dr. Tarim has published numerous peer reviewed scientific articles, policies, procedures, and guidelines for charter schools in the areas of Admissions, Governance, and Human Resources. He is a certified school board member and school administrator trainer and sits on the Board of Directors of the Region 4 Education Service Center, which is the largest Texas educational service center providing services to 54 school districts representing over 1,000,000 students and more than 83,000 professional educators.

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Recent News From:
Harmony Science Academy - Dallas

This week has been a great week filled with awards for Mr. Giorgio and his 11th grade students. Earlier in the week the Digital Storytelling Competition (DISTCO) announced its winners for the 2013 awards. Mr. Giorgio took home the award for Best Digital Story by a Teacher for the Social Studies category while two of his students, Dulce Martinez and Sarah Frame, won for Best Digital Story overall for the Senior Level (9-12). Not only that, Dulce and Sarah's film won the DISTCO Silver Scholarship (a $4,000 scholarship to North American University and an iPad Mini) for best film of 2013. Links to the winning films can be accessed :here

The awards did not stop there. Mr. Giorgio was also named recipient of the 2013 Margot Stern Strom Innovation Grant for his project titled Decision Making: Choose Your Dilemma. His Political Science class has dedicated passionate work and time toward creating websites exploring the choices real individuals had to make from the Weimar Republic through the Third Reich. Using primary sources to bring to life forgotten voices the students hope to share these sites with the middle school to create a conversation of ways in which we can live as upstanders - working to speak out and stand up for what we believe is just.

A link to Mr. Giorgio's proposal can be accessed here

Teachers will be announcing the dates for your Finals soon. Currently the windows for finals testing are as follows:
* 12th- May 20th-24th
* 11th, 10th, and 9th- May 23rd, 24th, 28th, and 29th

Summer School will be held June 3rd-28th from 9am-3pm, Monday-Friday. Students who did not obtain a core course credit for the 1st semester have been notified of the necessity to attend by mail and by telephone. The cost per course, per semester is $150.00, students will be notified if they will need to attend based on their results for second semester. The registration forms distributed are due by May 28th. In order to obtain the credit from summer school a minimum 90% attendance rate is mandatory along with a minimum 70% passing grade. Lunch will be provided daily, and the regular free dress rules apply.

HSA Dallas celebrated Cinco de Mayo on Saturday, May 4th. It was a beautiful, sunny and warm, albeit windy, day. We had many fun activities for the students and children to participate in. Delicious food, from various cultures, was donated and enjoyed by the attendees. The entire festival was planned, set up, hosted and cleaned up through the tremendous efforts of a volunteer staff which included school staff, students, and parents. read more . . .