Program Design

Harmony Project Bay Area (HPBA) provides high-intensity after-school music education at no cost to families or the school. We are an affiliate of the Harmony Project of America. The flagship program in Los Angeles serves 3,000 children and has won three national awards for excellence in youth development. Students participating in the program through high school attend college at twice the rate of their inner-city peers, with many pursuing STEM majors at leading universities. Our program is modeled after the one in Los Angeles.

With a focus on community building, our program strives to improve students' skills for academic and life success, such as problem solving, creative thinking, focus, collaboration, and non-verbal communication. These benefits are achieved through the experiences of belonging to a positive community (the orchestra), working towards shared goals (performances), and striving for excellence.

The array of programming offered includes:

Photo of our string orchestra in rehearsal

  • 3 hours of music instruction per child each week (2–3 days a week after school, depending on the class level)

  • Classes in violin, cello, chamber, orchestra, creative composition/improvisation, mentorship/leadership

  • Daily snack and recreation time

  • A long-term commitment to the students until they graduate high school, with a plan to add new students each year.

Since 2012, Harmony Project Bay Area has been providing programming at Woodrow Wilson Elementary School, where:

  • 75% of students qualify for the federal Free or Reduced Price Meal Program.

  • 64% of students are English language learners.

  • Only 30% of students meet state standards in language arts and math, with many being more than one grade level behind state averages.

  • Very little music instruction and few after-school opportunities are accessible to students.

In September 2022, we launched a second site at Susan B. Anthony Elementary School in Daly City for the first time and added 36 new students in grades 2, 3, and 4, bringing our total to 84 students.

Evaluation

Despite HPBA's limited resources, staff has been able to analyze the California Standardized Test scores for our students and compare those scores to a matched control group (an identical number of students from the same school teachers’ classrooms as HPBA's students). Compared to non-music students in the same schools and grades, after 4 years, HPBA students outperformed their peers by 13% in math and 20% in reading on state-standardized test scores!

We will also continue refining our quantitative, Likert scale-based surveys, given to students (plus parents) at the end of each year in order to identify progress on our objectives related to their participation in HPBA. The results show significant benefits to the students in group behavior, focus, school work, motivation, and social life. For example, the median score of our most recent student survey was 95% across all age groups.