Harmony Public Schools is the largest charter management organization in Texas with seventy three campuses serving students in kindergarten through 12th grade.
Several Turkish-American graduate students wrote a charter school proposal and received approval from the Texas Education Agency in April 2000, months before the first campus opened in August.
at seventeen years and 54 campuses, Harmony has reached its goal of operating fifty schools and educating 35,000 students by 2020.
Harmony Public Schools works to break down the educational barriers for low-socioeconomic students in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields.
Its project-based learning method and STEM SOS model requires students to complete multiple hands-on projects per year in select fields, then present their findings to the community.
This motivates students to master complex academic concepts and gives them practice at lifelong skills, such as public speaking and communications.
[6] Texas newspapers, including The Dallas Morning News, the Austin American-Statesman, and the West University Examiner, commented favorably on the schools.
Harmony is especially active in MathCounts, FIRST LEGO League (FLL), DISTCO (Digital Storytelling Contests) Science Fair, and Quiz Bowl.
Many Harmony campuses traveled to the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas, for the expo to support their classmates with exhibits.
[17] The Harris County Department of Education assists Harmony Public Schools in its bidding process by reviewing every submission and making a recommendation to the board of directors.
To alleviate the shortage, Harmony began the Grow Your Own Teacher program, which encourages and financially supports its alumni who earn teaching certificates.
Harmony Public Schools were subject to a compliance review by the United States Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, examining whether the system was compliant with Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (prohibiting discrimination on the basis of disability in education programs operated by recipients of federal financial assistance), and Title II of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (prohibiting discrimination on the basis of disability by public entities).
The OCR's investigation found that although HPS's admissions policies, procedures, and information provided to prospective students and their parents were prima facie non-discriminatory, the school systems' enrollments of disabled students and English-language learners were significantly lower than for public school districts covering the same geographical areas.