About R.N. Harris

  • Principal: Catherine Lucas

    Assistant Principal: Chakela Boney

    Address: 1520 Cooper Street Durham NC 27703 

    Phone: 919-560-3967

    Hours of Operation: 7:45 a.m. - 2:15 p.m.

    Enrollment: 299

     RN Harris Elementary School

    Core Knowledge and Integrated Arts

    Our Philosophy: We provide a safe, stimulating, and nurturing environment that promotes high academic and creative achievement, fosters the development of successful and independent students and prepares them to be productive members of a worldwide community. We believe students learn best when they create, have opportunities to explore a variety of topics in different settings, and are presented with content that sparks their imagination. 

    The arts serve as a vehicle to bring curricular areas together in a cohesive universal language. All subjects are integrated with music, dance, drama, visual, and literary arts to bring learning to life. The integrated arts approach is an interdisciplinary collaboration that assumes all children are artists and that art can be used to strengthen all learning. We also use the Multiple Intelligence approach to learning recognizing that children have varying learning styles.

    We teach reading, writing, math, science, and history skills through exciting, comprehensive units based on the Core Knowledge curriculum developed by E.D. Hirsch and fused with the North Carolina Standard Course of Study. The Core Knowledge curriculum offers students a broad base of shared knowledge through the study of Africa, Egypt, early civilization, the empires of the Mayan, Inca, Aztec, Greek and Roman people, The Middle Ages, the Renaissance, China, Japan, and India. Students examine masterpieces from literature, art, and music, bring the content areas to life.