Harley’s Approach to College Counseling
“Club Rush” is an afternoon every fall in the Upper School when students have the chance to sign up for clubs for the year, and each year it is very different because new clubs are created based on student initiative and enthusiasm.
Each and every year, students at The Harley School participate in HAC Athletics, and their success continues to be impressive, both as students and athletes. Our athletic program is an integral part of Harley, teaching student-athletes invaluable lessons about teamwork, time management, persistence, and competition. Our program allows them to develop physically, mentally, socially, and emotionally as they represent their school on and off the field. They grow, mature, and work hard to be the best teammate they can, while creating lifelong memories with teammates who often remain friends for life. 
Our Upper School is filled with formal and informal opportunities for students to take on leadership roles. Whether following passions or learning new skills, student-driven opportunities take many shapes.
Unlike this class, death is not an elective. Although it is one of two universal human experiences, our culture often ignores, denies, or misconstrues the true nature of death and dying. What happens when we bear witness to this natural process in the cycle of life and develop our ability to be fully present with others when they need us more than ever? It has the potential to change us deeply and fundamentally while shining a brilliant light on the path of our own lives.
This program utilizes environmentally-focused approaches to education and hands-on learning in order to foster the next generation of leaders through a lens of sustainability and problem-solving.
At Harley, our students learn how to evaluate social systems in order to identify complex problems in society through a lens of social justice. They take a hands-on approach to working for a fair, equitable society by researching, exploring and evaluating different perspectives, and offering solutions—both theoretical and practical.
Students may create independent studies with supervising teachers throughout their Upper School experience or, during Grade 12, they can design Capstone projects—intensive collaborations with Harley faculty and off-campus mentors—involving rigorous academic study and culminating in public presentations. 
Although it seems like Betsy Wilcox ’01 has always been here, she officially joined the lower school faculty at Harley this past September. Betsy is connected to Harley in so many ways. She is an alumna from the class of 2001, is a parent of Winnie in the Class of 2034, her partner is lower school faculty member Beth Fox (Music, 2007-present), and she is the daughter of Len Wilcox, recently retired math guru after over 40 years at Harley.
As a student, Betsy and her brother, Colin ’98, were “here all the time” because their father often stayed after school, holding office hours or running student clubs. In Upper School, they participated in a variety of after-school sports. Betsy was a three-sport athlete, going from soccer to swimming to softball, depending on the season. After she graduated, you would often see Betsy stopping to visit her dad, and then Beth after she was hired in 2007. In 2019, she and Beth became Harley parents and she was here as often as her schedule would allow.
Just before she was hired at Harley, Betsy had been at Full Heart Child Care for the past three years, was recently promoted to a classroom Education Specialist and feeling really good both personally and professionally. In fact, she told her partner that the only reason she would leave her current position would be if she was able to get her “dream job” teaching at Harley. Little did she know that dream was about to become a reality.
It was just one week before school and Nursery Blue teacher, Nancy Lindquist (Lower School, 1982-present), was informed that her co-teacher had taken another job. Terry Fonda Smith P ’21, Head of the Lower School (Lower School, 1994 to present), knew that Betsy, an education major at SUNY Geneseo, had been teaching preschool locally for the past 11 years, so she made the call and invited her in for an interview.
Now Betsy is working with Nancy Lindquist in Nursery Blue and her daughter is one of her students! She said it’s been fun having Winnie with her in the classroom. Winnie usually refers to her as “Ms. Wilcox” when addressing her at school, but sometimes calls her “Moshi” (her name at home) by accident. Some of the other students have caught on and are now calling Betsy by that name too, but she doesn’t mind one bit.
I asked how it is working with her partner in the same place and she said it’s nice to be together and share the same environment and some of the same experiences. They don’t have a ton of overlap, but when they do, it’s casual. For Betsy, Harley is a second home and the fact that her family is all here together makes it a perfect fit.
Harley has always been a community of strong, caring teachers and Betsy says a lot of her own teaching style was influenced by her Lower School teachers. In all of her previous jobs, her goal was always to build the classroom into a small community, like when she was a student at Harley. In college and work, she always looked for that and was most fulfilled with family and community collaboration. This is how she does her best work.
She continues to learn from her former teachers, especially the ones that are now her colleagues. Her current teaching partner, Nancy, was her teacher when she was in Nursery Blue, she had Ms. B (Kim Bednarcyk P ’16, 1981-present) in Nursery Red. She had Debbie Moore (1988-present), Tony Cinquino P ’06, ’10 (1979-present), Gail Hanss P ’13, ’22 (then Harrington, 1988-present), Margaret Tolhurst P ’12, ’15 (1992-present), and Marilyn Fenster (1984-present) as lower school teachers. She said it is is an honor to work with them and that it speaks well for Harley that so many of them are still here-she had them 30 years ago!
Now that she is here, she plans to follow in her father’s footsteps and stick with Harley for the long haul.