About

MISSION STATEMENT

High School America provides the structure to allow citizens to play a larger role in enhancing America’s high schools. It is devoted to:

  • Celebrating the importance of the American high school experience
  • Ensuring the relevance of American high school education to the future needs of the Nation.
  • Expanding on the friendships forged with exchange students in the continuing conduct of the Nation’s foreign policy.
  • Improving the facilities, courses, and programs of America’s high schools.

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

High School America consists of three separate, but equal, divisions:

  1. The Association of High School Alumni Organizations (AHSAO) brings functioning high school alumni organizations together to learn from each other and to provide a new voice in the formulation and implementation of national education policy.
  2. High School Alumni United (HSAU) provides an organizational foundation for those who attended an American high school, but lack a non-commercial way to stay in touch with former classmates or who want to provide assistance to America’s high schools.
  3. Supporters of America’s High Schools (SAHS) link the corps of teachers, administrators, employees, volunteers, and community members who have served America’s high schools and wish to play a continuing role in the development of high school policies.

FOUNDER / LEADERSHIP

Godfrey HarrisHigh School America was founded in 2011 by Godfrey (Jeff) Harris. Harris is a 1955 graduate of Hamilton High School in Los Angeles, and serves on the Alexander Hamilton High School Alumni Association Board of Directors. He founded High School America when he realized that the millions of constituents of one of the nation’s most influential institutions have no single voice in Washington. He hopes High School America will fill that void in the year’s to come.

Harris has been President of Harris/Ragan Management Group, a Los Angeles-based public policy consulting firm, since 1968. The firm deals in governmental policy development, electoral politics, market development, policy analysis, and proposal presentations. Harris has participated in all of the firm’s consulting assignments for such clients as the U.S. Department of State, the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration, the Governments of Panama and St. Kitts-Nevis, the London Chamber of Commerce & Industry, the Society of International Travel Representatives, the Foreign Policy Association of Panama, the Sheet Metal Workers’ International Association, the Da Vinci Experience, and others.

Prior to founding Harris/Ragan, Mr. Harris was an Intelligence Officer in the U.S. Army; a U.S. Foreign Service Officer in Washington, Bonn, and London; and a Management Analyst in the President’s Executive Office. He was Special Assistant to the President of the IOS Development Company in Geneva. Mr. Harris has also taught political science at UCLA and Rutgers; conducted negotiation training for the US Corps of Engineers; presented tourism seminars at the American Embassy in London, Clemson University, and the University of Hawaii; and written or co-authored some 61 books on public policy issues and business topics. Mr. Harris holds degrees from Stanford University and the University of California, Los Angeles, He has been honored with a Los Angeles County Resolution of Commendation, the US Army Commendation Medal, election to Phi Beta Kappa, and multiple listings in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in the World.