This article was originally published in the summer 2012 Harker Quarterly.
With family members flashing cameras like paparazzi, a group of excited fifth graders experienced their first Harker promotion ceremony, held June 5 at the Bucknall gymnasium.
The day began with the Pledge of Allegiance, led by Andrea Simonian, grade 5, followed by a special welcome address given by Chris Nikoloff, head of school. After Nikoloff’s greeting, the grade 4-6 dance group Dance Fusion performed “Let’s Get Loud!” choreographed by Gail Palmer.
Once the crowd was sufficiently pumped up, annual awards for citizenship, effort, fitness, and special academic and subject awards were given out one by one.
After the awards, everyone at the ceremony was treated to a slide show filled with memories from the past six years. Then, the promotion certificates themselves were presented to the students.
After the presentation of the certificates, the fifth graders performed “Like an Eagle” by Carl Strommen, followed by the Harker school song. Now officially middle schoolers, the grinning students were welcomed by the incoming middle school student body president. Finally, the day ended with closing remarks from Kristin Giammona, elementary school head. Congratulations to Harker’s former grade 5 students!
Harker grade 3 families enjoyed a special movie night in late January at Nichols Hall. Students enjoyed the movie and munched on food while parents socialized and enjoyed a night out with their children. Luckily, Harker events coordinator Tiffany Hurst was there to capture the evening in photos as it happened!
In January, the lower school campus was visited by about 20 people, who arrived by charter bus, from Community Leadership San Jose (CLSJ), a program offered by the San Jose/Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce that identifies potential community leaders and helps them develop skills to address community issues.
“The class begins with a two day retreat in the fall that is followed with monthly all day classes that focus on different aspects within our community including the criminal justice system, SJ politics, the arts, media, education and the health care system,” said Todd Trekell, who participated in this year’s class and served on the team that specialized in education.
As part of their ongoing training, the group examined Harker and two other schools in an effort to learn about the various elementary school options that San Jose families have available to them. In addition to Harker, they also visited Discovery Charter School and Washington Elementary School. Before visiting, they had gathered information on each school, such as classroom size and student-to-teacher ratios. They then toured the schools to see how they worked, beyond the numbers. “We thought that it would be fascinating to get a real time look into how teachers teach, the various class room sizes, the ethnic makeup of the student body, the overall cost of enrollment to the parents, the food the children eat, the emphases placed on college, the funds allocated by the state to the school, etc.,” Trekell said. “We have all been reading so much about the challenges associated with the education system in California and we wanted to show our classmates firsthand what is going on. ”
The group’s visit to Harker was spurred by the school’s reputation as one of the nation’s top independent school. “We thought that it would be really interesting to understand why it has this reputation and to see if it was really that different from the two other schools that we toured,” said Trekell, who noted that Harker seems to be more well-known nationally than it is within Silicon Valley. “Although we were a class of nearly 30, many of our classmates had never heard of Harker prior to our tour,” he added.
As part of their tour, the CLSJ trainees visited three classrooms to get a sense of what a Harker lower school class session is like. They visited Michelle Anderson and Kelle Sloan’s kindergarten classroom to see a visit by a local fireman, and watched Cindy Proctor teach social studies to her grade 1 students. They also stopped by the gym to see a rehearsal of the grade 5 play, “School Daze.”
Following their tour, they sat down at the lower school library for a Q&A session with several Harker administrators, including Chris Nikoloff, head of school, and Sarah Leonard, primary division head, before returning to city hall to discuss their findings. What learned, Trekell recalled, was that “Not all schools are created equal. We were all very impressed based on what we saw at all three schools. The students were engaged, the teachers seemed to be passionate and as a class we felt that things appeared much better in the classroom then what our perception was based on how the media has portrayed day to day life in most elementary schools. “
Kindergarten performers took a packed house back to the 1950s with this year’s annual show, titled “At the Hop” and directed by lower school performing arts teacher Kellie Binney. Each member of the production assumed the identity of a ’50s archetype or celebrity for the show, portraying icons such as Elvis Presley (Ashwin Kuppahally), Ella Fitzgerald (Emi Fujimura) and Chuck Berry (Enzo Lucketti).
The students performed various hits from the ’50s on the Bucknall stage, including “Splish Splash” by Bobby Darin, “Donna” by Ritchie Valens, Presley’s “Hound Dog” and the show’s namesake, “At the Hop” by Danny and the Juniors. The teachers of each kindergarten class were also part of the show, introducing their respective classes with entertaining skits and even joining in on several numbers. Naturally, performers were decked out in a potpourri of period-appropriate attire, including leather jackets, jeans and poodle skirts, and the audience delighted in the students’ fun and inspired renditions of classic tunes, all done to energetic choreography by dance teacher Gail Palmer.
The show included a well-designed set that mimicked an authentic ’50s diner, courtesy of scenic artist Whitney Pintello, with props by the students of Danny Dunn’s middle school technical theater class. Grade 5 students Nikhil Dharmaraj and Ayush Pancholy constructed a jukebox that was a major feature of the scenery. Dunn, who also acted as technical director and designer, again brought along the students of her grade 5 technical theater class to act as the stage crew.
Harker’s musical talent shined in the recent campuswide Spring Concert, presented by the school’s music departments. Lower, middle and upper school orchestras united on stage, to the delight of friends, parents and faculty members in attendance.
Held in mid-April at the Mexican Heritage Theater in San Jose, the show featured a unique pre-concert lobby music performance by the middle school chamber ensembles. Kicking off the concert, the Lower School String Ensemble opened with “Burst,” by Brian Balmages, and “Battle of the Ancient Dragons,” by Rob Grice.
The Lower School Orchestra then performed two numbers before being joined by the Grade 6 Winds, Strings and Orchestra. Then the Grade 7-8 Orchestra took the stage, performing Johannes Brahms’ “Variations on a Theme,” and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Phantom of the Opera.”
A special treat was the K-12 combined orchestra, which played a beautiful rendition of “Hornpipe” from Handel’s “Water Music.” A brief intermission followed after which the The Harker School Orchestra showed their range of skill by performing such high-level pieces as Felix Mendelssohn’s “Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
The Spring Concert was a joy to attend and skillfully directed by its respective upper, middle and lower school conductors: Chris Florio, David Hart, Louis Hoffman and Toni Woodruff.
“We had a very challenging program and the students truly stepped up their game for a wonderful performance. I was especially happy to honor such an amazing group of musicians. This class has been a huge part of the growth of the orchestra program and it was fitting that they ended with such a wonderful concert,” said Florio.
Hats off to the adorable kindergarten students at the lower school campus for coming up with unique and colorful headwear for the annual Hat Parade, which recently took place. Wearing hats they decorated at home themselves, the children participated in a fun parade which wound its way throughout the campus, stopping off in various classrooms to model the students’ fabulous attire.
Half a hundred happy K-2 students took a field trip in mid-March to Pump it Up, a warehouse filled with jump houses, obstacle courses and slides. The event was the reward for the students who sold at least 100 raffle tickets for the Harker Family & Alumni Picnic. Kim Coulter, director of the Bucknall Enrichment and Supervision Team (BEST), said, “The children had a great afternoon playing. They enjoyed going through the obstacle courses and racing some of their favorite BEST staff.” Students Aaditya Gulati and Emma Gurleroglu, both grade 2, sold the most raffle tickets this year.
In March, Dr. Alan Nelson of the nonprofit organization KidLead, which teaches leadership skills to students ages 10-13, spoke at Nichols Hall to parents about how to foster leadership in their children. Harker has been running its own KidLead program since the fall of 2010, and since then at least 70 Harker students have completed at least one KidLead module.
Nelson discussed how parents could identify a child’s knack for leadership, pointing out such traits as the tendency to set goals and good communication skills. Some ways that parents can help children with these qualities grow into leaders include providing activities at home that place the children in leadership roles and by finding people to mentor them. Unfortunately, he said, many parents may end up stifling their children by being overprotective or assuming that only adults are fit to lead.
Students Katelyn Bui and Alexander Young, both grade 5, were honored at the beginning of the seminar with a certificate for being the first two Harker students to graduate from the program. “KidLead piqued my interest when I heard the idea from my mom one day,” Bui said. “I decided to give it a try, and I loved it.”
Participating in KidLead, she said, helped her learn more about herself: “Small opportunities lead to bigger opportunities, which gave me a chance to work with different teammates to overcome challenges and have trust in others, which made me see things in me that I never knew I had.”
It also helped her with cognitive abilities, “like focusing on the task at hand while being under pressure.”
Bui was excited and surprised to receive the award. “I was really stoked when Mr. Connolly announced that Alexander and I were the first ones in Harker history to complete all KidLead modules,” she said. “It was actually not about completing all the modules, but the experience that came along with it.”
Students from grade 1 were treated to a special presentation on March 30, watching handlers guide a group of dogs through a canine agility course, complete with tunnels, jumps and other obstacles. The students had just read the story “Officer Buckle and Gloria” in their language arts classes. The story, about a police dog named Gloria who goes to schools with Officer Buckle as he is giving safety presentations, was a great lead-in to the agility dog presentation, which teacher Rita Stone arranged as an extension of the literature. “All of the students were so impressed [with the presentation],” said Stone. “They just loved it and they learned a lot.”
Last month the lower, middle and upper school jazz bands united to present an Evening of Jazz. Held at the Blackford Theater, the event was led by Louis Hoffman, Dave Hart and Chris Florio, the directors of the jazz bands for each campus.
Kicking off the evening, The Harker School Jazz Band performed “Two Seconds to Midnight” by composer Alan Baylock and “Harker Swing” by David Len Allen, arranged by Harker music aide Paul Woodruff.
Those numbers were followed by the Lower School Jazz Ensemble’s rendition of John Coltrane’s “Equinox” and Herbie Hancock’s “Watermelon Man.” Then, the Middle School Jazz Band performed the more traditional numbers “Motherless Child” and “When the Saints Go Marching In.”
Following a brief intermission and further performances by all three ensembles came the combined finale, “Work Song” by Nat Adderley. Running the gamut from rousing, upbeat swing numbers to slow, soulful ballads, Evening of Jazz showcased the breadth of Harker student talent and entertained and delighted its audience.
Staff for the show included Brian Larsen, production manager, and Paul Vallerga, technical director. The Harker performing arts department noted its gratitude to contributors to the school’s annual campaign, which helps make programs such as this possible.