Last month, the American Association of Physics Teachers named Swapnil Garg ’18 one of 20 high school students nationwide who will contend for a spot on the United States Physics Team. Garg and the other candidates are currently completing a boot camp held at the University of Maryland, after which five students will be selected to represent the United States at the International Physics Olympiad, held in Lisbon, Portugal, from July 21-29.
Garg was one of 11 Harker students who qualified to take the United States Physics Olympiad (USAPhO) exam after scoring in the top 10 percent on a screening exam in January. The others were then-seniors (now graduates) Jimmy Lin, Neelesh Ramachandran and Shaya Zarkesh; juniors Timothy Chang, Kaushik Shivakumar and Katherine Zhang; sophomore Jeffrey Kwan; freshman Daniel Wang; and eighth graders David Dai and Rishab Parthasarathy. Of those, Kwan, Parthasarathy and Zarkesh each won a bronze medal, and Dai and Shivakumar received an honorable mention.
Four Harker students joined five other team members for the local USA Ultimate championship tournament. Harker students Brian Harder, Athreya Daniel, Johnathan Mo, all grade 7, and Leah Harder, grade 4, participated. The Bay Area Disc Association hosts an annual tournament in California for kids ages 10-14; this year the tournament was in Newark. There are no preliminary games; the teams train all season for the big event, and the work paid off for these students!
In the Division II finals, the team edged out its opponent, Redwood Day School, beating it 8-6 to take home the championship trophy. A total of 24 middle school teams competed, evenly split between Division I and Division II. Teams competed from as far south as San Luis Obispo and as far north as Marin.
The students send out a special thanks to teacher Rebecca Williams for being the faculty sponsor for their after-school Ultimate club at the middle school. The club activity was instrumental in allowing Harker’s competitors to play together and work on skills throughout the year. The team is coached by Alan Harder, father of Brian and Leah, who has played at the club level for more than 15 years. With three seventh graders on the team, it will be exciting to see if they can defend their title next year!
Harker has announced that it will move its middle school program to its Union Avenue campus and phase out the preschool program currently operating at that site.
Brian Yager, Harker’s head of school, explained the history behind this announcement: “Harker’s acquisition of the Union property in 2012 marked a major milestone in the school’s master plan to own all three of our campuses, and plans are now firmed up to fulfill that plan.” Harker currently leases the middle school campus on Blackford Avenue from the Campbell Union High School District, and that lease is set to expire in 2025. “Our original plan was to move the lower school to our Union Avenue campus when the Blackford lease expired, and then move our middle school to the lower school campus,” Yager explained. “However, as the benefits of moving just one school rather than two became clear, including significantly reducing the stress on our students and faculty and reducing the costs of campus improvements, we decided to move the middle school instead.”
Yager added that the school will accelerate the move from Blackford to Union so that the middle school program will be on its new campus for the start of the 2021-22 school year. An architectural application to upgrade the Union Avenue campus to specifically meet the needs of grades 6-8, including the addition of classrooms and co-curricular spaces, is undergoing final adjustments and will be submitted to the city of San Jose this summer.
The original plan also included finding a new home for the preschool when Harker was ready to move older students to that campus. “Unfortunately, while we love the program and it has been a great success, thanks particularly to the efforts of the professionals who have implemented the program, locating a suitable location for the preschool has proven a formidable challenge,” said Yager, “so we will phase out Harker’s preschool program. The preschool will operate for two more years so that our current preschool families can finish out their programs.” He added that only families of transitional kindergarten-age children will be admitted in the preschool over the remaining two years.
Harker has held meetings with the Harker community and with Union Avenue neighbors to update all on the plans. The school will publish updates in the parent portal and on the Harker website as the multiyear process begins. For more information on the school’s plans contact communications@harker.org.
First Lego League robotics team Alpha Wolves – sixth graders Jordan Labio, Dustin Miao and Kabir Ramzan – had an admirable run at the Razorback World Invitational in Fayetteville, Ark., held May 17-20. The team placed second in the robot alliance competition and overall project, and took a respectable ninth place in robot performance. The Alpha Wolves qualified for the event in January after winning the Silicon Valley Championship. A world-level competition, the Razorback World Invitational featured 58 of the best teams in the country, and 14 from around the globe. More than 35,000 teams competed in this FLL season, which started last summer. Only 500 qualified for world-level events.
Lower and middle school athletes fought hard and won some great accolades this past season! Check out these hard-working players!
VA (grades 6-8) Gold Tennis: The Varsity A gold tennis team, coached by John Fruttero and Mike Nguyen, finished in first place in the WBAL at 8-0 and first place in the MTP at 6-1. The team finished the MTP tournament in first place and had an overall season record of 15-1. Team awards went to Shika Tseitlin, grade 8, and Dawson Chen, grade 8 (co-MVP), Dhruv Saoji, grade 8, and Shahzeb Lakhani, grade 8 (Eagle) and Anthony Tong, grade 7 (Coaches).
VA (grades 6-8) Silver Tennis: The Varsity A silver tennis team, coached by John Fruttero and Mike Nguyen, finished in first place in the WBAL with a record of 6-0. Team awards went to Jacob Huang, grade 7 (MVP), Kyle Johnson, grade 6 (Eagle), and Arissa Huda, grade 7, and Athena Wu, grade 7 (Coaches).
VA (grades 7-8) Girls Volleyball: The Varsity A team, coached by Theresa Smith and Stephanie Coleman, and assisted by high school volleyball players Lauren Napier, grade 12, Isabella Spradlin, grade 12, Emily Cheng, grade 10, Lauren Beede, grade 10, and Dylan Williams, grade 9, finished in a three-way tie for second place in the WBAL with a record of 7-2. Team awards went to Tara Ozdemir, grade 8 (MVP), Brittany Shou, grade 8 (Eagle) and Ashley Barth, grade 8 (Coaches).
VB (grades 7-8) Girls Volleyball: The Varsity B team, coached by Theresa Smith and Stephanie Coleman, and assisted by the same high school players, finished in first place in the WBAL with a record of 6-0. The team did not lose a single set all season! Team awards went to Elizabeth Shchegrov, grade 8 (MVP), Gwen-Zoe Yang, grade 7 (Eagle), and Leyla Artun, grade 8 and Emma Gurleroglu, grade 8 (Coaches).
VB2 (grades 7-8) Girls Volleyball: The Varsity B2 team, coached by Theresa Smith and Stephanie Coleman, and assisted by the HS players, finished in first place in the WBAL with a record of 6-0. This team also did not lose a set all season! Team awards went to Sarah Leafstrand , grade 8 (MVP), Sonya He, grade 7 (Eagle) and Ashley Ma, grade 7 (Coaches).
JVA (grade 6) Girls Volleyball: The Junior Varsity A team, coached by Belle Carley and high school player assistant Katie Carley, finished in second place in the WBAL with a record of 5-1. Team awards went to Alice Tao, grade 6 (MVP), Margaret Cartee, grade 6 (Eagle) and Kate Grannis, grade 6 (Coaches).
JVB6 (grade 6) Girls Volleyball: The Junior Varsity B6 team, coached by Spring Wang and high school player Katie Carley, finished in third place in the WBAL with a record of 3-3. Team awards went to Ellie Schmidt, grade 6 (MVP), Emily McCartney, grade 6 (Eagle) and Jasmine Ishikawa, grade 6 (Coaches).
JVB1 (grade 5) Girls Volleyball: The Junior Varsity B1 team, coached by Ellie Pereira, finished in first place in the WBAL with a record of 5-0. Team awards went to Angelina Burrows, grade 5 (MVP), Young Min, grade 5 (Eagle), and Menaka Aron, grade 5 and Anika Pallapothu, grade 5 (Coaches).
JVB2 (grade 5) Girls Volleyball: The Junior Varsity B2 team, coached by college volleyball player Allie Pereira, finished in fourth place in the WBAL with a record of 2-3. Team awards went to Elie Ahluwalia, grade 4, (MVP), Delara Gholami, grade 4, (Eagle), and Kira Bardin, grade 4 and Riley Olson, grade 4 (Coaches).
Intramural (grade 4) Girls Volleyball: Team awards went to Syna Sharma, grade 4 (MVP), Shaina Cohen, grade 4 (Eagle) and Kallie Wang, grade 4 (Coaches). The team was coached by high school volleyball players Emily Pereira and Kaitlyn Seawright.
VA (grades 7-8) Baseball: The Varsity A team, coached Richard Amarillas, Matt Arensberg and Adam Albers finished in fifth place in the WBAL with a record of 3-3. Team awards went to Chirag Kaushik, grade 8, and Mark Hu, grade 8 (co-MVPs); Freddy Hoch, grade 7 (Eagle) and Michael Pflaging, grade 7 (Coaches).
JVA (grades 4-6) Baseball: The Junior Varsity A team, coached by Jon Cvitanich, Tim Hopkins, Kristian Tiopo and Dan Pringle, finished in fourth place in the WBAL with a record of 0-4. Team awards went to Kyle Johnson, grade 6 (MVP), Brandon Zau, grade 6 and Chirant Shekar, grade 6 (Eagle) and Jack Ledford, grade 6 (Coaches).
Intramural (grades 4-5) Baseball: Team awards went to Luke Wu, grade 4 (MVP), Sahil Jain, grade 4 (Eagle) and Veeraz Thakkar, grade 4 (Coaches). The team was coached by Walid Fahmy and Tobias Wade.
VA (grades 7-8) Boys Volleyball: The Varsity A team, coached by Pete Anderson, finished in second place in the ADAL with a record of 7-1. The team went 7-2 overall. Team awards went to Marcus Page, grade 8 (MVP), Jack Hayashi, grade 8, (Eagle) and Maddux Carlisle, grade 8 (Coaches).
JVA (grades 6-7) Boys Volleyball: The Junior Varsity A team, coached by Sara Pawloski, finished in seventh place in the ADAL with a record of 2-6. Team awards went to Adrian Liu, grade 6 (MVP), Spencer Mak, grade 6, (Eagle) and Vivek Nayyar, grade 6 (Coaches).
MS (grades 6-8) Water Polo: The MS water polo team, coached by Ted Ujifusa, Allie Lamb and Trevor Wong, participated in six tournaments this season. The tournaments are mostly set up for player development and our boys, girls and coed teams all had good seasons. Team awards went to Jasleen Hansra, grade 7 (MVP), Lachlan Rossi, grade 6, (Eagle) and Vishal Rohra, grade 7 (Coaches).
MS (grades 6-8) Golf: The MS golf team, coached by Ie-Chen Cheng, took first place in the WBAL spring tournament held at the Moffet Field Golf Course. The team shot a 158 on the front nine. They beat the rest of the field by 19 strokes! The top eight golfers were Claire Chen, grade 7 (39), Ryan Zhang, grade 6 (39), Freddy Hoch, grade 7 (39), Athreya Daniel, grade 7 (41), Marcus Page, grade 8 (42), Arvin Nidadavolu, grade 8 (44), Jack Yang, grade 6, (47) and Rohan Gorti, grade 7 (48).
LS (grades 4-5) Boys and Girls Track: The lower school track team, coached by Brighid Wood, Karriem Stinson, Colleen Campbell, Brittney Moseley, Vanessa Rios and Dini Wong, took second place overall at the WBAL track meet.
First place finishers were Cyrus Ghane, grade 4 (800m), Vyom Vidyarthi, grade 5 (800m), Ori Muramatsu, grade 5 (long jump) and MacEnzie Blue, grade 4 (softball throw).
Second place finishers were Rushil Jaiswal, grade 5 (50m and 200m), Vyom Vidyarthi, grade 5 (400m), the team of Vyom Vidyarthi, Kaleb Goldin, Sohum Arora and Rushil Jaiswal, all grade 5 (4 x 100 relay), and MacEnzie Blue, grade 4 (long jump).
MS (grades 6-8) Boys and Girls Track: The middle school track team, coached by Brighid Wood, Karriem Stinson, Colleen Campbell, Brittney Moseley, Vanessa Rios and Dini Wong, took second place overall at the WBAL track meet.
First place finishers were Anjali Yella, grade 6 (200m), Rigo Gonzales, grade 7 (200m, 400m and 800m), Ishaan Mantripragada, grade 8 (200m), Michael Pflaging, grade 7 (1,200m), the team of Nageena Singh, Natasha Matta, Cindy Su and Brooklyn Cicero, all grade 8 (4 x 100 relay), and Brooklyn Cicero, grade 8 (softball throw).
Second place finishers were Anjali Yella, grade 6 (50m and 100m), Armaan Thakker, grade 7 (100m), Ishaan Mantripragada, grade 8 (100m), Emma Gao, grade 6 (400m), Cindy Su, grade 8 (400m), Veyd Patil, grade 6 (800m), Michael Pflaging, grade 7 (800m), Dawson Chen, grade 8 (1,200m), the team of Katie Reed, Cynthia Wang, Annabel Yang and Anjali Yella, all grade 6 (4 x 100 relay) and Siddharth Selvakumar, grade 7 (long jump and softball throw).
Harker middle school speech and debate team members competed at three tournaments in three states – California, Georgia and Texas – in April and early May.
In April, at the National Debate Coaches Association National Championship in Atlanta, 166 entries from 102 schools across 26 states competed. Harker had two middle school entrants and a few upper school entrants.
Also in April, 10 middle and upper school Harker students competed at the St. Marks Novice Round Up in Dallas. A dozen schools were represented. Results are below.
Novice Policy
1st – Deven Shah and Andy Lee, grades 8 and 9, respectively, went undefeated with a perfect 19-0 ballot count.
Novice Policy Speaker Awards
1st – Andy Lee
2nd – Deven Shah
6th – Ansh Sheth, grade 6
On May 7, approximately 40 Harker middle schools students competed against each other in two distinct intramural debate events in preparation for the Middle School Tournament of Champions Nationals, and earned the following awards:
Lincoln-Douglas
1st – Rahul Santhanam, grade 7
2nd – Brian Chen, grade 7
Public Forum
1st – Sriram Bhimaraju and Arjun Gurjar, both grade 6 (3-0)
2nd – Adam Sayed and Sathvik Chundru, both grade 6 (3-0)
Public Forum Speaker Awards
1st – Sascha Pakravan, grade 8
2nd – Carol Wininger, grade 7
3rd – Ansh Sheth, grade 6
4th – Ayan Nath, grade 8
5th – Deeya Viradia, grade 7
In early May, Harker speech and debate team members attended the middle school TOC at the University of Kentucky, in Lexington.
At the event, 232 of the best middle school speech and debate students from 35 schools competed. Overall, Harker had great success across all events. Harker won the First Place Sweepstakes Team Award for best middle school speech and debate team in the country.
Harker students won the following awards, competing against some of the best middle school teams in the country:
Policy
1st – Deven Shah and Mir Bahri, grade 7, undefeated, 20-0 ballot count
5th – Saanvi Arora, grade 8, and Sarah Mohammed, grade 7
Policy Speaker Awards
2nd – Deven Shah
18th – Mir Bahri
Lincoln-Douglas
2nd – Anshul Reddy, grade 8
3rd – Alexander Lan, grade 7
5th – Akhilesh Chegu, grade 8
5th – Arnav Dani, grade 8
9th – Brian Chen, grade 7
Lincoln-Douglas Speaker Awards
1st – Akhilesh Chegu, grade 8
3rd – Krish Maniar, grade 7
4th – Anshul Reddy, grade 8
Public Forum
1st – Sascha Pakravan and Ayan Nath
2nd – Krishna Mysoor, grade 7, and Ansh Sheth
5th – Arnav Jain and Rohan Rashingkar, both grade 8
17th – Michelle Jin and Lexi Nishimura, both grade 7
At last weekend’s Susan Polgar Foundation National Open chess tournament, siblings Anika Rajaram, grade 4, and Rohan Rajaram, grade 1, were champions of their respective sections. Anika won in under-10 girls section, while Rohan triumphed among boys under 8. Anika’s victory secured her entry into the SPF Girls’ Invitational in St. Louis, where more than $250,000 in scholarships and prizes will be awarded.
At the MathCounts state competition on March 31 at Stanford University, the Harker middle school team of grade 8 students Alexander Hu, Rishab Parthasarathy and William Zhao and seventh grader Sally Zhu won the state MathCounts championship in a field of 35 teams and 175 students. It was the fourth win for Harker at the state level, following wins in 2008, 2011 and 2014. Among individual competitors, Parthasarathy placed second overall after a tie-breaker, and Zhu placed fourth. Alexander Hu also turned in a great performance, placing 10th. Other standouts were Zhao, who finished in 25th, and Mark Hu, grade 8, placing 29th.
Another state-level competition was held concurrently for Southern California students, and the four highest-scoring students in the state qualified for the team that will represent California at the MathCounts National Competition this weekend in Washington, D.C. Parthasarathy placed among the top four statewide to qualify for the National Competition. Zhu missed qualifying by the narrowest of margins, earning just a single point less than the student who made the California team.
“Most of these students have been with the MathCounts program for two years and the title of California state champions is well-deserved for each one of them,” said middle school math chair Vandana Kadam. “This is an incredible achievement for the students and for the school.”
In April, eighth graders David Dai, Harsh Deep, Shounak Ghosh, Rishab Parthasarathy and William Zhao received certificates of commendation from Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, who represents California’s 18th Congressional District. Eshoo graciously issued the certificates to congratulate the students on reaching the finals of the National Science Bowl, which took place April 26-30 in Washington, D.C. The team reached the final double-elimination bracket after winning a tough round robin, where in one match it scored an unusually high 204.
“The scoring judge even said that they do not see scores so high in the national competition and offered to give us the score sheet as a souvenir,” said middle school mathematics chair Vandana Kadam, who accompanied the team to the event. Harker received $1,000 for the team’s success in the round robin portion of the event.
In mid-April, middle school French teacher Carol Parris and her French 2M students visited the Left Bank restaurant at Santana Row for a taste of French food and culture. “We had a leisurely meal in the les Amis room, a lovely private dining room,” Parris said. Students enjoyed appetizers of French bread and fries while waiting for their orders to arrive. “I believe that the most popular luncheon was the croque monsieur, a French grilled ham and cheese sandwich, served with a salad, but the chicken and vegetarian pasta received a thumbs up as well,” Parris said. Not surprisingly, the dessert of two profiteroles (pastry shells with a vanilla ice cream filling and chocolate sauce topping) proved to be the most popular menu item among students.