The 59th annual Harker Family and Alumni Picnic, themed Picnic in the Pines this year, drew a sunny-day crowd thick with children. For this great big family festival, the Blackford campus became an alluring array of games, specially-themed activities and entertainment for all.
Brian and Eileen Richardson (Ian, Gr. 8; Shannon, Gr. 6) were the big winners in this year’s raffle, taking home the top prize of $10,000. Other prizes included a getaway to Las Vegas, Sony digital camera and a Trek 21-speed mountain bike. Every visitor had her or his quota of food, prizes and fun, from tykes who couldn’t get enough train rides to students trying booth games to those bargain hunting at the silent auction.
Food followed the theme, with the Weenie Roast Café, Switchback Sweets and the Critter Canteen. Games ranged from Bullwinkle Baggo to Big Bug Bowling to the Games Guru. There were plenty of activities besides games, too, including Camp Crafts and Forest Fortunetellers.
Teacher packages were spectacular and popular, ranging from riding the Steam Train at Roaring Camp with Gr. 1 teachers Mary Holaday and Rita Stone, to building designing set pieces or lighting arrays for the stage with Danny Dunn, lower school technical director in the performing arts department. Along with outings were sleep-overs, movie nights and sundry other eye-catching activities that bring classmates together after hours.
Entertainment included the “Wild Wilderness” Jazz Band, California Critters, a live animal show, “Three Pigs” by Puppet Art Theater, and of course the main show at 11 a.m. which featured Chris Nikoloff, Greg Lawson, Jennifer Gargano and students from Gr. 4-12 performing arts ensembles.
By the time the sun swung over the tree tops, Picnic in the Pines had brought the Harker community together once more to celebrate the end of summer, the return to school and the joy of working together to make the picnic a success!
October 9 marked the inaugural Howard Nichols Cookie Day, held to remember the late former head of school and visionary’s birthday (Oct. 10) and celebrate his inspirational values that continue to drive the spirit and growth of The Harker School.
All three campuses celebrated by having trays of cookies located in various places around school. Nichols, who was known for his sweet tooth, regularly kept a full jar of cookies and other confections in his office that were a hit with visitors.
“Howard brought out the best in all of us through his devotion to excellence, kindness, integrity and a touch of sweetness that flowed from the always-popular cookie jar he kept in his office,” said Chris Nikoloff, head of school.
Harker’s Nichols Hall, a LEED Gold Certification winner, was runner up at the 2009 Structures Awards held by the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal. The awards recognize the best in Silicon Valley real estate, construction and development and winners were announced at a dinner and featured in a special publication in late September. Nichols Hall was one of only two finalists in the Green Project of the Year – Private category and over 500 attended the dinner to honor the finalists.
Harker’s own Enid Davis, library director, was a featured presenter at the BayNet Librarian Conference at the San Francisco Public Library on Sept. 23. BayNet, a multitype library organization of information specialists from around the Bay Area, invited Davis to speak about her Harker experience at their annual event, themed “Future of Libraries 5.0: The Recovery Engine on the Hard Times Train.”
Davis, the only school librarian to present, shared her experience of taking the Harker program from a single professional in one facility to a staff of five librarians and six clerks in three libraries over her sixteen-year career at Harker. Davis’ presentation, titled “Case Study: School Library Staff as Partners in an Educational Community,” focused on making the most of staff talents, forming partnerships within the school community and the importance of information literacy for learners of all ages.
“Since so many public schools are without librarians, children’s librarians are going to have to help young patrons learn how to use databases and achieve some level of information literacy,” explained Davis. “For example, our lower school campus librarian, Kathy Clark, demonstrated to her colleagues at the Mountain View Public Library (where she works part-time) how to use their suite of EBSCO databases.”
“Enid made her presentation memorable by using her story-telling style and creativity to captivate the audience,” said Sue Smith, US campus librarian, who also attended. Smith described Davis’ use of a dozen wig stands and a plethora of hats to illustrate her presentation. “She stole the show!”
On Sept. 21, Harker received three visitors from the Ching Shin Elementary and Middle School in Taiwan. The purpose of their trip to the United States was to learn more about the curricula and philosophy of other successful schools, and their goal in visiting Harker was to learn more about its K-Gr. 8 English curriculum and the BEST program.
The guests arrived in the morning and met with Jennifer Gargano, assistant head of school for academic affairs, at the upper school campus, where they discussed the K- Gr. 8 English curriculum. Following the meeting, they met with Stacie Newman, middle school English department chair, for a tour of the Blackford campus and further discussion of Harker’s English curriculum.
After having lunch with Cindy Ellis, MS division head, the group went to the lower school campus to meet with Kim Coulter, director of the Bucknall Enrichment and Supervision Team (BEST) to learn more about the after-school activities available to LS students. While there, they took the opportunity to talk about the LS curriculum with Sarah Leonard, primary division head, and Kristin Giammona, elementary division head.
According to Gargano, the visitors were very impressed with the demeanor and kindness of Harker’s students, faculty and staff. “They said that all of our students are so sweet and the division heads and managers they met on all campuses were very kind and generous,” Gargano said. “They said they left the best school for last.”
Each year the Curbside Crazies bring out wacky behavior to encourage families to attend the Harker Family and Alumni Picnic, themed Picnic in the Pines this year, to be held Oct. 11. Here are a few shots from the curb at the lower school. Enjoy!
Observed over the course of three mornings, students and parents were doing the right thing as they negotiated the loading zones on the Saratoga, Bucknall and Blackford campuses.
September’s series of Back-to-School events provided parents with a first-hand look at the daily lives of Harker students. All three campuses had displays available so that parents could learn more about various departments and student organizations. Parents also got to visit their children’s classrooms and meet their teachers for a quick peek at their everyday scholastic experiences.
Last week Enid Davis, library director, formally unveiled access to Questia, a database featuring 75,000 full text books as well as millions of articles from the popular press and scholarly journals. Harker faculty and US students have been issued log-in information to establish personal accounts on Questia, providing them 24-hour access to “their own project work space that can be saved and built upon,” explained Davis.
“It’s like adding seven floors to our existing library,” observed Erin Redfern, US English instructor, during a freshman orientation session in which US librarians Sue Smith and Lauri Vaughan introduced the database.
“The interface is very intuitive and we’ve found that most students really like the navigation and the robust note-taking tools embedded in Questia,” said Vaughan, who previewed the online resource with biology classes last May.
“Questia provides an excellent complement to our existing print and electronic resources,” said Smith. “It allows us the opportunity to introduce our students to electronic books on a large scale.” Newcomers can get familiar with the various tools by exploring the excellent tour link on Questia’s front page. Access to the new resource, which features advanced content, is available to MS classes upon teacher request.
Over the summer, David Zhu, Gr. 5, and a friend helped raise $1,000 for needy children in China’s Sichuan province. They gave the money directly to the children so that they could purchase school supplies.
Justin Culpepper, Gr. 5, made a hole-in-one at the Santa Teresa Short Course on Aug. 30. The young golf enthusiast began group lessons in early August and had visited the Deep Cliff, Blackberry and Pruneridge courses before trying his hand at Santa Teresa. Culpepper was recognized by the San Jose Mercury News for his achievement on the links.
Three Harker student musicians had the pleasure of performing at the Music@Menlo Summer Chamber Music Festival in Atherton this summer. Cellist Jeffrey Kwong, Gr. 10, violinist Ashvin Swaminathan, Gr. 9 and pianist Agata Sorotokin, Gr. 7, performed at the festival under the direction of Wu Han and David Finckel, artistic directors at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Each year, 28 students from ages eight to 18 are chosen internationally to perform at the festival. The students received instruction and coaching from several notable musicians, including Anthony McGill, who performed on clarinet at the inauguration of President Barack Obama.
Last week Enid Davis, library director, formally unveiled access to Questia, a database featuring 75,000 full text books as well as millions of articles from the popular press and scholarly journals. Harker faculty and US students have been issued log-in information to establish personal accounts on Questia, providing them 24-hour access to “their own project work space that can be saved and built upon,” explained Davis.