In May, Manthra Panchapakesan, grade 12, was named the state and national first-place winner in the InvestWrite competition, put on by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA). The annual competition, launched in 2004, presents students in grades 4-12 with an investment scenario for which they must make portfolio recommendations for both short- and long-term financial goals. As a culmination of The Stock Market Game, which is played by nearly 600,000 students nationwide, the InvestWrite competition, with 20,000 participants each year, helps students develop the know-how to make real-world financial decisions.
Musician Nimesh “Nimo” Patel gave an inspiring talk to Harker students in early October about his journey from Wall Street to success as a rap artist in South Asia to his work with students in the slums of India. The visit was organized by math teacher Bradley Stoll, a longtime fan of Nimo’s music and work. Harker Aquila has the full story.
A number of students successfully auditioned for two American Choral Directors Association Coastal Region Honor Choirs. Ishanya Anthapur, grade 12, Madhu Karra, grade 11, and Krishna Bheda and Jessica Susai, both grade 9, earned spots in the women’s choir, while Maya Nandakumar, grade 12, Sahana Narayanan and Gurutam Thockchom, both grade 11, and Ashwin Rao, grade 10, made the cut for the mixed choir. According to upper school music teacher Susan Nace, 350 singers auditioned and 247 were selected. Last year, five Harker students earned honor choir spots.
“The regional honor choir is the first step in the graduated process of going to other more advanced levels,” said Nace. “The next levels are All State (California) and National Honor Choirs.” Each audition had students sing a solo piece and test their proficiency in sight reading and ear training.
The students will perform with the Coastal Region Honor Choir on Nov. 22 at 2pm at the First United Methodist Church, located at 625 Hamilton Ave. in Palo Alto. Tickets will be sold at the door for $10.
The first Eagle Buddies event of the year took place on Oct. 8, with the Class of 2015 and their grade 5 buddies meeting at Rosenthal Field at the upper school campus for pizza and conversation. Some seniors gave their lower school buddies a tour of the campus, while others made toys for animals at the Humane Society.
“I think it’s definitely really fun and it’s a great bonding experience with the elementary school kids,” said Agata Sorotokin, grade 12. “I was at the Harker elementary school too, so in a way I kind of go back in time, which is great.”
Sorotokin’s grade 5 buddy Esha Gohil enjoys seeing what upper school life is like. “I really enjoy listening to their stories about high school,” she said.
Meanwhile, students in grades 10 and 11 headed to the lower school to meet up with their buddies in grades 3 and 4, respectively.
Established during the 2010-11 school year, the purpose of the Eagle Buddies program is to help students at the lower and upper schools bond through letters and activities. The program starts when students in grades 3 and 10 are matched up. They maintain contact and meet periodically until the grade 10 students graduate and the third graders arrive at the middle school.
On Monday, Eesha Chona, grade 11, was selected to be a part of the National Speech & Debate Association’s Student Leadership Committee, which represents the needs of debate students and encourages student leaders to advocate for other association members. As a member of the committee, Chona will serve as a role model to other debate students, participate in monthly meetings and engage with social media outlets. “This is an incredible honor and responsibility for a student, especially a junior, as these students represent their peers within the national organization,” said upper school debate teacher Carol Green. Chona is the second Harker student to be named to the committee; the first was Maneesha Panja ’13.
Additionally, the upper school’s speech and debate program was recognized for its extraordinary success by being named to the National Speech & Debate Association’s Pentagon Society, thereby making it one of the top 0.1 percent high school speech and debate programs in the country. Harker earned this honor by receiving more than 500 honorary degrees during the 2013-14 school year. “Honorary degrees are earned through competitive and service related activities,” Green said. “It is not necessarily the number of students who participate but also how successful they are in their efforts.” Harker ranked 15th overall out of 3,000 nationwide member schools.
Harker upper school math students collectively placed first in the country in the 2014 Fall Startup Event math contest, administered by National Assessment and Testing. The test consisted of 100 problems and had a time limit of 30 minutes, requiring students not only to have the skills to solve problems quickly, but also to know which problems to skip.
Students were coached by upper school math teacher Misael-Jose Fisico. The combined placements of all the students led to Harker being declared first place nationwide.
Swapnil Garg was the first-place winner in the ninth-grade division, with classmates Rajiv Movva, Joanna Lin and Shaya Zarkesh earning fifth, 11th and 18th, respectively. In the 10th-grade division, Misha Ivkov placed sixth and David Zhu placed 11th. Harker’s other first-place winner was Richard Yi in the 11th-grade division. Also placing in this division were Allison Wang (fifth) and Lawrence Li (13th). Finally, in the 12th grade division, Ashwath Thirumalai took third, followed closely by Patrick Lin in fourth, while Rahul Jayaraman and Suzy Lou placed 14th and 16th, respectively.
The girls tennis and golf teams both have .600 records or better, while two cross country runners ran their best runs ever at Woodward Park, and the football team plays under the lights this Friday! Here are all the results from the world of Harker sports last week:
Cross Country
At the prestigious Clovis Cross Country Invitational in Fresno on Saturday, both senior Corey Gonzales and sophomore Niki Iyer ran outstanding races to beat their previous best times at Woodward Park. The team will run in the secpnd league meet this Thursday at Baylands Park.
Golf
The girls lost a heartbreaker to Menlo last week, falling to their rival by a single stroke in a neck-and-neck 209-208 battle. They bounced back the next day, however, to crush Mercy-Burlingame by over 40 strokes, 221-264. Their record now stands at 4-2-1 overall. The team faces Sacred Heart on Friday.
Tennis
The girls are now the proud owners of an 11-3 record after a 2-1 week in which they beat Crystal Springs and Gunderson while dropping a match to rival Sacred Heart Prep. They’ll look to improve their record as they take on Castilleja and Menlo this week.
Volleyball
Junior Doreene Kang had 11 kills as the girls beat Castilleja last week to bring their record to 5-7. They hit the road this week for two tough matches against Mercy-SF and Sacred Heart Prep.
Water Polo
Both the boys and girls varsity teams lost to Lynbrook last week, while the junior varsity boys pulled out a 9-8 victory. The teams play at home today against Fremont.
Football
The Eagles are now 1-4 on the season after losing to San Lorenzo Valley on Saturday. Freshman Nate Kelly was a threat as a wide receiver and a running back, pulling down two passes for 27 yards in the first half and running for 26 yards on five carries in the second. Senior quarterback Keanu Forbes completed four passes out of 13 attempts for 48 yards in the first half, and sophomore running back Will Park ran for 45 yards on six carries. The team will play under the lights this Friday at Davis Field when they host CSD!
Don’t forget, Harker now has a Twitter feed just for athletics. Check out the updates at @harkerathletics!
This article was originally published in the fall 2014 Harker Quarterly.
Over the summer, many alumni returned to Harker to attend the memorial service for Sylvia Harp, one of the school’s cherished former faculty members. Harp died of liver cancer on March 29. She began teaching grade 8 English at Harker in 1986 and went on to become head of the school’s English department before her retirement in 2003. Pictured here (L- R), at her moving memorial, are: Mark Gelineau ’90, Alka Tandan ’90, Casey Near ’06, Rohini Venkatraman ’06, Meghana Dhar ’06 and Ira Patnaik ’06.
This article was originally published in the fall 2014 Harker Quarterly.
Middle School Team Wins National Titles
Our middle school program performed fabulously at the National Speech & Debate Association Championship in June in Overland Park, Kan. For the third year in a row, the squad received an Overall School of Excellence Award, which is given to the top three middle school debate programs in the country. Many students performed well to contribute to this title. Karina Momary, middle school communication studies teacher, gave a special mention to Aliesa Bahri and Megan Huynh, both grade 9, for taking home the championship in policy debate, and to Nikhil Dharmaraj, grade 8, for winning first place in original oratory.
Debaters Studied at Universities Across the Nation
Harker debaters spent anywhere from one to seven weeks studying debate at various universities. The summer debate institutes took place at Stanford University, the University of California, Berkeley, Georgetown University, Michigan State University and Harvard University. Students lived in the dorms and worked with some of the top debate instructors in the nation.
Panny Shan, grade 11, said, “My teachers and peers allowed me to rapidly improve my skills while still having fun.”
A highlight of the Georgetown camp was when Ayush Midha, grade 12, interviewed Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., about his experiences as a leader in the civil rights movement. Georgetown debate students were also able to visit the U.S. Supreme Court and were present for the controversial Hobby Lobby decision. “These experiences offered me some incredible insight into the inner workings of our political system and gave me a unique appreciation for American politics,” Midha said.
Several dozen students also attended a camp for public forum and individual events, hosted at Harker by Carol Green, communication studies department chair. The camp featured a great staff of Harker teachers and alumni, as well as other respected coaches in the community. Thirty students attended the public forum debate segment and 12 students attended the individual events, including several experienced Harker middle school students. At the end of the two weeks, the speech students performed in a showcase for the entire institute and the public forum students had a tournament and performed their final round for the whole institute. The debate faculty looks forward to holding the summer program again in 2015.
Upper School
This year’s national topics promise to be interesting and educational. Policy debaters will be arguing about ocean development, such as offshore oil drilling, Arctic exploration or aquaculture regulations. Lincoln-Douglas debaters have as their first topic the question of whether or not people should be obligated to be organ donors. Public forum students are weighing the value of athletic franchises to their local communities.
Zarek Drozda, grade 11, enthused, “I am looking forward to another great year of Harker debate. We have a very strong team this year and I can’t wait for the first tournament!”
Greg Achten, who advises Lincoln- Douglas debate, concurred. “We have a fabulous lineup of talent and strong team leaders,” he said. “It will be one of our best seasons to date.” The team will compete throughout California as well as in Arizona, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and a few other states.
This article was originally published in the fall 2014 Harker Quarterly.
Avni Barman, grade 12, has founded a successful art therapy program designed to bring the joy of art to local hospitals and homeless shelters.
To date, she has implemented her Art for Recovery Project at the following local organizations: My Friends (a pediatric healthcare center), Regional Medical Center, Family Supportive Housing, as well as the shelters StandUp For Kids and Abode Services.
Barman, who has spent her life immersed in art, made cards for hospital patients and senior homes as a lower and middle school student. She first began to work with patients at Kaiser Hayward in the summer following her sophomore year and typically works with children ages 4-15, who have come to look forward to her visits and special one-on-one time.
Now, Barman is looking to expand the Art for Recovery Project to include more volunteers and implement the program in many Bay Area hospitals and shelters. Her long-term goal is to find other art students who would like to join her in teaching art to the sick and needy in the Bay Area.
“After personally seeing the therapeutic effects of art on patients in hospitals and troubled children in homeless shelters, my goal is to reach every needy shelter in the Bay Area. I welcome like-minded students from the Harker student body (artistic or not) to join me in scaling this program. Harker’s enriching environment has driven me to start something that leverages my passion, while serving the community,” she said.
Barman’s innovative art therapy endeavor was written up in the San Jose Mercury News. To read that story: http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_26462913/harker-student-avni-barman-shares-her-passion-art.
For more information or to volunteer with Art for Recovery, email artforrecovery01@gmail.com or visit art4recovery.com. To donate to the Art for Recovery Project, visit piggybackr.com/arttherapy.