Having her letter to the editor on the importance of making higher education accessible for all published in the San Jose Mercury News gave grade 8 student Mahika Halepete a heightened appreciation for the power of the written word.
Halepete wrote the letter in response to an assignment in Cyrus Merrill’s grade 8 U.S. History class. “This was a part of an activity where students identify modern 2016 issues (human trafficking, gender inequality, education reform, etc.) that reflect the same issues they researched in 1850 (slavery, women’s suffrage, education reform, temperance),” Merrill explained. “They then write a letter to the editor of any paper(s) they want, as well as convert it into a letter to their state legislator, since many of these are actually state issues. They have to make connections from the past to the present in both letters.”
Halepete said she was surprised to learn that her letter got picked up by the local newspaper. “To be honest, I didn’t even consider the possibility of being published. I was incredibly excited, since I never expected this to happen!” She added that she does not believe many students are fully aware of the startling reality of how few people have the opportunity to attend college.
“We should never take for granted the blessings we have, especially our ability to pursue an education. I hope that by writing, I can help others become aware of how lucky we are,” she said.
In addition to having her letter to the editor published, Halepete won first place in the district for an essay on “What Freedom Means To Me” in the Patriot’s Pen essay competition. Sponsored by the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the annual contest attracts more than 125,000 student entries in grades 6-8.
Feeling fortunate for educational opportunities is also what prompted Halepete to write in the essay that “freedom means more than a red, white and blue flag waving in the breeze as fireworks fill the sky and the National Anthem is sung.”
She said after attending a talk by Nobel Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai, she thought about how much her education really meant to her. “Around the world, over 60 million young girls are denied their education because of financial and societal barriers. Families, especially in developing countries, don’t believe that their daughters have potential. If the finances are tight and a choice must be made, it is the male sibling who gets to go to school. Often times, governments encourage discrimination against young girls, simply because of their gender,” she noted.
Halepete is passionate about human rights and social justice issues, often using her writing skills to advocate for her beliefs. Last year, she wrote and sang an original song called “Walked Away” after leading a student assembly on social justice and researching undocumented immigrant families separated by deportation. Her song was inspired by those stories.
She also set up a jewelry business on Etsy, an online marketplace for handmade goods, to raise money for World Vision, a humanitarian organization that works with communities worldwide to fight poverty and injustice. Halepete, who wrote the marketing copy on her site, was a finalist in a teen entrepreneur competition organized by Girls Life Magazine/Nickelodeon and was featured in the October/November 2015 issue.
“My life’s goal is to change the lives of other people for the better. I do believe that writing is a very powerful tool, and, if utilized properly, can make a significant difference in the world,” she said.
The boys basketball team opened last week with a 66-49 loss to Menlo, with Elijah Edgehill, grade 12, leading the Eagles with 19 points and 12 rebounds. But the team surged back for a huge league win on Friday night versus King’s Academy. Roy Yuan, grade 9, led Harker with 15 points and Edgehill added 12 points and 17 rebounds as the Eagles came out on top with the 51-47 victory. The boys team hosts Sacred Heart Prep tonight at Blackford at 6:30 p.m.
Girls Basketball
The girls basketball team dropped two tough league matchups last week to Mercy SF and King’s Academy. Junior Jordan Thompson led all Harker scorers with 22 points against Mercy and 15 points against King’s Academy. Satchi Thockchom, grade 10, added 13 points against King’s Academy. The girls team looks to get back in the win column as it travels to Mercy Burlingame on Friday.
Boys Soccer
The boys soccer team went 1-1 last week with a 3-0 win over Priory and a 2-1 loss to Sacred Heart Prep. In the win over Priory, Omar Hamade, grade 12, scored two goals and Oisin Coveney, grade 12, had one goal. The Eagles will host Menlo on Friday at 6:30 p.m. as part of the Kicks for Cancer night at Davis Field.
Girls Soccer
With an 8-1 loss to Sacred Heart Prep on Friday night, the girls soccer team is still looking for its first win of the season. The team hosts Castilleja today at 3:30 p.m. on Davis Field, before traveling to Notre Dame San Jose on Thursday. The girls will be back on Davis Field Friday at 4:45 p.m. as part of the Kicks for Cancer night versus Menlo.
Wrestling
The wrestling team traveled to Milpitas last week and fell to the Trojans 67-9. Anthony Contreras, grade 10, picked up a win with a 6-2 decision, and Davis Howard, grade 11, won by forfeit. The Eagles travel to Homestead tonight and host Lynbrook at Blackford on Thursday at 5:30 p.m.
Harker upper school students represented Brazil at the Santa Teresa Model United Nations Conference on Jan. 29 and 30. They debated issues ranging from digital security to international pandemics and had one of the strongest showings Harker has had at this conference, with every student receiving recognition by their committee chairs.
Seniors Sophia Luo and Shannon Hong were recognized as outstanding delegates and received the Excellence in Research Award for their work on the World Bank. Sandip Nirmel, grade 11, and Logan Bhamidipaty, grade 9, we named outstanding delegates for their work on the Historical Security Council. Juniors Anuva Mittal and Haley Tran received outstanding delegate awards for their work on UNESCO. Sophomore Amy Dunphy received a verbal commendation for her work on the Legal Committee. And Jason Huang, grade 9, was recognized with a verbal commendation and was elected as the closing assembly speaker for his committee work on the Disarmament and Security Committee.
This is the second conference Harker Model UN has attended this year. At both conferences, every Harker student received committee recognition, which is a unique and challenging accomplishment, as it requires every student to be well-versed in international policies as well as the policies of the country they represent. The students have to write position papers in which they complete research on the positions of their country and then have to speak in front of large groups and interact with other students at the conference in order to accomplish the goals of the international committee on which they serve.
While the travel conference season is over this year for Harker Model UN, members of the leadership board hope to develop a one-day experience for Harker middle school students in the spring. The program will also continue to offer on-campus simulations and practice sessions for students at the upper school.
Lower and middle school results provided by Theresa “Smitty” Smith.
Boys Soccer
Picking up its fifth win in six games, the boys soccer team defeated Eastside Prep 2-1 the week before last with goals from Jared Anderson, grade 9, and Rohit Shah, grade 10. However, King’s Academy got the best of the Eagles later in the week, defeating Harker 4-1.
Girls soccer
The girls soccer team fell to King’s Academy and Notre Dame San Jose in Late January.
Boys Basketball
The boys basketball team went 1-1 to bring its season record to 10-6. In a tight 59-55 loss to Priory, Rohan Desikan, grade 12, had a team high 20 points with Elijah Edgehill, grade 12, adding 16 points and 11 rebounds. The team rebounded with a 67-32 win over Crystal Springs Uplands later in the week. Roy Yuan, grade 9, led all scorers with 20 points.
Girls Basketball
Continuing her amazing scoring streak, Jordan Thompson, grade 11, had 29 points to lead the Eagles over Immaculate Conception 76-56 last Wednesday. Thompson’s performance made her Harker’s all-time leading scorer. The previous record was held by Daniza Rodriguez ’13, who is currently playing at Whittier College. However, the girls team suffered a rare loss later in the week as it fell to Woodside Priory 76-66. Thompson again had 29 points with Akhila Ramgiri, grade 9, adding a season high 20 points, as the Eagles went to 14-4 on the season. The girls team will host first place Mercy SF tonight at Blackford at 6:30 p.m.
The Harker wrestling team fell to Santa Clara High last Wednesday 60-36.
MS Basketball
Michael Mitchell Jr., grade 7, will be attending West Coast Elite Basketball’s Jr. All-American Camp Feb. 6-7 in Cerritos. The camp attracts some of the top middle school players in the country. Mitchell was recently named the MVP of Harker’s VB boys basketball team. Good luck, Michael!
The early winter sports season for grades 4-8 has concluded. Nearly 220 students participated across the lower and middle school levels in boys basketball and girls soccer!
Our Varsity B and JVB1 boys basketball teams both won league championships and were also tournament champs!
Here is how our teams did this early winter season.
VB (Grades 7-8) Boys Basketball: The varsity B team, coached by Josh Miller and Rich Amarillas, finished in first place in the WBAL with a 7-0 record and went 9-0 overall. They were league champs of the south division and tournament champs! Team awards went to Michael Mitchell, grade 7 (MVP), Vance Vu, grade 8 (Eagle) and Vedanth Sundaram, grade 8 (Coaches).
VB2 (Grade 7) Boys Basketball: The varsity B2 team, coached by Jon Cvitanich, finished in sixth place in the WBAL with a 3-4 record. Team awards went to Levi Sutton (MVP), Marcus Anderson (Eagle) and Anmol Velagapudi (Coaches).
JVA (Grade 6) Boys Basketball: The junior varsity A team, coached by Mike Delfino, finished in fourth place in the WBAL with a 3-3 record and went 3-4 overall. Team awards went to Rishi Jain (MVP), Anquan Boldin Jr. (Eagle) and Alex Zhang (Coaches).
JVB6 (Grade 6) Boys Basketball: The junior varsity B6 team, coached by Matt Arensberg, finished in fifth place in the WBAL with a 3-4 record. Team awards went to Marcus Page (MVP), Josh Tseitlin (Eagle) and Jack Hayashi (Coaches).
MS Intramural Boys Basketball: Team awards went to Tuhin Chatterjee, grade 7 (MVP), Alex Shing, grade 8 (Eagle) and Harrison Chang, grade 6, and Akshay Manglik, grade 7 (Coaches). The team was coached by CJ Cali, Jeff Martarano and Raul Rios.
JVB1 (Grade 5) Boys Basketball: The junior varsity B1 team, coached by Dan Pringle and Karriem Stinson, finished in first place in the WBAL with a 7-0 record and went 9-0 overall. They were league champs and tournament champs! Team awards went to Matthew Chen (MVP), Zeke Weng (Eagle), and Michael Pflaging and Armaan Thakker (Coaches).
JVB2 (Grade 5) Boys Basketball: The junior varsity B2 team, coached by Kristian Tiopo, finished in fourth place in the WBAL with a 4-3 record. Team awards went to Boulus Ajlouny (MVP), Max Pflaging (Eagle) and Pranav Mullappalli (Coaches).
JVC (Grade 4) Boys Basketball: The junior varsity C team, coached by Jim McGovern, finished in fourth place in the WBAL with a 4-3 record. Team awards went to Om Tandon (MVP), Rohin Bhagat (Eagle) and Spencer Mak (Coaches).
LS Intramural Boys Basketball: Team awards went to Panav Gogte, grade 4 (MVP), Jack Ledford and Kyle Leung, both grade 4 (Eagle) and Vivek Nayyar, grade 4 (Coaches). The team was coached by Ken Allen and Jeff Paull.
VA (Grades 7-8) Girls Soccer: The varsity A team, coached by Brighid Wood, Brittney Moseley and Kelcie Lai, finished in seventh place in the WBAL with a record of 2-5-0. Team awards went to Aria Wong and Hannah Grannis, both grade 7, (MVP), and Dylan Williams, grade 7, and Delaney Logue, grade 8 (Coaches).
JVA (Grade 6) Girls Soccer: The junior varsity A team, coached by Cyrus Merrill and Mandy Schroeder, finished in fifth place in the WBAL with a record of 2-3-1. Team awards went to Ashley Barth (MVP), Angela Jia (Eagle) and Diana Kohr (Coaches).
JVB (Grade 5) Girls Soccer: The junior varsity B team, coached by Lisa Lubke and Jared Ramsey, finished in second place in the WBAL with a record of 2-1-1 and went 2-3-1 overall. Team awards went to Anya Chauhan (MVP), Anika Muddu (Eagle) and Jia Parikh (Coaches).
LS Intramural Girls Soccer: Team awards went to Ananya Sriram, grade 4 (Eagle) and Kinnera Mulam, grade 4 (Coaches). The team was coached by Randy Le Gris and Maria Maldonado.
On the evening of Jan. 22, about 40 kindergartners and their families gathered in the lower school gym lobby for a festive Valentine’s Day-themed party. After enjoying a yummy pizza dinner, participants enjoyed making Valentine’s Day-related arts and crafts.
Napa Valley Register – Jan. 2, 2016: Harker alumnus Will Jarvis MS ’97 is featured in article about Jarvis Estate winery, which he runs with his father in the Napa Valley.
Earlier this month, senior Allison Wang was a national competitor in the “Who Wants to Be a Mathematician” game, hosted by the American Mathematical Society. After going through two rounds of testing in the fall, Wang qualified for the final stage of the game, where she competed against nine other high school students at the Joint Mathematics Meeting in Seattle. More than 2,300 students nationwide took the qualifying tests. Her performance earned Harker’s math department a $1,000 award.
Middle and upper school student musicians performed this year’s Winter Concert at San Jose’s Mexican Heritage Plaza Theater Jan. 15-16. Dave Hart directed the middle school groups, starting with the Grade 6 Jazz Band, which kicked things off with pieces by Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and Herbie Hancock. The Grade 6 Orchestra then took the stage, performing Soon Hee Newbold’s “Spirit of the American West,” the traditional folk song “Scarborough Fair” and “Russian Sailor’s Dance” by Reinhold Gliere.
The Grade 6 Orchestra’s cello section – made up of Rachel Broweleit, Nathan Wang, Rani Sheth, Jacqueline Yang and Jeffrey Yang, grade 8; and Andrew Chang and Elaine Xiao, grade 7 – performed a rendition of “Bachianas Brasileiras No. 1 Preludio Modinha” by Villa Lobos. Shortly afterward, teachers Teresa Orozco (flute), Pierre Dazin (violin), Natachia Li (cello) and Joshua Thurston-Milgrom (double bass) gave a special performance.
Next up, the Grade 7-8 Jazz Band played well-received versions of Jimmy Forrest’s “Night Train,” Horace Silver’s “Cape Verdean Blues,” “Fly Me to the Moon” by Bart Howard and more. They were followed by the Grade 7-8 Orchestra, which played the traditional “Amazing Grace,” “Variations on a Korean Folk Song” by John Barnes Chance and “Fandango and Alborada” by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
Upper school music teacher Chris Florio then took over as director, starting with the upper school’s Lab Band, which performed Ben Tucker’s “Comin’ Home Baby,” “Sky Dive” by Freddie Hubbard and others. The jazz continued with the stylings of The Harker School Jazz Band, which performed a set of songs by greats such as Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington and George Gershwin.
After an intermission, the evening’s headliner, The Harker School Orchestra, played the first of several pieces, Leonard Bernstein’s “Overture to Candide.” The group then impressively performed Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Capriccio Espagnol” in its entirety, followed by the rousing “Rodeo” by Aaron Copland. The orchestra then made way for flutist Victoria Ding, grade 12, who gave a solo performance of Cécile Chaminade’s “Concertino for Flute and Orchestra, Op. 7.”
The orchestra gave a fitting close to the evening with Camille Saint-Saëns’ stirring “Danse Bacchanale.”
Last week, four Harker middle school students were chosen to be members of statewide ensembles that will perform in February at the California All-State Music Education Conference. French hornist Kai-Ming Ang, clarinetist Jenny Shaw and flutist Anika Tiwari, all grade 8, were selected for the California Band Directors Association’s All-State Junior High School Concert Band. Trumpeter Leland Rossi, grade 7, was selected to play with the CBDA’s All-State Junior High School Jazz Band, making him the first Harker student to play for an all-state jazz band. Together, these four students represent the largest group of Harker middle school students ever selected to play for all-state ensembles.
“The audition is rigorous and requires great preparation and focus as they have to turn in a recording of scales and etudes,” said middle school music teacher Dave Hart. “These students were selected out of auditions from any seventh or eighth grader in the state of California, so it is quite an honor and opportunity.”
Harker DECA chapter members garnered 19 top three wins at the annual Silicon Valley Career Development Conference in early January and 42 teams received mini awards. In addition to the excellent competitive results, three members were elected to the Silicon Valley District Action Team for the 2016-17 year: Alisa Su, grade 10, as vice president of public relations; Erin Liu, grade 9, as vice president of fashion; and Haley Tran, grade 11, as executive vice president.
Members placing in the top three are as follows:
First Place
Arnav Tandon and Raymond Xu, both grade 11, Finance Operations Research
Michael Sikand, Vanessa Tyagi, and Dolan Dworak, all grade 10, Advertising Campaign
Chris Hailey, grade 11, Hospitality and Tourism Professional Selling
Enya Lu, grade 9, Principles of Finance
Alexis Gauba, grade 11, Business Services Marketing Series
Chris Hailey, grade 11, Marketing Management Series
Ria Gandhi, grade 11, Retail Merchandising Series
Enya Lu, grade 9, Financial Consulting
Vanessa Tyagi and Rahul Mehta, both grade 10, Sports and Entertainment Team Decision Making
Sophia Luo and Shannon Hong, both grade 12, Travel and Tourism Team Decision Making
Second Place
Alexander Mo, grade 11, The Business Growth Plan
Haley Tran, grade 11, Ria Gandhi, grade 11, and Ashna Chandra, grade 10, Hospitality and Tourism Operations Research
Raymond Xu, grade 11, Accounting Applications Series
Haley Tran, grade 11, Restaurant and Food Service Management
Third Place
Michael Wang and Erin Liu, both grade 9, The Business Growth Plan
Nicole Chen, Shreya Dasari both grade 9, International Business Plan
Derek Kuo, grade 10, Franchise Business Plan
Ankur Karwal and Logan Drazovich, both grade 12, Innovation Plan
Sanil Rajput and Ankur Karwal, both grade 12, Marketing Communications Team Decision Making
Harker DECA members stayed at the San Jose Marriott, the convention host hotel, on Friday night and competed all day on Saturday. Competitions are divided into two categories: written events and role plays. Written events are competitions in which students create business plans and then present them to the judge. In role plays, competitors are given an allotted amount of time to read and analyze a case study, then present it to the judge.
The convention came to a close at the awards ceremony on Sunday morning, starting with the mini awards, followed by breakfast, then the grand awards.
“The energy when a Harker DECA member won was unprecedented, and all the other students in the room were shocked by the amount of energy our chapter brought,” noted Vanessa Tyagi, grade 10, director of communications for Harker DECA.
“The support for each competitor was unbelievable,” added Alexander Mo, grade 11, Harker DECA’s director of written events. “I really think that Harker DECA impressed schools not only with our competitive results, but also our bond as a chapter. I am so excited to see what we can achieve at states!”
Club members prepared for the conference by holding study sessions every Friday and Saturday in the Innovation Center.
“The feeling when I heard my name being called up on to the stage was amazing. All the late nights and hard work were definitely worth it. Just thinking about being on stage and receiving the trophy gives me chills, it was such a surreal experience,” noted Ashna Chandra, grade 10, Harker DECA director of membership.
“I had a really good time at SVCDC this year,” said Shaan Gagneja, grade 10. “I was a finalist in both events that I competed in, and an overall finalist in my written event. I got to meet new people and expand my social network. This conference was an overall success for Harker DECA, and I can’t wait for the rest of the competitive season.”
“We’ve had the best competitive results this year since the inception of the business and entrepreneurship department,” said Sophia Luo, grade 12, Harker DECA CEO. “Thanks to our newly formed Officer Mentorship Program, many of our members worked one-on-one with experienced officers and achieved competitive excellence. I’m so proud of everyone, mentors and mentees alike.”