This article was originally published in the Fall 2011 Harker Quarterly.
This summer middle and high school students seized the opportunity to gain school credit and enhance their overall educational experience by attending classes at Harker’s Summer Institute. Classes were offered in three categories: for-credit, upper school enrichment and middle school enrichment. With the exception of AP Biology and AP Chemistry, all courses were open to both Harker and non-Harker students.
For-credit courses provided students with an opportunity to earn academic credit through a variety of rigorous courses in math, the arts and technology. The small class sizes ensured that students received the right amount of individual attention. Students enrolled in middle and upper school enrichment classes to take advantage of programs that foster their interests.
Classes in these programs included everything from pre- calculus to robotics to musical improvisation, all taught by dedicated, skillful and experienced instructors.
J Gaston, who taught graphic arts and photography, thinks students benefit both from the small class sizes and the longer class sessions. “The four-hour classes give the opportunity to get in- depth with projects and take the time that the process of art and design really requires,” he said. “We do end up getting more done, simply because the students can complete the projects without having to start and stop.”
Joshua Beavin, a Harker student in grade 12, enrolled in Gaston’s photography class and enjoyed the time he was allowed to focus on the subject matter. “I think the summer’s a really good time to take these classes, especially because most of them require several hours to really focus on your work,” he said.
Another Harker student, Anisha Padwekar, grade 10, took graphic arts and AP Chemistry. She enjoyed the small class sizes and experimenting with other academic areas that she may be interested in exploring further later in high school. “I was planning on taking AP Studio Art in my senior year,” she said, “but I wasn’t sure what type of art I wanted to do.”
In addition to the academic courses, this year the Summer Institute also offered an afternoon activity program with a wide variety of activities, including studying, swimming, crafts, games and more.
This article was originally published in the Fall 2011 Harker Quarterly.
The Harker Summer Camp, open to students from any school in grades 1-6, was both academically stimulating and tons of fun! In the mornings, students were grouped by age to study language arts, math and an elective of their choice.
Classes did not have assigned homework and the second half of the day was pure fun. Students participated in group activities including arts and crafts, circus arts, slip and slide and relay races. In addition, students had the chance to spend time in the swimming pool both during group time and during Special Interest time, from 3:30 to 5 p.m., if desired. Students also played with friends outside their groups and participated in crafts, games and more.
Christopher Smith, who started grade 6 at Harker this fall, had the usual morning regimen including math and language arts. For an elective, he chose Go Green, an exploration of the science of living green.
For him, the best thing about coming to Harker was, “just the environment and the teachers, all the nice people you meet. My favorite part of the day is when we get together with the other classes and play games – it’s a rivalry – and swimming is fun because they teach you how to play water polo.”
Ilana Josephson, age 10 and in grade 5, does not attend Harker during the school year, but said she liked Harker camps because, “It is kind of fun meeting new people and not being bored at home,” and loved the swimming component because “it’s really hot!”
Brooklyn Cicero, now in grade 2 at Harker, also liked the swimming. “I like friendship recess,” where kids of different age groups mixed to play games, she added.
Field trips provided nice diversions for campers and included a variety of outings. Harker’s own transportation director organized the buses, while group leaders, counselors and camp directors led and supervised. One outing saw the kids visiting Laser Quest. “That was so much fun,” Smith said.
Camper Sebastian Casellas, grade 6 at St. Francis Cabrini, also enjoyed the laser tag trip and the other outings during his session, which included an overnight party and a trip to an ice rink.
This year was Casellas’ fifth at Harker Summer Camp. “I like hanging out with all my friends that I meet every day, I like going to the game room, I like swimming, I like playing on the playground,” he said. And he clearly enjoyed the overall experience! “The counselors are the nicest people on earth – they are really nice to me, they are really inviting and all the kids here are super-nice and they just speak to me really well – they are really nice to me,” he concluded.
This article was originally published in the Fall 2011 Harker Quarterly.
Over the course of the past two years, many members across the spectrum of the Harker community have participated in various head of school gatherings, focus groups and online surveys concerning campus planning and, in early September, Head of School Chris Nikoloff held a series of informational campus luncheons to update families on Harker’s strategic planning.
Additionally, in preparation for this year’s accreditation cycle by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, a comprehensive self-study has been undertaken, resulting in Harker’s Strategic Planning Philosophy Statement. The statement serves as a guide for the school’s overall financial planning process.
Based upon the input of the school community and the work that was done in the self-study, four major strategic financial priorities have been identified: 1) ongoing program excellence; 2) purchasing a third campus to replace the leased Blackford campus; 3) continuing improvements on the Saratoga campus according to the master site plan; and 4) increasing endowment/reserves.
Ongoing program excellence, the first and most important priority, is funded by tuition, annual giving and the annual interest earned from our endowments. The down payment on the third campus, plus both new buildings on the Saratoga campus, gym and theater, will need to be funded by capital giving. Phase 4 of the Cornerstones of Success Campaign will raise funds specifically for these financial priorities.
Completion date of the new facilities will depend on the progress of the campaign. The hope is that enough funds will be raised so the school will be able to construct both gym and theater at the same time, saving money and limiting the disruption to the campus during construction. For more information or to make a contribution, please contact Joe Rosenthal, the executive director of advancement, at joer@harker.org.
This article was originally published in the Fall 2011 Harker Quarterly.
Parents from every division celebrated the opening of school at welcome breakfasts, and in the process came together to see how they could help the diverse programs at The Harker School.
The 500 attendees were welcomed by a great group of parent peers and school representatives and the positive response happily overwhelmed volunteer directors Teré Aceves (lower and middle schools) and Sue Prutton (upper school).
Guests shared a delicious breakfast with friends and new acquaintances, met their grade level leaders and heard about the many volunteer opportunities available at the school. The events were themed Celebrate and Hats Off to Harker to correspond to the themes of the annual fashion show and Family & Alumni Picnic (see page 8); tables were decorated with flowered hats and delicious mini cupcakes.
“The events radiated energy and enthusiasm across the school divisions,” said Aceves. “We created this event as a treat out of gratitude for their efforts, but instead Sue and I received the pleasant surprise of seeing many happy and eager-to-help parents – we got the treat!”
Indeed, the meetings resulted in many new volunteers signing up. “From room parent teams, to traffic volunteers to robotics and library, many programs of the school were represented,” said Prutton. “And, surprisingly, inquiries about next year’s volunteer lead positions are coming in. In every division, the number of attendees was up significantly over last year – as much as double in some cases, which just goes to show the energy and enthusiasm of our parents and a growing interest in involvement and sense of community!”
Alexandra Rosenboom, an English teacher at the upper school, not only teaches writing but is also a writer herself. Her book, Honest as Any Treeless Place, was selected as a “remarkable finalist” by Fanny Howe for 1913 Press’s First Book contest. As its name hints, the contest is for a book in any genre by a writer who has not yet had a book published. 1913 Press was established in just 2003, but the First Book contest is already competitive. Howe noted in her email to the competitors, “It’s inane to say how many fabulous manuscripts were submitted…yet it’s true.”
Rosenboom says Howe, “just chose the Walt Whitman Award winner a few months ago, so it is pretty exciting that she liked my book as well.”
Tennis: Girls tennis is on a win streak. After defeating Crystal Springs in mid-October, they went on to win matches against Pinewood with a final score of 6-1, and Notre Dame, where the score was 5-2. Dan Molin, upper school athletics director, singled out Harker singles players Daria Karakoula, grade 11, and Aranshi Kumar, grade 12, as being “especially dominant against Pinewood,” as well as junior Jenny Chen, who he said “continues to impress at #1 singles.” Nicole Dalal, grade 12, and Indica Sur, grade 11, were also noted for their court prowess as a doubles team. The girls are now 8-2 overall and 4-2 in the league.
Water Polo: Girls water polo had a packed couple of weeks. After winning in overtime against Fremont for a final score of 8-7, they played seven more games, five of which took place at the Western States Varsity Girls Water Polo Tournament in Modesto. They won three of their five games at the prestigious tournament, defeating Beyer, Ukiah and Newman, and losing only to San Joaquin and Bear Creek. Just one day before the tournament, they played their league foe, Mountain View, winning with a score of 11-5. The team also played Santa Clara High, losing 7-10. Keri Clifford, grade 11, and Anna Levine, grade 10, scored three goals each against Fremont, with Levine scoring the game winning point. Clifford went on to score an additional 16 goals during the weekend tournament. The girls are now 12-9 overall, 5-4 in league play.
The boys water polo team also played against Fremont and lost by only one point, with a final score of 12-13. Cole Manaster, grade 12, scored four goals in the game. The team came back for a victory over Santa Clara, winning the match 11-8, with Manaster and juniors Ryan Hume, Gilad Nilo and Karan Das-Grande scoring two goals each. Jason Yu, grade 12, had “a great showing in goal,” Molin says. The boys are now 7-10 overall.
Golf: The Harker girls golf team lost to Castilleja at the Los Lagos course, with the final tally coming in at 215-239. But the team came back to Los Lagos the next day, where they defeated Notre Dame High 222-286. Molin noted that sophomore Kristine Lin “continued her season long spectacular performances” with a 36 against Castilleja, which earned her medalist honors, and a 37 against Notre Dame. Patricia Huang, grade 11, also earned medalist honors with a one over par 35 at Notre Dame. Karen Wang, grade 12, tied her season best with a 42, while newcomer Connie Li, grade 10, shot her career best with a 55. The girls are now 4-3.
Football: Football suffered two more losses, one against Santa Clara and one against Monta Vista, dropping them to 2-5 for the season. Quarterback Spenser Quash, grade 11, threw 200 yards and four touchdowns during the Santa Clara game, two of them to sophomore Kevin Moss. The lone Harker score during the Monta Vista game came on what Molin called a “perfect throw” from Quash to Robert Deng, grade 11, on a 60 yard touchdown pass play.
Volleyball: The girls varsity volleyball team fought hard to remain undefeated, winning a five-set victory over Woodside Priory before finally losing their first game to King’s Academy. They are still tied for first place in the league, with an overall record of 6-1. Senior Alisha Mayor led the attack against Woodside with 20 kills, and had an additional 18 kills in the King’s Academy match.
Cross Country: The cross country team had their second league meet at Westmoor High. For the boys, freshman Corey Gonzales took first for Harker (and sixth overall), Proteek Biswas, grade 12, placed eighth overall, and junior Tyler Yeats took tenth. For the varisty girls, junior Ragini Bhattacharya placed 11th overall.
Harker will be recognizing all our awesome seniors on the tennis, football, water polo, and cheerleading teams this week.
From football, a big thank you to: Bradley Araki, Aaron Bisla, David Dominguez, Zach Ellenberg, David Fang, Gerard Glasauer, Daanish Jamal, Revanth Kosaraju, Jason Kuan, Jun Hee Lee, Rahul Madduluri, Avinash Patel, Angad Randhawa, Indraneel Salukhe, Saagar Sarin and Partha Vora.
On the boys and girls water polo teams, we want to recognize and thank Tariq Jahshan, Jagdeesh Kottapalli, Cole Manaster, Akshay Ramachandran, Jason Yu, Simrun Bhagat and Kaitlin Halloran.
To the senior tennis players Nicole Dalal, Aranshi Kumar and Tanya Piskun—a big thank you.
Finally, we want to recognize and thank Saira Ahuja and Jessica Lin, our senior cheerleaders.
The Harker School held its second annual What’s Brewing event at the middle school, once again providing parents of new (or soon to be new) middle school students a chance to explore the campus and learn about all the exciting opportunities available for grade 6-8 students. The event started in the multipurpose room, giving everyone a chance to meet and socialize over muffins. After the meet-and-greet, parents of current middle schoolers gave tours of the campus, bringing the new-to-the-middle-school crowd to the buildings and classrooms their children will be spending time in.
Once the tour ended, parents went to the multipurpose room to hear a presentation by Chris Nikoloff, head of school, Cindy Ellis, middle school division head and Lana Morrison, the middle school dean. Together, they covered everything parents of new middle schoolers could want to know: how the day is broken up, what kinds of classes the students will be taking, global opportunities (such as the grade 6 trip to Japan), community life, clubs, middle school field trips and much more. At the end of the presentation, parents were given the opportunity to ask the administrators any other questions they might have about the campus, school life and academics at the middle school.
Danielle Holquin, the admissions director for grades 6-8, said her favorite part of the event was watching current parents give tours to the new parents. “I hope everyone left with a clear understanding of how middle school works,” Holquin said.
The class of 2014 boarded a bus bound for the lower school on Oct. 11 to meet their buddies in grade 3 for the first event in this year’s Eagle Buddies program. Eagle Buddies was started last year as a way to provide a bridge between the lower and upper schools by having students in grade 10 pair up with students in grade 3, beginning a relationship between the two classes that will last until the sophomores graduate and the third graders move on to the middle school.
The third grade students’ anticipation ran high, and they cheered and chanted “Eagle Buddies!” as their 10th graders’ buses approached. Sophomores met their buddies with smiles and soon struck up conversations on the Bucknall blacktop. A short while later, the pairs of students enjoyed lunch and conversation at the picnic area.
“I just like interacting with all the younger kids,” said Sahithya Prakash, grade 10. “It brings out the kid in me.”
“I’ve never had a younger sibling, so I think it’s a really good experience,” said Regina Chen, grade 10.
During their afternoon together, Russell Yang, grade 3, chatted about the Family and Alumni Picnic with his 10th grade buddy Richard Min, and learned that Min has, “been here since sixth grade, and his sister likes Pokemon.”
After lunch, the buddies took to the playground for tetherball, handball, soccer and other fun activities before the sophomores said goodbye for the day.
At today’s upper school meeting, biology teacher Kate Schafer announced that The Harker School would be participating in a study on influenza with Dr. Marcel Salathe, assistant professor of biology at Penn State University and head of the Salathe Group, a start-up research group based at the university.
During the 2009-10 school year, Salathe conducted a study at Harker on how infectious diseases transfer between high school students. Salathe’s work was published in “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,” (PNAS) the official journals of the United States National Academy of Sciences. He received a $1.4 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the upcoming study, which is expected to last between one to one and a half years. The previous study enjoyed a 95% participation rate from the student population, a primary reason Salathe chose Harker again for his research.
“This time around a core group of students will have the opportunity to work directly with Dr. Salathe on ground-breaking research that has the potential to guide the way we understand and manage disease outbreaks,” Schafer said at the meeting. “Students will be working on a variety of different projects, such as investigating the accuracy of rapid influenza tests and looking for bacterial and viral hot spots.”
The process to find students to participate in the project is slated to begin as soon as Oct. 18. Anita Chetty, science department chair, said at the meeting that the entire project will consist of five studies, each led by a lead investigator from grade 11. Under each lead investigator will be a team of students from grades 9-12. Due to the length of the project, only juniors are eligible to be lead investigators, as the seniors will have graduated before the study is complete. Chetty said that more information on the application process for lead investigators would be divulged in Tuesday’s class meetings, and information on the application process for each lead investigator’s team would be available in the coming weeks.
Chetty estimated that the study would begin in earnest in November, “just in time for flu season.”
“We’re very excited about this opportunity and think it reflects the true research community we continue to build here at Harker,” Schafer said.
Shanghai’s World Foreign Language Middle School (WFLMS) teacher Katie Qiqing visited Harker in late September and early October as this year’s exchange teacher from China. During the first week of her stay, Qiqing, who teaches grade 7 English at WFLMS, observed several classes, including Karina Momary’s middle school debate class, a class on Shakespeare comedies taught by Marc Hufnagl and grade 4 advanced core English with Nancy Tomlitz.
Qiqing noted that students at Harker are encouraged to use their creativity and, “to ask different kinds of questions related to the topic. And, moreover, their curiosity is greatly appreciated.”
As is customary for exchange teachers, Qiqing also taught several classes during her stay. At the upper school, she taught four different levels of Mandarin, while at the middle school she taught Mandarin, Chinese culture, Chinese school life and the history of Shanghai. At the lower school, she taught a class on Chinese culture.
During the first weekend in October, Qiqing visited the famous Monterey Bay Aquarium and went sightseeing around San Francisco.
“The teachers here are quite nice and hospitable,” she said. “To tell the truth, they are much busier than I thought.” She added that Harker’s students are “well-behaved,” and that some students demonstrated exceptional skill with the Chinese language. “They know a lot about China and Chinese, which made me so happy and excited,” she concluded.