Gentry Magazine – June 2011: The Harker “Dream Big” Fashion Show fundraiser was recapped with a full page in the June 2011 (page 46) issue of Gentry. Harker community members featured included Hemant and Monisha Bheda and son Pranav, grade 10; Chris Douglas and sister-in-law, Cathleen Douglas; Gary and Pooja Gauba; Trevor Creary with sons Matthew, grade 5 and Chris McCallaCreary, grade 12; and Archana Sathaye and Christine Davis. Other photos from the event include runway shots of Sally Zhu and Annalyn Bean, both K; Amanda Kalb, grade 10; Brianna Tran and Clara Blickenstaff, both grade 12; John Davis at the live auction; and a touching photo of honorary chair Diana Nichols, receiving flowers from a student on stage. Please click here to view it.
San Jose Mercury News – June 8, 2011: Class of 2011 member Karthik Dhore was named a member of the Mercury News’ Boys Tennis First Team.
San Jose Mercury News – May 24, 2011: Recent graduates and Intel Science Talent Search finalists Rohan Mahajan and Nikhil Parthasarathy are mentioned in an article about the children of immigrants in science competitions.
Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal – May 13, 2011: This year’s fashion show is covered in the “Valley Life” section with a pair of captioned photos. The first photo shows lower school dean Joe Connolly and parent Phillip King (Amanda, recent upper school graduate). Directly below is another photo of parent Trevor Creary with his sons Matthew McCallaCreary, grade 5, and Chris McCallaCreary, recent upper school graduate.
San Jose Mercury News – April 20, 2011: Softball player Alison Rugar, rising junior, is mentioned in Varsity Extra’s Highlight Reel section for her 13-strikeout game against Mercy-Burlingame.
Success is an elusive term which Stanford University School of Education and a team from the Harker community are working to define. Harker is proud to announce that the team will be meeting at Stanford to address a concern iterated by the Stanford School of Education on the Challenge Success website: “the concern that children and adolescents often compromise their mental and physical health, integrity, and engagement in learning as they contend with performance pressure in and out of school. We challenge the conventional, high-pressure, and narrow path to success and offer practical alternatives.”
The representatives from Harker (listed below) comprises students, administrators, teachers, parents and counselors.
Jennifer Gargano – Assistant Head of School for Academic Affairs
Cindy Ellis – Middle School Division Head
Melinda Gonzales – Academic Counselor
Rebecca Williams – Middle School English Teacher
Mala Raghavan – Upper School Chemistry Teacher
Helena Jerney – Parent
Jenny Chen – grade 11 student (as of 2011-12)
Darian Edvalson – grade 10 student (as of 2011-12)
Harker’s middle school has been recognized for its philanthropic efforts by Camp Okizu. Harker has established a relationship with the camp for the last five years, since their inaugural event together, a Cancer Walk organized by Michael Schmidt, middle school computer science teacher.
Since that first event, the Cancer Walk has been an opportunity for Harker students and families to raise money for the camp. Camp Okizu is dedicated to providing quality care as well as fun activities for young cancer patients. The money raised has been used to purchase new equipment and ensure that more children are able to take advantage of the services offered at the camp.
Harker received the award this year to commemorate the five-year partnership between the camp and the middle school. Over the course of this relationship, Harker has raised more than $40,000 for the camp. We look forward to further collaboration and further giving from the Harker community.
A total of 37 Japanese students took a crucial step in their understanding of the language in December after passing the first two levels of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT). The test has been offered since 1984 and has become the most relied-upon Japanese language test in the world, with as many as 770,000 people taking the test in 2009. There are five levels of the test, with N1 being the highest level and N5 the starting level.
Students who passed the N4 level are: recent graduates Ashley Hejtmanek and Victoria Liang, rising seniors Noah Levy, Mark Taboada and Tiffany Jang; and rising juniors Erik Andersen, Catherine Manea, Indica Sur, Aileen Wen, Lorraine Wong, Iris Xia and Wilbur Yang.
Students who passed the N5 level are: rising seniors Crystal Chen and Shilpa Nataraj; rising juniors Meera Madhavan, Christian Lantzsch, Justin Yang, Joseph Wang, Michael Chen and Ryan Hume; and rising sophomores Adarsh Battu, Brandon Yang, Viram Naidu, Daniel Pak, Monika Lee, Albert Chu, Nathan Dhablania, Kristine Lin, Jeffrey Hanke, Srikar Pyda, Darian Edvaison, Maya Madhavan, Benjamin Chu, Kevin Monhanram, Krish Sanghi, Kiana Bisla and Arman Mortazavi.
In May, the Saratoga campus and several Harker students made guest appearances in “Mary’s Song,” a short film produced by a group of students from Santa Clara University. The film relates the story of a girl learning to live with her autistic sister while also struggling with the pressures of teen life.
Scenes were shot in places such as the main classroom building, Manzanita Hall and outside the front entrance of Dobbins Hall. Harker students appeared as extras in classroom scenes, and graphic design teacher J Gaston even had a speaking part as an English teacher.
“Mary’s Song” was shown at the SCU Genesis Student Film Festival on June 9, alongside several other student-made short films and documentaries.
In late May, a special event was held at the Blackford campus to celebrate the 10th issue of “enlight’ning,” the middle school’s literature and arts magazine. Students who contributed to this year’s issue were invited to discuss their works and read them to the fellow students in attendance.
“What really inspired me to write this story was my neighbor’s brother actually came home from fighting in Iraq,” said Ishanya Anthapur, grade 8, of her short story “Hope For Me,” which is told from the perspective of a young girl in 1940’s England waiting for the bombs to fall. “I just found the whole thing really interesting, and I wanted to know a little more about World War II.”
Meilan Steimle, grade 6, presented her own piece about a girl who experiences precognitive dreams. “I wrote this story because I love paradoxes,” she said.
Matthew Ho, also grade 8, was inspired to draw his piece, titled “Melting World,” when he saw a little boy’s ice cream cone fall to the ground one day. “The most interesting thing is that his dad wouldn’t buy him another one,” he said. He saw the event as an inspiration for a piece about missed opportunities.
The Future Problem Solving Program International (FPSPI) has recognized a newly-graduated Harker student, Olivia Zhu ’11, with a scholarship as one of two students across the country who have “exceptional dedication and participation in Future Problem Solving.” In order to win the scholarship, students had to submit a completed application, essay and two letters of recommendation.
Zhu is a six-year future problem solving veteran. Among her many accomplishments with the Harker FPS club is competing at FPS competitions every year, mentoring younger students, raising funds for California FPS clubs and founding the Harker FPS branch. Zhu is also involved in an ongoing project to enable the different FPS clubs to collaborate on research.
Years ago, when asked whom he would want to found the Harker FPS club with, Cyrus Merrill, middle school history teacher, half-jokingly replied, “Olivia Zhu,” who turned out to be an excellent choice. When writing about her, Merrill said, “I technically coach her in terms of Future Problem Solving, but in a real sense she coaches all of us in both FPS and in personal ethics and selfless dedication to others.” We’d like to congratulate her on the award and look forward to hearing of her future efforts post-Harker.
Sonya Shekhar ’11 was recognized with an award by the YMCA. Shekhar, who has volunteered at the YMCA for many years, was recognized for her leadership and dedication to the Y’s mission of “promoting healthy living and fostering a sense of social responsibility.” The 2011 Impact Youth Award was presented to Shekhar at the end of May.
The task of winning a single national championship in debate is demanding, but putting together victories in back-to-back years is particularly rare. Nonetheless, that’s exactly what the 23 middle school students who traveled to Dallas, Texas, last week for the 12th annual National Junior Forensic League National Championship Tournament managed to do. For the second year running, the team was recognized as one of the five Schools of Excellence across all of the debate formats offered at the tournament.
Pranav Reddy, grade 8, also extended a streak for the school by bringing home a national championship, this time in Lincoln-Douglas Debate. Last year’s title came in Public Forum Debate, when two Harker pairs reached the final round and were declared co-champions. Reddy debated Resolved: When forced to choose, a just government ought to prioritize universal human rights over its national interest.
In Congressional Debate Aditya Dhar, grade 6, took third place honors nationally. When not busy winning the Lincoln-Douglas title, Reddy tackled the challenges of Congress as well, posting a fifth place result. Jai Ahuja, grade 8, and Misha Tseitlin, grade 6, joined their teammates in the Congress finals, placing them among the top 24 at the tournament.
The team of Azhar Huda and Vamsi Gadiraju, both grade 8, reached octafinals (top 16), while the team of Sophia Shatas, grade 8, and Sorjo Banerjee, grade 7, advanced to quarterfinals (top 8) of Public Forum Debate. Students participating in Public Forum considered the topic, Resolved: That the United States should intervene in another nation’s struggle for democracy.
Middle school director of forensics Karina Momary led her students to these accomplishments in her first year of coaching. “My strategy all year has been to have our middle school debaters compete against high school students, and I think that was a significant factor in our success this week,” explained Momary. The middle school team was also supported by the presence of Greg Achten, the upper school director of Policy Debate and Lincoln-Douglas Debate, and assistant coach Quinn Buniel.
This year marked the first time that the middle school NJFL National Tournament was held simultaneously with NFL Nationals for high schools. When not competing in their own rounds, all 23 middle school students had the valuable opportunity to learn by observing the high school debates.
In April, middle school history teacher Cyrus Merrill took his grade 6 advisory to Malibu Grand Prix for a fun-filled outing as the end of the year approached. Activities during the day included go-kart racing, miniature golf, a pizza dinner, arcade games and a ride on the much-loved, water cannon-equipped bumper boats, during which Merrill was a favorite target.