As Harker has grown, so has its commitment to excellence inside and outside of the classroom. To ensure this, it has continually upgraded and expanded its offerings through new programs and services. In order to continue seamless interactions between student programs and operations, four operational leaders, who have become integral parts of the administrative team, have been formally made part of the administration. Congratulations to Mike Bassoni (facility manager), Pam Dickinson (director of the office of communication), Dan Hudkins (director of instructional technology and information systems), and Clif Wilcox (business manager) on their inclusion.
The middle school grade 7 and 8 orchestras and Vivace choir performed impressively this spring, each earning awards at performing arts festivals. The orchestras performed at the California Music Educators Association festival in May and, for the first time, both of the orchestras were awarded Unanimous Superior ratings to recognize their skill and dedication their crafts. This double award has come after a year dedicated to improving all of the students’ individual abilities and their work as a group.
Vivace traveled to a middle and high school choir festival in Anaheim in April. The group performed three pieces in front of an audience and a panel of judges. Their performance of classical, jazz and traditional/spiritual pieces earned them high praise from the judges. Dave Hart, middle school music teacher, said, “I was blown away by their musicianship and ability to blend.” Hart wasn’t the only one the group impressed; the judges recognized them for their strong team effort, awarding them a gold medal and one of the highest middle school choir scores. After the performances, the groups were invited to celebrate their hard work at Disneyland.
Let’s congratulate the groups on a fantastic end to a year that, according to Hart, was dedicated to “learning music and having a great time.”
This past week Harker had some outstanding Central Coast Section (CCS) performances. “CCS comprises over 100 schools and to compete and especially make finals puts these athletes in an elite category,” said Dan Molin, athletic director.
Swimming
Harker girls swimming placed seventh at CCS this past weekend, May 21-22, having a great meet in the process. Continuing its tradition of improving its placement every season, Harker girls had four individual swims in the top eight and two top-eight relay swims. Jessica Khojasteh, grade 12, was fifth in the 200 IM, sixth in the 100 breaststroke and set a school record of 1:05.90; Katie Siegel, grade 11, was eighth in the 100-yard butterfly (57.04) and third in the 100-backstroke (57.40) and both those times are both school records; the 200-yard freestyle relay of Khojasteh, Siegel, Tiffany Wong, grade 11, and Amie Chien, grade 10, was sixth, setting a school record of 1:40.17; in the 400-yard freestyle relay Khojasteh, Siegel, Rachelle Koch, grade 11, and Manon Audebert, grade 9, placed seventh and set yet another school record with their time of 3:37.78. The squad was also recognized prior to the meet for their CCS scholastic championship.
Harker boys swimming placed 14th at CCS this weekend, also having a great meet. Having placed fourth last year at CCS, this year the boys had a strong rebuilding year. The 200-yard medley relay of Hassaan Ebrahim, grade 12 and Kevin Khojasteh, Jason Yu and Daryl Neubieser, all grade 11, started out the finals session with a 16th place finish. Khojasteh then placed fifth in the 200-yard IM with a new school record of 1:51.10. Neubieser then tied for sixth in the 50-yard freestyle, following with a third place finish in the 100-yard freestyle. Khojasteh finished off the meet for the boys in the 100-yard breaststroke which turned out to be the race of the meet: four swimmers swimming very fast with less than four-tenths of a second separating the four. Khojasteh placed fourth and set a new school record of 56.94.
Track and Field
In CCS track and field semifinals, Claudia Tischler, grade 9, ran a blazing fast 5:08 in the 1600m (1 mile). Please support her as she prepares for CCS finals this Friday as one of only two freshmen in the 12-girl field of runners. She competes in Gilroy this Friday night, May 27. Isabelle Connell, grade 10, sprinted the 200m (half lap) in 26.64 seconds, taking 16th place and Sonya Chalaka, grade 11, triple-jumped 32 feet and 6.5 inches, taking 23rd place.
Golf
Golfer Maverick McNealy, grade 10, shot an 82 at the CCS championship placing 44th out of 64 golfers who qualified for the high-caliber field. Please congratulate him on an outstanding season.
Softball
Softball’s historic season came to a close last week with a 4-0 loss to Notre Dame-Belmont in the first round of CCS. Please congratulate them on an outstanding season.
Tennis
Boys tennis also has been awarded the CCS scholastic championship! Tennis player Karthik Dhore, grade 12, is seeded #2 in the CCS Individual Tournament in Aptos May 24 and 26, so best of luck to him!
In mid-April, Betsy Lindars (David) and Maria Lu (Emily Wang), the grade 10 level coordinators, put on a luncheon at BJ’s Restaurant in Cupertino. This lunch, attended by more than 20 parents of grade 10 students, is the latest in a series of gatherings to help sophomore moms and dads meet and develop social networks in a non-Harker environment.
Lu testified to the success of these meetings, saying: “At these luncheons and monthly coffees I have met and gotten to know better quite a few fellow 10th grade parents. I enjoy these events very much!” The gatherings will continue to be put on next year and for information, contact your grade level coordinators.
In mid-April, Betsy Lindars (David) and Maria Lu (Emily Wang), the grade 10 level coordinators, put on a luncheon at BJ’s Restaurant in Cupertino. This lunch, attended by more than 20 parents of grade 10 students, is the latest in a series of gatherings to help sophomore moms and dads meet and develop social networks in a non-Harker environment.
Lu testified to the success of these meetings, saying: “At these luncheons and monthly coffees I have met and gotten to know better quite a few fellow 10th grade parents. I enjoy these events very much!” The gatherings will continue to be put on next year and for information, contact your grade level coordinators.
Girls swimming and boys tennis teams were named 2011 Spring Scholastic Champions by the Central Coast Section. The girls swimming team came in with an average GPA of 3.8330 and boys tennis members averaged out 3.8450 to take the titles. Harker had five teams in second place: golf, lacrosse, boys swimming, boys volleyball and boys track and field, all behind the leaders by less than 1/10 of a point. There were three more teams, baseball,softball and girls track and field, in the top five lists of additional contenders, giving Harker placement in 10 of the 13 sports. GO EAGLES!
At the beginning of May, the middle school held a teacher appreciation day to recognize the continuing efforts of the teachers. To demonstrate their appreciation, the administration cooked breakfast and the middle school parents made lunch for the teachers. That Wednesday, the school meeting was dedicated to students and teachers celebrating together. These events were dedicated to thanking teachers for their seemingly unending work in educating students that is perpetually above and beyond the call of duty.
On April 21, the Blackford campus received some cosmetic love and care from two middle school advisory groups, courtesy of that school’s student council. The council had raised funds by selling candy to the students over the course of two weeks, with the intent of beatifying the school grounds; they ultimately decided on a flower planting as the best way to contribute.
Lana Morrison, dean of students, and Melinda Gonzales, academic counselor, along with their advisory groups, dedicated their lunch periods to creating a stylized Harker logo outside of the main office. The H in the logo was created using white pansies, green ornamental grass and a river rock border. Be sure to stop by to see the new flowerbed!
The San Jose Stage Top Honor Awards Program has recognized Harker’s spring musical, “Pippin,” with nine nominations for excellence. Harker received the fourth most nominations out of the participating schools, including a coveted nomination for Best Show, one of only six shows thus honored. This latter nomination means that the cast of “Pippin” will perform at the Tony Award-like ceremony in June.
Harker’s nominations are: Leading Actor – John Ammatuna and Daniel Cho, both grade 12; Overall Production; Chorus; Director – Laura Lang-Ree; Musical Director – Catherine Snider; Choreography – Katie O’Bryon; Costume Design – Caela Fujii and Mallika Dhaliwal, grade 12; Lighting Design – Natti Pierce-Thomson.
Fifteen high schools participated in the program this year, being adjudicated anonymously by a group of theater professionals including performers, designers and educators. The judges filled out an extensive review form after seeing the productions, and the results were calculated and nominations were awarded in 17 performance and production categories.
The Stage has partnered with Broadway San Jose to send the winners in the Best Actor and Best Actress categories to the National Musical Theatre Awards (The Jimmy Awards) in New York City, where they will compete with other regional performers. The winners of The Jimmy Awards will be awarded scholarships to New York University’s Tisch School for the Arts upon acceptance to that program.
The 2011 Stage Top Honors Awards will be awarded on June 6 at the California Theater in San Jose at 7 p.m. For more information and tickets please go to http://www.thestage.org.
Third grade students earned a Regional Award in the recent Continental Mathematics League (CML) contest. This yearly contest, which consists of three separate meets, gives students the chance to compete in mathematical problem-solving against a worldwide group of third graders from participating schools.
This is the fourth year Harker’s grade 3 team earned first place in the region, which includes 15 U.S. states as well as the countries of Belgium, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the United Kingdom.
For each meet, the six highest scores are sent in as a team score, thus the team members can change from month to month. The contest, which consists of six questions per meet, was held January through March, and three students tied for the top score for Harker, at 15 out of a total of 18 possible points.
Students earning medals this year as the top scoring students were Andrew Cheplyansky, Naviya Kapadia and Nevin Liang. Second-place students who earned certificates of achievement were Anvi Banga, Matthew Jin, Eileen Li, Sachin Shah and Gautham Viswanathan. Several students earned perfect scores in one of the three meets, including Cheplyansky, Kapadia, Benjamin MacDonald, Viswanathan and Angele Yang.
Congratulations to these students, who deserve to be recognized for their strong approaches to problem solving! This is the seventh year we have participated in the contest. Last year, grades 4 and 5 began participating as well.