Over the weekend, the upper school’s Science Bowl team competed in the national championship of the US DOE Science Bowl, in which 64 teams from across the country participated. Harker reached the top 16 in the event — held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic — narrowly missing the top 8 after a toss-up question and a bonus answer. William Zhao also participated in a national math contest and as such was unable to compete in the final two rounds of the Science Bowl.
Feb. 12, 2020:
On Saturday, a team of Harker students won the U.S. Department of Energy’s Regional Science Bowl, held at Stanford University’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. It was Harker’s third victory in four years. The team – made up of sophomores David Dai, Harsh Deep, Rishab Parthasarathy and William Zhao and senior Emily Liu – went undefeated the entire day, at one point rallying back from an 18 to 72 deficit in a match against Saratoga High to win 118 to 76. Upper school chemistry teacher Robbie Korin called it the “most impressive comeback I have seen since I started doing this in 1991.” The team will go on to represent the Bay Area in April at the national championship in Washington, D.C.
Another team of Harker students – freshmen Rohan Bhowmik and Nicholas Wei, juniors Michael Eng and Russell Yang and senior Kyle Li – also performed well, reaching the elimination round before tying for seventh place over all out of 28 teams.
Members of the classes of 2018 and 2019 have organized a fundraiser for Black Lives Matter, The Bail Project and Campaign Zero. Their statement, including details on how to donate and provide additional support, is as follows:
Hello Harker students, alumni, faculty and family,
In light of explicit police brutality and racial injustice, we are starting a fundraiser to support Black solidarity organizations. Donations will be split equally between Black Lives Matter, The Bail Project and Campaign Zero. Black Lives Matter drives the cultural movement for Black justice, The Bail Project combats mass incarceration and Campaign Zero researches policy solutions to end police brutality. To donate, Venmo @HarkerBLM or go directly through harkerblm.org.
Please give if you can and consider transforming your allyship into effective action. The goal is to help these organizations do important work long after the social media incentives fade.
Here are more educational resources to help you learn, protest and use your voice to help others do the same: https://bit.ly/harkerblm.
At the end of each school year, Harker recognizes longtime employees with the presentation of gold pins for five-year full-time employees and a diamond inset for every five years thereafter. This year’s 67 recipients, honored at a ceremony on Thursday, are:
Five years Adam Albers – Pastry Chef, Food Service
Johnny Castro – Custodian ll, Facilities
Anuradha Datar – Computer Science Teacher, Upper School
Miran Eldeeb – Mathematics Teacher, Middle School
Christopher Hurshman – English Teacher, Upper School
Abigail Joseph – LID Director, Middle School
Mark Kocina – Photographer, Office of Communications
Christine Larita – Kitchen Aide, Food Service
Patty Marsette – Academic Counselor, Lower School
Sheva Momenian – Mathematics Teacher, Upper School
RaeAnn Prado – Assistant to College Counseling, Upper School
Erik Ruiz – Custodian, Facilities
Ronald Spitalere – Kitchen Aide ll, Food Service
Byron Stevens – History Teacher, Upper School
Mira Vojvodic – Mathematics Teacher, Lower School
10 years Tere Aceves – Director of Endowment Funding, Advancement
Greg Achten – Speech and Debate Teacher, Middle and Upper School
Meredith Cranston – Campus Librarian, Upper School
Nicole Hall – Administrative Services Manager
David Hart – Instrumental Music Teacher, Upper School
Samantha Hipol – Cook ll, Food Service
Kelly Horan – Academic Dean, Upper School
Mark Janda – History Teacher, Upper School
Sam Lepler, Business and Entrepreneurship Teacher, Upper School
Corey Newton – Internet Technology Services and Support Coordinator, Tech Department
Heather Russell – Grade 3 English Teacher, Lower School
Amira Townzen– Asst. Director Enrichment and Supervision, Lower School
15 years Miguel Aguilar – Custodian ll, Facilities Dept.
Mark Brada – Physics Teacher, Upper School
Enni Chen – Science Teacher, Lower School
Carlos Rojas Esquivel – Lead Groundskeeper, Facilities Department
Walid Fahmy – Physical Education Teacher, Lower School
Irene Gary – Payroll Specialist, Business Office
Melinda Gonzales – Director of the Annual Fund, Advancemenet
Maria Guadalupe Gonzales – Food Service
Carol Green – History Teacher, Upper School
Danielle Holquin – Director of Admission
Shaun Kelly Jahshan – Mandarin Teacher, Upper School
Lori Kohan – Academic Counselor, Upper School
Kevin Lum Lung – College Counselor, Upper School
Carlos Madrigal – Cook, Food Service
Dan Molin – Athletics Director, Upper School
Rodolfo Molina – Custodian, Facilities Dept.
Aarthi Ragupathy – Corporate Budget Manager ERP Administrator, Finance
Kimberly Sandoval – Kindergarten Teacher, Lower School
Jennifer Sandusky – Vocal Music Teacher, Upper School
Eileen Schick – Mathematics Lab Teacher, Lower School
Preeti Sharan – Information Systems Lead, Tech Department
Grace Wallace – Teacher and Grades 1-2 Department Chair, Lower School
20 years Evan Barth – Division Head, Middle School
Bob Benge – Copy Center Manager
Jeremiah Brewer – Physical Education Teacher, Middle School
Jeffrey Draper – Theater Teacher, Upper School
Danny Dunn – K-5 Technical Director
Kerry Enzensperger – Director of Community Service, Upper School
Jesse Lara – Director, Information Technology, PK-12
Marissa Lucketti – Human Resources Manager
Maria Parry – Security Officer
Bradley Stoll – Mathematics Teacher, Upper School
Jeff Sutton- Biology Teacher, Upper School
Kevin Williamson – Dean of Students, Upper School
25 years Darrin Cassidy – Assistant Director, Food Service
Diann Chung – Admission Director Lower School
Kathy Clark – Campus Librarian Lower School
Laura Lang-Ree – Director, Performing Arts, K-12
30 years Pete Anderson – Physical Education Department Chair, Grades 6-8
Gail Palmer – Dance Director, K-8 Lead Performing Arts Teacher
Theresa “Smitty” Smith – Athletic Director, Grades 4-8
Students in Susan Nace’s Study of Music class composed original pieces during the shelter-in-place as part of their studies. These pieces were later recorded using a variety of methods and posted online for analysis. Students also commented on their pieces, detailing their inspirations, processes and the tools they used to create their music.
“I enjoyed working on my composition once I got an idea to go off of,” said Kyra Hawk, grade 9, whose piece was written for her father and brother, both French horn players. “I was impressed by what I could compose, because I never thought of myself a composer of any sort.”
Freshman Anthony Zhao found that working from home afforded him a more flexible schedule, and he used Apple’s GarageBand software to compose his piece. “Some challenges I have faced are learning to compose in a new software and creating effective beat drops,” he said. “When I began, I barely had an idea of how to use GarageBand, but now I am able to compose music in GarageBand.”
For her piece, written for violin and cello, Katelyn Abellera, grade 9, enlisted the help of violinist Sawyer Lai and cellist Abby Tcheng, both grade 9. “First, I came up with the main melody. Then I came the bass part, where I took into consideration harmonies, parallel, similar, contrary and oblique motion that we learned about in theory,” she said.
For those who wish to see and hear these pieces, the students’ works have been uploaded to a public folder accessible by all.
In April, lower school science teacher Shital Ashar made the most of the distance learning format by teaching from various spaces at her home via Zoom. For a lesson on seed anatomy, she had students dissect a bean seed to learn about its various parts. She then demonstrated how seeds could be used to make a delicious salad while students made their own. “Kids were super excited and prepared with ingredients that I had listed on the group space,” Ashar said.
Some days later, Ashar took advantage of the favorable weather to teach another unit on plants, this time dipping a stick of celery in colored water to show students how water moves through plant tissue. “We then learned about types of roots, with examples,” she said. “Students also illustrated roots and examples in their science lab notebook.”
Earlier this month, brothers Hassaan and Senan Ebrahim – graduates of the classes of 2011 and 2008, respectively – were featured in The Harvard Gazette for their work in helping Syrian refugees via software their organization developed specifically for the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hassaan and Senan founded the 501(c)(3) Hikma Health in 2018 to create software organizations can use to provide better health care to refugees. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, health care workers needed a way to evaluate symptoms and risk factors. Hikma developed a tool workers could use to screen patients without the need for internet access, which is often lacking or nonexistent in the areas in which they work.
According to the article, the Ebrahim brothers are exploring ways to help spread the tool to more refugee camps. For the time being, they have released it for free to all organizations via GitHub.
Harker is proud to announce the nine student athletes from the Class of 2020 who have signed commitments to play collegiate sports next year. Ethan Hu committed in the fall to swim at Stanford in the coming year, with the following eight students recently making their decisions public: Katelyn Vo will golf at Pomona College; Jeffrey Kwan will play volleyball at Harvard; Carolyn Lu will play volleyball at Caltech; Cassandra Ruedy will play water polo at Harvey Mudd; Shomrik Mondal will play football at Macalester College; Ashley Jazbec will play volleyball at Bowdoin College; Arushi Madan will play water polo at the University of Toronto; and Emily Cheng will play volleyball at MIT. Congrats to all these amazing athletes! Go Eagles!
Check out all the students along with their “thank yous” here:
Even though he missed out on his senior season, Ethan Hu, grade 12, continues to rack up the accolades. SportsStars Magazine is in the midst of publishing its top 10 athletes in each high school sport from the last decade. When the list of top boys swimmers was released last week, Hu was an obvious choice. Check out Hu’s write up, along with the rest of the top 10:
Earlier this week, upper school students dropped off 640 homemade masks at the Bay Area-based organization LifeMoves, which provides temporary housing and assistance to the local homeless population. The masks are intended to provide much-needed protection to homeless people who are among the most vulnerable during the COVID-19 pandemic because they cannot socially distance as effectively as those with homes. The upper school’s Medical Club, Key Club and Student Council collaborated on the initiative, which kicked off in late April. Students received directions on how to create the masks, and a special drop-off area was set aside at the upper school campus so that the students could safely deliver the masks without leaving their cars.
Two Harker teams took home awards earlier this month at the Tech Challenge Showcase, hosted by the Tech Interactive in San Jose. Harker fifth graders Sylvia Chen, Nicholas Knauer, Ameera Ramzan and Adrian Roufas, known collectively as Team NASA, were one of two teams in the Grades 4-5 category to receive the Outstanding Overall award at the 2020 Tech Challenge Showcase, hosted by the Tech Museum of San Jose. In the video contest, Team RASA — whose acronym is derived from the first letter from the first name of each team member: fourth graders Riya Chaddha, Abby Heinlein, Sofe Jalil and Augusta Chen — took third place for their video chronicling the development of their project, competing against every team in every age group.
The showcase and awards ceremony, which attracted over 2,300 students representing more than 500 teams, moved to a virtual format this year because of shelter-in-place restrictions.
Teams this year were challenged to build a launcher that can propel separate devices through a 10-foot high hoop and land in a pre-defined area. The devices are then supposed to expand to larger size, with both the area and volume being key metrics for evaluating overall performance. While building three separate components (a launcher, area device and volume device) is challenging enough, teams this year had to work under the restrictions posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Team NASA rose to the challenge. Starting in March, during the critical home stretch, team members practiced social distancing by conducting virtual meetings over Zoom and found ways to divide work without getting together physically.