Gr. 5 students were introduced to what awaits them as middle schoolers during Step-Up Day on Nov. 20. The children headed to Blackford and took a tour of the campus while being introduced to the middle school faculty and staff, and learning about the various academic and extracurricular activities that they will experience next year. The students were also treated to a special vocal performance by their future schoolmates, the Gr. 6 choir.
The annual fashion show brings out the best in all involved, but three lucky women had a chance to show a new side of themselves. Jeanette Hajjar (Matthew, Gr. 3; Grace, Gr. 2), Tina Najibi (Alexander, Gr. 10; Mary, Gr. 6) and Noela Nakos (Melina, Gr. 6) volunteered as models and were selected for a pre-show makeover for the committee photo shoot in October.
Hair and make-up were done by James Craig Hair Color & Design in Saratoga, supporters of the fashion show since its inception; owner Robert James personally did the hair styling.
“I was very happy with the hairstyle,” said Najibi. “It looks great and is low maintenance. Robert did a wonderful job creating a style that looks good, is within my comfort zone and is easy to take care of. I took my daughter to the shop and she enjoyed the salon so much she couldn’t stop talking about it!”
Beverly Zeiss, who has produced the fashion show for the last four years and is producing this year’s show, “Outside the Box,” styled their clothes, which are courtesy of Macy’s, another long-time supporter of the fashion show. The “after” photos were taken by this year’s official photographer, Lori Rose.
Nakos noted the best part of the makeover was, “getting an opportunity to spend time with Tina, Jeanette, Christine (Davis, fashion show business chair) and of course, Beverly. They were all fantastic. I was overwhelmed by the amount of attention. It was a lot of fun.”
Nakos noted she did not change her daily look following the makeover, “except my hair. I think Robert did a fantastic job.” She went on to praise the whole fashion show effort. “I love the team spirit that has been so prevalent in every event, meeting and activity,” Nakos said. “Being a new parent at Harker, I felt quickly integrated into the wonderful Harker community.”
Tags: Featured StoryHarker debate has performed well throughout the fall and winter of 2009 and is already beginning 2010 on a successful note.
Just in:
Kelsey Hilbrich, Gr. 12 and Fred Enea, Gr. 10, won the PFDebate.com National Public Forum Challenge III in the final round Jan. 10. Watch for the full update!
New Year’s Weekend:
In Los Angeles, seven Lincoln-Douglas debaters and seven Public Forum teams braved the morning New Year’s Day traffic to compete in the first debate tournament of 2010. Five of the Public Forum teams advanced to elimination rounds: Revanth Kosaraju and Ishan Taneja, both Gr. 10, as well as Benjamin Chen and Kristi Lui, both Gr. 11, made it to the top 15 while junior Justine Liu and sophomore Akshay Jagadeesh lost on a 2-1 decision in quarterfinals.
Earning their second bid to the Tournament of Champions, sophomores Rohan Bopardikar and Daryl Neubieser were eliminated in semifinals but have completed their qualification to the Tournament of Champions. This is the earliest a sophomore-sophomore team has ever qualified in the season.
Hilbrich and Enea reclaimed Harker’s title of Public Forum champions by winning the tournament. This is also their second TOC bid, qualifying them to the Tournament of Champions in May.
December:
In December, Hilbrich and Enea bookended their holiday break by going to Minnesota to compete in the Blake School tournament and Public Forum Round Robin. Eliminated in quarterfinals at the regular tournament on Saturday, the duo fought through competition at the Round Robin to make it to the final round of the Sunday competition. Although they lost the final round on a 3-2 decision, Hilbrich was named the top speaker of the tournament.
After finishing their finals, Lincoln-Douglas debaters headed to the East Bay to compete against some of the toughest West Coast debaters in their event. Roshni Bhatnagar, Gr. 11, made it to elimination rounds of the varsity division, finishing in the top 32 in competition. She was named the 15th best speaker at the tournament. In the junior varsity division, Emily Wang, Gr. 9, ranked high enough in the preliminary rounds to “bye” through the first elimination round. Wang ended up placing in the top eight of the tournament and was named the second-best speaker in her division.
At a tournament held in San Diego, junior Aditya Parige made his season debut on the national circuit, fighting through a large preliminary field in Humorous Interpretation to advance to the semifinal round. Not satisfied with just being in semifinals, Parige outperformed his peers to make it to the final round where he ended the tournament with the fifth place trophy.
In San Jose, four Harker students went undefeated at the Lincoln-Douglas novice league tournament: Eric Kong, Gr. 10 and Kevin Susai, Arhum Siddiqui and Apri Tang, all Gr. 9.
November:
A group of 19 students traveled to the suburbs of Chicago to compete in the largest national tournament of the fall. Michael Tsai, Gr. 11, continued his Congressional Debate success by advancing to the semifinal round of Student Congress. Hilbrich and Enea made it to the quarterfinal round of the Public Forum division.
Competing at the Fall Individual Events league tournament in Milpitas, Howard Lio, Gr. 11, advanced to the semifinal round of Humorous Interpretation. In the Public Forum varsity division, the following teams went undefeated: Mark Roh, Gr. 12 and James Du, Gr. 11; Liu and Jagadeesh; and Kosaraju and Taneja.
Earning their first bids to the Public forum Tournament of Champions, the teams of junior Ziad Jawadi and sophomore Aakash Jagadeesh as well as Enea and Akshay Jagadeesh made it to the round of 16 at the Apple Valley tournament in Minnesota.
In keeping with the giving spirit of the holiday season, Harker students from all three campuses participated in service projects to spread cheer to the surrounding communities.
The lower school toy drive collected more than 700 toys, which were delivered to the children of less fortunate families, so that they could also partake in the joy of the holiday season. Beryl Banks, community involvement coordinator at Sacred Heart Community Services, appeared at the lower school campus in December to thank the students for the donations they had made.
One lower school parent, Deepali Halepete, shared the story of how he and his daughter, Mahika, Gr. 2, helped raise $1,400 for underprivileged families by selling paintings that were created in Halepete’s art workshops. The money was used to purchase art supplies and a playhouse for the Georgia Travis Center, a shelter run by InnVision that assists single mothers and their children.
Meanwhile, middle school students were busy with their own holiday community service project, a coat drive that ran from Dec. 7 through Dec. 18. The students gathered more than 300 coats, which were donated to the InnVision organization to ensure that financially troubled or homeless people in San Jose could fend off the cold of winter.
A Christmas tree donation drive was also organized at the middle school. Teachers donated trees by leaving them outside their classrooms with their decorations removed. Middle school math teacher Peggy Crisler estimated that “20 to 25” trees were donated in total.
Middle school math teacher Scott Graham’s Gr. 8 advisory decorated wreaths that were later donated to the Saratoga Retirement Home. It was the third consecutive year that the students decorated and donated the wreaths.
Several upper school students helped out with holiday celebrations in downtown San Jose in late November and early December. Over Thanksgiving weekend, a group of students lent their helping hands to the setting up of Christmas in the Park, which ran until December 27 at Plaza de Cesar Chavez in downtown San Jose. Students hung decorations and helped prepare the various displays and buildings that have been a part of the popular holiday attraction for 30 years.
On Dec. 6, Harker upper school students once again took part in a community effort at the downtown San Jose Holiday Parade. Assisted by students from Gunderson High School, they hoisted and carried the giant Hello Kitty parade float down San Jose’s historic Santa Clara and Market Streets.
December also saw the Key Club organize their annual Scott Lane donation drive, in which much-needed school supplies were donated to Scott Lane Elementary School to improve the quality of the students’ education. As a token of their gratitude, Scott Lane prepared a special “thank you” video that was shown at the upper school assembly on Jan. 4.
As New Year’s approached, Harker siblings Albert Wu, Gr. 10 and Helen Wu, Gr. 7, held a special performance at the Saratoga Retirement Community on Dec. 30. The duo, Albert on piano and Helen on violin, played pieces from such composers as Bach, Beethoven and Chopin.
Tags: Featured Story, OutreachHarker continues to go electronic, moving away from paper in a number of ways. Besides making Harker News Online our primary news channel, the Harker Parent Portal (HPP) was streamlined for easier use this year. Of equal interest are the ways Harker’s technology department is helping students and parents work easier and faster. Parents in all divisions can already view student course, section and activity times for the current grading period via the HPP and, as of January 2010, monthly statements will arrive by e-mail. In addition, registration for lower school students in the BEST after-school program starts Jan. 4 and online registration is slated for middle school students in the fourth quarter. Finally, the lower school campus is rolling out a wireless network. Coverage will initially include areas where teacher gather for training and the library.
Drop into any classroom, it seems, on the middle school campus and you are bound to see many students hard at work using their school-issued laptops.
This is year two for all the grades to be using laptops, said Dan Hudkins, director of instructional technology for K-Gr. 12, and everything is going quite well. “It’s a reasonably mature program and we continue to explore additional options and ways for laptops to be used as learning tools.’’
Harker sixth grader Gurutam Thockchom said it has been a smooth, successful launch since sixth graders just received their laptops in early November. Students in seventh and eighth grades start the school year with theirs. “It is better using a laptop because it is easier to write, keep track of things and not have to carry around so many papers,’’ Thockchom said, as he worked on his laptop during a study hall session.
Angela Neff, the assistant instructional technology director for the middle school, said things have gone great so far with the 153 members of the sixth grade class.
Gr. 6 teachers, across all curricula, have found a multitude of projects and uses for students on computers, including creating PowerPoint presentations in Environmental Studies; writing essays, doing research and vocabulary exercises in English classes; having access to a variety of resources on Athena (handouts, Web links, study guides) and taking quizzes and tests. In a few months, students will work on collaborative projects in history, write and research speeches for their public speaking courses and do warm-up problems and short activities in Pre-Algebra Honors. In Spanish classes, students record themselves speaking and take online quizzes; in music class, the students are taking notes on different musical historical periods; and in health class, students have used the laptops to visit MyPryamid.gov to learn about the new food pyramid and proper eating habits — just in time for the New Year!
The Harker Research Symposium will take place April 10, 2010, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Nichols Hall. Submissions are due Fri., Jan. 29, 2010.
Since 2006, the Harker Research Symposium has offered students with a passion for a science a forum to present and discuss the results of their many hours of research and experimentation. Visited by more than 300 people annually, the symposium has featured students presenting on a wide variety of topics and has attracted an impressive array of guest speakers.
The symposium is open to students in Gr. 6-12 who wish to share their work with fellow students, parents or even those currently working in the field of research. Students often give paper presentations, which consist of 12-minute talks about research documents they have produced, followed by an eight-minute Q&A session. They also have poster presentations, in which they display their research results on three-panel boards and take questions from attendees.
Tags: Research, ScienceHarker students continue to perform well in this year’s Continental Mathematics League competition. After three meets, the current lower school leader at the Gr. 4 level is Rose Guan, Gr. 3, who has solved 17 of 18 problems correctly. The Gr. 5 level leaders are Peter Wu and David Zhu, both Gr. 5, who have correctly solved 18 of 18 problems.
At the CML meet held Jan. 7, Gr. 4-level competitors Guan and Shaya Zarkesh, Adrian Chu and Griffin Ellis all had perfect scores. Earning perfect scores at the Gr. 5 level were Zhu and Wu, as well as Antony Sagayaraj, Aneesh Samineni and Steven Cao.
Tags: MathematicsThe middle school Writing Mentor Program is off to a great start this year. Created last year, the program has expanded a good deal since its inception and currently includes 18 upper school mentors selected via teacher recommendations and personal interviews. One of the most interesting aspects of the program is that it is driven by middle school students who want to improve their writing, rather than parental involvement.
In order to be considered for the program, students in Gr. 6-8 must send an e-mail explaining why they want to join to program director Patricia Lai, Gr. 8 English teacher. Upon being selected, middle school students work on a variety of topics including personal narratives, short persuasive essays, descriptive essays and expository paragraphs, depending on their individual needs.
Rather than being remedial, Lai states that this program “provides enrichment opportunities for students wanting to improve their writing skills.” When asked about the benefits of the program, mentor Timothy Chou, Gr. 11, commented that he believes “having good writing skills can vastly improve one’s life by helping one express ideas in a clearer way.”
Harker’s inaugural issue of its Harker Quarterly mailed to families, alumni and friends in mid-December. The Harker Quarterly – which will publish winter, spring and fall – combines current student and alumni news and features, and showcases selected programs, student work, inspiring people, visionary plans and more news of interest to the greater Harker community and beyond. Full color and printed on recycled paper, the quarterly complements Harker’s daily online news source, Harker News Online, which was launched in May 2009.
Since 2001 Harker published its monthly black and white Harker News to keep over 2,000 families, alumni and friends abreast of the latest news. Since moving the main news function online in the spring, the Harker News was retired and the quarterly was launched. For more information, or to receive a copy of the publication, contact communications@harker.org
Tags: Featured Story