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.
A group of Harker upper school students – ninth graders Mir Bahri, Samvita Gautham, Eileen Ma, Dominick Piscione, Jessica Tang, Deeya Viradia and Carol Wininger; and juniors Ethan Choi and Natasha Yen – launched a GoFundMe campaign last month to assist low-income families who are facing greater difficulties during the COVID-19 pandemic due to job loss. The group plans to give a portion of the proceeds to a local family-owned restaurant, so that it can distribute meals to people facing food scarcity as well as small businesses impacted by the pandemic. The remaining funds will be donated to Second Harvest Food Bank, which is struggling to meet the swelling demand of its customers.
In addition, the students also plan to provide online tutoring to area students who cannot attend school due to closures.
Last week, volume 21 of HELM (Harker Eclectic Literature & Media) was released online via Issuu. It is the first issue of the annual student magazine to be published online upon release. This year’s collection of student-created poetry, essays, short stories and visuals deals with the subject of nostalgia and how it is experienced by the current generation of high schoolers. “We’re often left out of the conversation about generation differences, as a part of the in-between: too young to have grown up watching ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’ while munching on Hubba Bubba gum, but not young enough to have spent our toddler years hogging the iPad to play with virtual toys,” reads the foreword by editors-in-chief Annie Ma and Amla Rashingkar, both seniors.
The magazine is readable in web browsers and available as a download in PDF format.
Class of 2018 alumnae Sohenee Banerjee and Meghana Karinthi have started a virtual tutoring service that donates tuition fees to organizations providing relief during the COVID-19 pandemic. The service, called TheTutorNextDoor, matches college students to elementary, middle and high school students seeking tutoring in a wide variety of subjects. It is also offering college counseling and SAT exam preparation. Tutoring is carried out via phone and video calls in both one-on-one and group sessions, held on a weekly or bi-weekly basis or as a one-time session. More information, including registration and pricing structure, visit TheTutorNextDoor’s website.
“Closing out the top two spots in original oratory stands out as an achievement that was unparalleled by any other,” said Heath Martin, a member of the California Coast District Committee and director of speech and debate at Presentation High School. Odekirk’s hard work in serving local competitions, which included streamlining the process of running tournaments, was also a factor. “His was a unanimous selection by the committee this year,” said Martin. “We are very proud to have him as our Coach of the Year. It’s a decision we know we got right.”
Last week, senior Ashna Reddy’s sculpture, “Soaked,” was awarded first prize in the sculpture category in New Museum Los Gatos’ 2020 ArtNow exhibition. The piece, an umbrella constructed from mesh, “explores the idea of uselessness, missing that which makes one whole,” Reddy wrote in her comments on the work. She was inspired to create the sculpture after witnessing the various ways in which the Earth’s “wholeness” has been depleted through human activity such as pollution and deforestation.
April 16, 2020
In March, pieces by senior Ashna Reddy and juniors Elliot Kampmeier and Maria Teplova were selected for the 2020 ArtNow exhibition by New Museum Los Gatos (NUMU). This annual juried exhibition highlights the top high school talent from Silicon Valley. The 76 entries in the exhibition were picked from more than 900 entries. The art for the exhibition was installed just before the museum closed in March due to California’s ongoing mandatory shelter-in-place. In lieu of a live reception, NUMU created a virtual tour to showcase this year’s exhibition. Each year’s ArtNow follows a different theme, and this year’s student submissions used water as the theme for their work. Pieces are evaluated and selected by a jury of university-level instructors. Prizes and scholarships totaling $10,000 are also awarded during the program.
After an impressive 13-2-3 season for the girls soccer team, four Eagles were named as part of the Prep2Prep All-CCS teams. Megha Salvi, grade 10, earned third team recognition, with Sarah Baicher, Emma Boyce and Aria Wong, all grade 11, earning honorable mentions. Check out the full list of girls soccer honorees. Go Eagles!
Over spring break, middle school math chair Vandana Kadam spent her spare time teaching math online to students who were unable to attend school due closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. She asked some of her current students, as well as former students who are now at the upper school, if they would like to assist, and seventh grader Jonathan Xue, eighth graders Claire Luo, Julie Shi, Cynthia Wang, Michelle Wei, Olivia Xu and Ella Yee, and ninth graders Riya Gupta, Stephen Xia and Sally Zhu all jumped at the chance to help. The sessions have continued past spring break and now take place twice a week. “It is so rewarding to see our students taking time from their busy schedules to help other students,” Kadam said. “They do it with tremendous dedication ensuring that the students benefit from the coaching.”