The upper school ASB and Student Council have launched a donation drive to support Silicon Valley Strong, an initiative started by San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo that delivers aid to households put at risk of displacement during the COVID-19 pandemic due to factors such as illness, joblessness and lack of income. Small businesses and local organizations also are receiving assistance. The donation drive, which runs from today until Sunday, was launched to provide Silicon Valley Strong with more funding, which has become necessary due to the high demand for aid.
Harker middle school students earned high marks in math competitions in February and March. Fifteen students performed well enough on the American Mathematics Competition 10 (AMC10) to participate in the American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME), held in March. The following scores are the sum of the students’ scores on the AIME, multiplied by 10, and added to their scores on the AMC10. Eighth grader Olivia Xu scored 222 points and was the highest-scoring Harker middle school student. Right behind Xu was Ethan Liu, grade 8, with a score of 210.5, while Angela Liu and Jonathan Xue, both grade 7, each had a score of 197. Eighth grader Emma Gao scored 195. The remaining portions of the AMC, including the AIME II, the US Mathematical Olympiad and Junior Mathematical Olympiad, have been postponed until further notice due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In February, students took part in the Bay Area Math Olympiad, where the Harker middle school team’s score of 93 made it the top placing team. Olivia Xu was the top scorer for Harker with a score of 32 out of 35 points, placing second overall. Ethan Liu took fourth place with a score of 31 and eighth grader Aniketh Tummala, with a score of 30 points, received an honorable mention. Seventh grader Jonathan Xue’s 29 points also earned an honorable mention.
In mid-April, the Journalism Education Association named senior Eric Fang one of its national runners-up in their Journalist of the Year contest. Among the qualities that judges noticed in Fang’s work were his strengths in storytelling and leadership, as well as his ability to learn new skills. Judge Leah Waters of Heritage High School in Frisco, Texas praised Fang for his “firm understanding of the importance of a free press for an electorate and democracy.”
As a runner-up, Fang as also been awarded a Sister Rita Jeanne Scholarship of $850.
—-
April 8, 2020:
Last week, senior Eric Fang was named the 2020 California Journalist of the Year by the Journalism Education Association, becoming the first student in Harker history to win this recognition.
Fang has been highly prolific in Harker’s journalism department, contributing regularly to the Winged Post newspaper and student news website Harker Aquila. He has also served as news editor at the Winged Post and is currently its co-editor in chief. Fang has also been published in the San Jose Mercury News and the Stanford Daily, and presented on political reporting with other Harker journalists at the JEA/NSPA fall convention. His passion for the politics beat has led him to interview eight 2020 presidential candidates and travel to numerous town halls, rallies and protests. Last year, he visited Sonoma County to cover the aftermath of the Kincade wildfire, documenting the local community’s struggles through photos and interviews.
This contest requires entrants to submit portfolios that are judged on criteria such as news gathering, writing, editing, design and photojournalism. Judges also look for work that impacts communities, amplifies the voices of marginalized groups and increases awareness of pressing issues. Fang received high marks in every area, and is now in contention to be named Journalist of the Year. The winner will be announced April 16.
Harker had another great year in the Future Problem Solving International competition, sending students in every division to the finals of the competition, which are held at the FPS International Conference. This year, the conference is being held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Notably, of the four teams invited to the international conference, three are from Harker. In the months prior to the school closure, students from each of the divisions met and worked through the year’s scenario.
In the junior division (grades 4-6), the team of sixth graders Krish Nachnani, Aditya Shivakumar, Jonathon Szeto and Veeraz Thakkar earned first place, while sixth graders Cyrus Ghane, Charlie Wang, Daniel Miao and Kairui Sun took second place. Both teams will be headed to the internationals. Individual junior competitors Brenna Ren and Helen Gu, both grade 6, placed second and fourth respectively, and also qualified for internationals.
The team of eighth graders Ritu Belani, Reshma Kosaraju, Aeliya Grover and Olivia Xu placed third in the middle division team competition. In individual competition, Anandita Arun, grade 7, placed second, and Kosaraju placed fourth; both earned an invite to internationals. Belani also took second place in scenario writing, securing yet another internationals spot for Harker.
Seniors Sriya Prathuri, Amla Rashingkar and Tina Xu were invited to internationals for taking first place in the senior division team competition, where seniors Anvi Banga, Jack Hansen, Anika Tiwari and Alicia Xu earned third place. Junior Hilari Fan took fourth place in the individual competition.
Last week, Anu Aiyer’s AP Statistics students were recognized by the New York Times for their contributions to a discussion on a graph posted in the Times’ “What’s Going On in This Graph?” series. Each week, the Times posts a graph and invites students to participate in live discussions on the information it contains. The April 16 graph depicted consumer spending during the COVID-19 pandemic, showing how spending habits changed during the last week of March as compared to the same week in 2019. Students were invited to discuss what they noticed about the graph, ask questions about the data presented and come up with a headline for the graph that encapsulates its main idea. Aiyer’s students’ headline, “COVID Troubles & Fiscal Bubbles: How COVID-19 Changed Our Spending Habits,” was one of four recognized.
“We have been doing this in my classes throughout the year and this time we sent in our analysis and out of 400 entries, our names were selected,” Aiyer said.
Amy Jin ‘18, currently attending Harvard, is now a team member for the Crown Education Challenge, an international contest for K-12 students that contains tracks in art, STEM and writing. Founded in March in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent wave of worldwide school closures, the contest hopes to inspire students to continue their learning, become active in global issues and foster hope in troubled times.
The contest’s theme is finding hope during a pandemic, and each category encourages students to submit work relating to the theme. For the art category, students are invited to submit visual art, music, digital art, films and dance pieces. STEM submissions can include original research on ways pandemics can be prevented or addressed in the future, taking the form of posters, videos, apps or other media. Writers may submit journalistic pieces, poetry, short stories, screenplays, podcasts or essays relating to the theme.
Submissions are being accepted until 11:59 p.m. Pacific time on May 31.
Sixth graders Anika Akkiraju, Shloka Chawla, Pavitra Kasthuri and Danielle Steinbach spent their spring break devising a way to help medical workers dealing with PPE shortages during the COVID-19 pandemic. After meeting via Zoom, the students launched a fundraising campaign on April 1 to collect donations to purchase the equipment. By the end of the campaign, the students had raised nearly $11,000, which they used to buy 3,000 masks and 1,000 face shields for Kaiser Permanente, which were delivered late last week.
“Despite being quarantined and unable to connect with each other, we have created memories that remind us to continue serving the community and have succeeded in helping others,” said Chawla. “The experience has taught us valuable lessons, and together we had lots of fun.”
Over the last several months, fifth graders Rohan Goyal, Ayden Grover, Neel Kumar and Krishna Muddu, who compete in the VEX IQ robotics competition as Team 14791R, had many successes despite the season being cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic. The students learned a great deal about programming, robot construction, robot operation and a host of other skills over the course of the shortened season, during which they won two robot design awards and qualified for both state and national level competitions. Other notable accomplishments included building two robots from the ground up and keeping a detailed engineering journal.
Although it was a shortened season due to COVID-19, Jarrett Anderson ’19 made the most of his first collegiate year with the Springfield College men’s volleyball team. Anderson excelled on the court and was recently named a D3 All-American and the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) Division 3 Northeast Region Newcomer of the Year. Anderson’s 5.15 points per set ranked him fifth in the nation; he accounted for a team-best 360.5 points; and his .814 aces per set was the fourth best in the country.
Check out all the stats on Anderson, as well as the other accolades that his team took home: