Four Harker students qualified for the American Choral Directors Association California All-State Choir, which will perform in San Jose Feb. 15-18. To be selected for the All-State Choir, the students had to audition, qualify and attend the ACDA Regional Honor Choir. Their regional audition scores were used to determine their eligibility for All-State. Musicians will be placed in mixed, men’s, or women’s choruses with approximately 120 singers in each ensemble. Please congratulate Joel Morel, grade 10, tenor, Camerata; Vaishnavi Murari, grade 9, alto, Bel Canto; Karli Sharp, grade 11, soprano, Cantilena; and Meilin Yen, grade 9, soprano, Bel Canto, when you see them!
We had an exciting lower and middle school fall sports season! Please see the accomplishments of our fall sports teams and individuals below:
VA Flag Football (grade 8): The Varsity A team, coached by Richard Amarillas and Tim Hopkins, finished in fifth place in the WBAL with a record of 0-7 and went 1-8 overall. Team awards went to Richard Amarillas and Sam Boucher (Eagle), and Marcus Page and Ethan Huang (Coaches).
VB Flag Football (grade 7): The Varsity B team, coached by Mike Delfino and Edward LeGrand-Sawyer, finished in fifth place in the WBAL with a 2-4 record and went 3-4 overall. Team awards went to Armaan Thakker (MVP), Zain Vakath and Dylan Parikh (Eagle) and Rohan Gorti (Coaches).
JVA Flag Football (grade 6): The Junior Varsity A team, coached by Dan Pringle and Matt Arensberg, finished in sixth place in the WBAL with a 0-4 record and went 1-5 overall. Team awards went to Om Tandon (MVP), Thomas Egbert (Eagle) and Jack Ledford (Coaches).
JVB Flag Football (grade 5): The Junior Varsity B team, coached by Walid Fahmy and Tobias Wade, finished in fifth place in the WBAL with a 0-4 record and went 0-5 overall. Team awards went to Drew Diffenderfer (MVP), Vyom Vidyarthi (Eagle) and Liam Jeffers (Coaches).
LS Intramural Flag Football (grade 4): Team awards went to Brennan Williams (MVP), Topaz Lee (Eagle) and Rishaan Thoppay (Coaches). The team was coached by Karriem Stinson and Kristian Tiopo.
VA Softball: The Varsity A team, coached by Raul Rios and Vanessa Rios, finished in fifth place in the WBAL with a record of 1-4 and went 1-5 overall. Team awards went to Brooklyn Cicero, grade 8 (MVP), Nicole Arena, grade 8 (Eagle) and Claire Chen, grade 7 (Coaches).
JVA Softball: The Junior Varsity A team, coached by Jon Cvitanich and Brittney Moseley, was the WBAL league champ with a record of 4-0 and went 5-0 overall. Team awards went to Maya Kelly, grade 6 (MVP), Saira Ramakrishnan, grade 5 (Eagle) and Isha Kotalwar, grade 6 (Coaches).
LS Intramural Softball (grade 4): Team awards went to Mackenzie Chadwick (MVP), Tanvi Sivakumar (Eagle) and Minal Jalil (Coaches). The team was coached by Julie Meline.
MS Swimming: Team awards went to Michael Tran, grade 8 (MVP), Linette Hoffman, grade 7, and Logan Braun, grade 6 (Eagle), and Carlo Banzon, grade 7, and Eira Saraff, grade 6. Unfortunately, the WBAL finals were cancelled due to poor air-quality issues. However, we did have a few first place finishers in the Castilleja meet. Michael Tran (50 fly, 100 freestyle relay and 100 medley relay), Heidi Lu, grade 6 (25 backstroke), Elvis Han, grade 8 (50 backstroke and 100 free relay), Nika Lebedev, grade 7 (100 individual relay), Sascha Pakravan, grade 8 (100 free relay), Willian Zhao, grade 8 (100 free relay and 100 medley relay), Carlo Banzon, grade 7 (100 medley relay) and Kai Burich, grade 8 (100 medley relay).
LS Swimming: Team awards went to Shwetha Sundar, grade 4, and Nikhil Pesati, grade 5 (Eagle), and Kaan Kurtoglu, grade 4, and Disha Gupta, grade 4 (Coaches).
MS Cross Country: Team awards went to Dawson Chen, grade 8, and Ashley Barth, grade 8 (MVP), Shahzeb Lakhani, grade 8, and Emma Gao, grade 6 (Eagle), and Alex Liou, grade 8, and Trisha Iyer, grade 6 (Coaches). Unfortunately, the WBAL finals were cancelled due to the poor air quality issues. However, we did have a few first place finishers in the league meets. Our grade 8 boys team took first place at the Crystal Springs Relays and our grade 7/8 boys team took first place at the Harker Meet.
MS Golf: The middle school golf team was league champs of the WBAL Fall tournament, winning by 10 strokes. The top golfer of the tournament was Claire Chen, grade 7 (35), followed by Freddy Hoch, grade 7 (37), Marcus Page, grade 8 (38) and Athreya Daniel, grade 7 (40).
Harker’s upper school math club sent a team to the Princeton University Mathematics Competition, a tier one competition. Overall, our team finished in fifth place out of 60-plus teams – an excellent performance! In the individual subcategory, Swapnil Garg, grade 12, finished in a very impressive second place out of 300-plus students. Go math Eagles!
Harker’s middle school speech and debate team has already competed at nine tournaments across three states (California, Illinois and Texas), with some great results. More than 125 Harker students competed in at least one tournament, and our middle schoolers compete primarily against high school students, so successes are especially sweet!
Presentation High School (San Jose)
From Oct. 6-8, 50 schools across three states representing 198 entries competed in public forum and Lincoln-Douglas debate. Thirty-one Harker middle school students competed and the following awards were earned.
JV Public Forum Speaker Awards
3rd – Connor Wilcox, grade 8
4th – Vienna Parnell, grade 8
JV Lincoln-Douglas Speaker Awards
1st – Karoun Kaushik, grade 8
3rd – Alex Lan, grade 7
4th – Ayan Nath, grade 8
Intramural No. 1 (Harker Middle School)
On Oct. 10, about 79 Harker middle school students competed in six distinct events and received the following awards.
Policy Debate (Workshop)
1st – Mir Bahri, grade 7, and Saanvi Arora, grade 8
Lincoln-Douglas
1st – Harsh Deep, grade 8
Lincoln-Douglas Speaker Awards
1st – Brian Chen, grade 7
Public Forum
1st – Rohan Thakur and Rohan Rashingkar, both grade 8
Public Forum Speaker Awards
1st – Ysabel Chen, grade 8
2nd – Muzzi Khan, grade 7
3rd – Rohan Thakur, grade 8
4th – Stephen Xia, grade 7
Congress (Workshop)
1st – Dhruv Saoji, grade 8
Speech (Impromptu)
1st- Zubin Khera, grade 7
Intro (6th Graders Only)
1st – Reza Jalil, grade 6
2nd – Arjun Moogimane, grade 6
Intro Speaker Awards (6th Graders Only)
1st – Panav Gogte, grade 6
2nd – Angelina Zhu, grade 6
California State University Fullerton (Los Angeles)
On Oct.13-15, 58 schools from across four states representing 560 entries competed in all speech and debate events. Forty-five Harker middle school students competed and many earned awards.
Novice Policy
3rd – Keya Mann and Saanvi Arora, both grade 8 (semifinalists)
5th – Sarah Mohammed and Tiffany Chang, both grade 7 (quarterfinalists, walked over)
Novice Policy Speaker Awards
7th – Saanvi Arora, grade 8
8th – Keya Mann, grade 8
9th – Sarah Mohammed, grade 7
MS Lincoln-Douglas Speaker Awards
9th – Rahul Santhanam, grade 7
10th – Jason Monaghan, grade 6
Novice Public Forum
3rd – Rohan Rashingkar and Rohan Thakur, with grade 8 (semifinalists)
Unranked – Laurie Jin and Trisha Variyar, both grade 7 (top middle schoolers)
St. Marks (Dallas)
On Oct. 14-6, 122 schools across 22 states representing 288 of the best debate entries in the country competed. Five Harker middle school students competed in Lincoln-Douglas debate.
Notre Dame/Harvard-Westlake (Los Angeles)
On Nov. 4-6, 56 schools across 10 states representing 212 entries competed in Lincoln-Douglas and policy debate. Nine Harker middle school students competed and received the following awards.
On Nov. 11-12, 29 schools across four states representing 94 entries competed in debate events. Fifteen Harker middle school students competed.
Intramural No. 2 (Harker Middle School)
On Nov. 15, about 49 Harker middle schools students competed in three distinct events and received the following awards.
Public Forum
1st – Deeya Viradia and Carol Wininger, both grade 7
Top 6th graders – Arjun Gurjar and Krishna Mysoor, both grade 6
Public Forum Speaker Awards
1st – Nika Lebedev, grade 7
2nd – Arjun Gurjar, grade 6
3rd – Rupert Chen, grade 7
Speech (Impromptu)
1st – Angela Gao, grade 8
Intro (6th Graders Only)
1st – Emma Gao, grade 6
2nd – Divya Venkat, grade 6
Intro Speaker Awards (6th Graders Only)
1st – Kabir Buch, grade 6
2nd – Emma Gao, grade 6
Santa Clara University No. 1 (Santa Clara)
From Nov. 17-9, 104 schools across three states representing 1,692 entries competed in all speech and debate events. Approximately 110 Harker students competed (about 90 were middle school students), and a few received the following awards.
Varsity Public Forum
17th – Sascha Pakravan and Ayan Nath, both grade 8
Varsity Public Forum Speaker Awards
6th – Sascha Pakravan, grade 8
Novice Public Forum
9th – Deeya Viradia and Carol Wininger, both grade 7 (octofinalist)
From Nov. 18-20, 307 schools across 37 states representing 1,628 entries competed in all speech and debate events. Four Harker middle school students competed. Congrats to all the participants and many thanks to Christopher Thiele, middle school speech and debate teacher!
Harker middle school students gave impressive performances at the First Lego League robotics qualifiers on Nov. 19, held at the NASA Ames Research Center. Grade 6 students Kabir Ramzan, Jordan Labio and Dustin Miao – collectively known as “Alpha Wolves” – placed first overall and received the Champion’s Award for robot performance and design, as well as the project they submitted for the FLL Global Innovation Contest, which uses rainwater and irrigation systems to reduce wasteful water usage. The team earned entry into the Global Innovation contest that will take place in March.
Also in the competition were Ramit Goyal and Joe Li, both grade 6, who were members of team “Savage Ninjas.” Their team took second place in the robot performance category, earning an 175 points in the final round, more than any other team at the event. Their project was to develop a method of controlling the use irrigation water by employing moisture sensors, which would save the use of California irrigation water by up to 40%.
Last week, the yearly grade 5 food drive culminated in a donation of 1,900 food items (worth more than $700) to St. Justin’s Community Ministry Pantry. Students collected items over a period of two weeks, requesting canned vegetables, pasta, rice, beans and other goods. The drop-off was a special occasion for the students and parents, who were joined by former lower school teacher Pat Walsh, who started the food drive more than 20 years ago. Walsh retired at the end of the 2016-17 school year after an incredible 41 years at Harker, and his appearance to help with the drop-off was a fitting way to end a successful effort!
Last week, fifth graders headed up to the Marin Headlands for the annual class trip, during which they took in the breathtaking views offered by the hilly destination, located just across the Golden Gate Bridge.
The students, separated into hiking groups, headed off to various locations around the area. At the Marine Mammal Center, students visited local animals that were being treated for illness. Other students hiked down to the beach for an up-close look at the ocean, while another group enjoyed the indoor touch pools set up by the environmental education organization NatureBridge.
During their afternoon free time, students socialized at their dormitories and played sports such as basketball, soccer and volleyball. Students also braved the wind and rain for an evening hike, in which they traveled to the beach to view the noctiluca, a bioluminescent species of dinoflagellates. Other stops during the trip were Hawk Hill and a local lighthouse. Students also went on a series of hikes around the area, which presented ample opportunities to experience the Marin Headlands’ natural wonders.
The speech and debate team is off to an amazing start this season. The team has competed at 15 tournaments this season locally and in Texas, Florida, Iowa and Southern California. Already the team has proven to be nationally competitive across all of the events we participate in, with multiple students winning awards at national competitions. When asked about the keys to the team’s success, coach Greg Achten explained, “I have been very impressed with how hard our students have worked this year. In all of the events, we lost very talented seniors to graduation, but our returning students have really stepped up this year and demonstrated tremendous leadership.”
In policy debate, we have had standout performances by Jacob Ohana and Alan Hughes, both grade 12, who did so well at the prestigious St. Mark’s tournament that they are partly qualified for the Tournament of Champions. Maddie Huynh, grade 10, and Andy Lee, grade 9, made it to the final round of a sophomore round robin. Megan Huynh, grade 12, Anusha Kuppahally, grade 11, Esha Deokar, grade 11, Deven Parikh, grade 9, Jason Lin, grade 9 and Jai Bahri, grade 10, also have all won awards in policy. The year-long topic in policy debate is about federal education reform. Our students advocate that the Supreme Court needs to guarantee unauthorized migrants a right to education.
The individual events competitors also have had an outstanding season. Avi Gulati, grade 10 and Haris Hosseini, grade 11, have each won first place in original oratory and made it to the final round multiple times. Gulati also has made it to the final round of extemporaneous speaking, along with David Feng, grade 10. Nikhil Dharmaraj, grade 11, qualified for finals in original oratory. Nikki Solanki, grade 10, has made multiple final-round appearances in dramatic interpretation and programmed oral interpretation.
In Lincoln-Douglas debate, Serena Lu, grade 12, was invited to compete in an elite round robin at Presentation High School. Karoun Kaushik, grade 8, had a remarkable performance in the junior varsity division of the Presentation tournament, where he took first place! Harker also had a fabulous showing at the Harvard-Westlake tournament. Lauren Fu, Sachin Shah and Quentin Clark, all grade 10, Akshay Manglik and Aditya Tadimeti, both grade 9, and Anshul Reddy, grade 8, all made it to elimination rounds. The Lincoln-Douglas debaters are researching and arguing about whether wealthy nations are morally obligated to provide poorer countries with development assistance.
In public forum debate, Amanda Cheung and Annie Ma, both grade 10, have reached elimination rounds. The grade 11 duo of Clarissa Wang and Cindy Wang have been invited to two exclusive round robins and have represented the school in elimination rounds across the country. The public forum community is debating the very timely topic of universal background checks for gun sales.
In congressional debate, Andrew Sun, grade 9, and David Feng, grade 10, performed well enough at the University of Florida to earn their first bids to the Tournament of Champions. Jason Huang, grade 11, already has had such a great season that he is fully qualified to the Tournament of Champions. Congressional debaters argue about a wide variety of topics and must be very tuned into current events to be successful.
The coaches also have been incredibly proud of how well the students have operated as a cohesive team. There have been many instances where students who were eliminated from a competition immediately turned around to coach teammates who advanced. More experienced students have also done a great job of mentoring newer students before tournaments. Coach Scott Odekirk noted, “The friendly and supportive atmosphere of the team is on display at tournament. Nobody is eliminated until everyone is eliminated. We cheer each other on and lift each other when we are down. Honestly, it is quite inspiring.”
Last month, Kathy Peng’s grade 7 science students made fidget spinners as a lesson in Newton’s laws of motion. Peng prepared the exercise as a challenge in which teams of students designed and created their own version of the toy, which became popular this past spring. Users spin the toy using one of the prongs that protrude from its center.
Each team was tasked with creating a fidget spinner that spun for as long as possible. Teams were given two weeks to complete the project, during which they had access to the 3D printers at the middle school campus Innovation Lab. Students also created analysis documents tracking their design, testing and iteration processes, which enabled them to “explain the physics behind their project, and reflect on their group’s teamwork, design and testing process and future ideas,” Peng said.
Peng designed and executed the fidget spinner project as part of the LID (Learning, Innovation and Design) Grant program, which provides opportunities for teachers to bolster their teaching methods. “Doing a LID grant is doubly awesome because you get to learn a new skill or technology that’s transferable to future instruction, and prepare a lesson or project that you can implement in the coming school year,” said Peng. “So you gain not only theoretical knowledge, which is cool, but you also develop something that is immediately applicable.”
The fidget spinner exercise, Peng hopes, will help students “see how physics is everywhere and that an understanding of science, engineering and design can be not only useful but also fun.”
Over the winter break, senior Swapnil Garg and junior Katherine Tian were covered by the San Jose Mercury News for their performance in the 2017 Siemens Competition, which earned them a trip to the national finals in December.
Nov. 6, 2017:
Swapnil Garg, grade 12, and Katherine Tian, grade 11, are off to the Siemens Competition national finals! Their project – titled “Automated Clear Cell Renal Carcinoma Grade Classification with Prognostic Significance” – was selected as one of six team projects that will be considered for top honors at the final stage of the competition, held Dec. 4-5 in Washington, D.C. There, the two students will be eligible to win up to $100,000 in scholarship prizes, split evenly between them. As finalists, the pair are guaranteed a minimum $25,000 prize.
Oct. 18, 2017:
Congratulations to senior Swapnil Garg and junior Katherine Tian, who were just named two of the 101 regional finalists in this year’s Siemens Competition! They each will receive a $1,000 scholarship prize and are eligible to compete at the regional finals for the opportunity to advance to the National Finals in Washington, D.C. Best of luck!
Oct. 17, 2017:
Today, the Siemens Foundation named 10 Harker students regional semifinalists in the 2017 Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology, the most from any California school. Each year, individual and team research projects from six regions are selected to be semifinalists.
Harker’s semifinalists in the 2017 competition are Cynthia Chen and Jin Tuan, grade 10; Erin Liu, Ashwin Rammohan, Katherine Tian, Laura Wu and Katherine Zhang, grade 11; and Amy Dunphy, Swapnil Garg and Amy Jin, grade 12.
These 10 students are among the 491 semifinalists nationwide chosen from more than 1,860 projects submitted. Each of the semifinalists’ projects will be evaluated to determine which students will be named regional finalists, who in November will enter into six regional competitions. Winners from the regional finals events are eligible to attend in the National Finals, held at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where finalists will compete for $500,000 in scholarships.
The finalists announcement is set to take place tomorrow. Stay tuned!