Bay Area middle school students enjoyed a revamped Summer Institute this year that included a wealth of educational and recreational activities. “The entire program is new this year,” said middle school summer director Kelly Espinosa. In contrast to previous years, this year’s middle school summer institute operated independently at the middle school campus. “Because of the construction at Saratoga … we couldn’t have this many kids there,” Espinosa explained. “So we left the program at Saratoga for the high school kids and moved the sixth and seventh graders here.”
The program was designed to give students unprecedented flexibility in their choices of classes and activities. Morning offerings included beginning and advanced math, writing, science, robotics and art. Several classes were offered in both the morning and afternoon, enabling students to mix and match activities to their liking. For instance, a student could sign up for an afternoon pre-algebra session to make time for a morning debate boot camp.
The afternoon session also included various recreational activities, such as games, crafts and cooking so that students could learn new things and make new friends (as well as reconnect with old ones) in a positive environment.
A host of sports camps also were available to Summer Institute attendees, staffed by supportive coaches who guided students in a skill-focused environment. The camps, which included basketball, soccer, volleyball, wrestling and table tennis, were designed for players of all skill levels. “Our camps are targeted to kids who love the sport and want to learn more about it,” said Espinosa. This gives attendees the opportunity to establish a level of comfort with a sport and give them more confidence to play sports during the school year. “They actually understand it now where they never did before because they were too intimidated by it,” Espinosa noted. “And then things like pingpong are just fun.”
The San Jose Mercury News published a story yesterday on Gargeya’s achievement, noting that he “appears to have already swayed Google judges.” Read the full story.
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Rishab Gargeya, rising senior and Saratoga resident, was recently named a regional finalist in the international Google Science Fair 2016! Thousands of participants from more than 100 countries entered their projects in the competition. Gargeya’s project is one of only 100 finalists selected from around the globe. It is currently one of the top 50 projects in the 16-18 age category identified as having the potential to change the world.
The project summary notes, “This study develops a novel smartphone-based diagnostic tool that can automatically detect any retinal abnormality within seconds. Through the use of a low-cost external ophthalmic lens attachment, individuals can diagnose themselves with their smartphones at any time, allowing them to seek medical attention accordingly to prevent any potential vision complications.”
Rising senior Niki Iyer won the women’s age 17-18 3000-meter race in 10:05.08 at the USATF National Junior Olympic Track & Field Championships at Sacramento State University in late July! Check out this great interview with her as she recaps her motivation for the race and talks about her upcoming season at with the Harker team.
Harker’s Office of Communication recently earned an Award of Distinction in the annual Videographer Awards competition for their video on the Harker Research Symposium. The video was part of an extended online multimedia piece entitled, “A Decade of Wonder,” about the Harker Research Symposium, which has been held since 2006. Other Award of Distinction winners in this annual contest included Comcast, Bell Helicopters, Bayer Healthcare, Brigham Young University, Dell Computers and University of Massachusetts. Here is a direct link so you can watch full screen.
As of the last week in July, the athletic center and performing arts center construction site is sporting two deep holes, and plenty of work went on before they were dug.
“Over the past month we have been putting in all the underground infrastructure and that is complete,” said Mike Bassoni, Harker’s facility director. “We have our new storm lines to control storm water, our new sewer lines and many of our electric and low voltage duct banks in the ground. Those are all mapped by GPS. We can dig down to within an inch and find these pipes, the path they’re traveling and the depth they are in the ground. So if we have to find them later or alter them or add to the system, we know exactly where they are.”
Following installation of underground infrastructure, the whole site was carefully graded using GPS-directed graders which allow accuracy in leveling to within 1 inch, Bassoni noted. As soon as the grading was finished for the gym site, excavation began.
The athletic center excavation was started first and, for several days in mid-July, an unending stream of dirt haulers wound through the construction site, each collecting its load of dirt from the Caterpillar hydraulic excavator and hauling it off. The excavator moves about 135 cubic feet of dirt with every shovelful and the trucks haul away 3-5 shovelfuls each, depending on their capacity. About 1,900 truckloads of dirt will leave the construction site in the end.
The performing arts excavation is still in progress and the resulting huge pile of dirt will be trucked off campus when summer camps wrap up. The athletic center excavation is already having its earthen walls stabilized with a sprayed-on cement compound.
The basements are critical components in both buildings, noted Bassoni. The athletic center basement will be home to the playing courts, bleachers, locker rooms and guest team rooms. The theater basement will be home to the orchestra pit, below-stage storage areas, and dressing and equipment rooms. Both basements will house heating and air conditioning equipment, but the excavations also hold the main performance areas. “In the gymnasium, you’ll be walking into a promenade at the top of the seating which will cascade to the playing floor 14 feet below entry level,” said Bassoni.
“In the theater, again, you’ll walk into the top of the seating on the main floor and the seating will cascade about a dozen feet to the theater floor in front of the stage,” he added. “Also, underneath the stage, you’ll have trapdoors, an orchestra pit, a grand piano storage area with hydraulics to bring that to the grade level, and a very large mechanical system that will provide heating and cooling into the acting space with absolutely no sense of sound.
“Even when the theater goes to complete black you will not be able to hear the mechanical system running during an intermission or a pause in the acting. So, that’s why we’re creating these basement areas: it’s energy efficient because the earth keeps conditioned air much more stable so you are not using a lot of additional energy for heating and cooling,” Bassoni explained.
Energy efficiency runs deep in the double project. “Both buildings are going to achieve LEED Gold certification similar to that that Nichols Hall achieved in 2009,” said Bassoni. “All of the exterior windows are of a very high efficiency level so that they will keep heating and cooling within the building. The gymnasium will have a 140-kilowatt photovoltaic or solar electric system to keep both buildings about 25 percent off the grid.”
But before all that can be implemented, the basements need to be finished and the site arranged for drop-off access.
Now, in late July, concrete stabilization is already being poured for the athletic center. Once the stabilization is complete in the athletic center basement, the underground plumbing and electrical conduits will be installed, said Bassoni. “Finally, the concrete slab that will create the basement floor will be poured,” he said. “That will happen in late September or early October. We’re moving along at a really fast clip, 10-12 hours per day on excavations so the bulk can be finished by the time school starts.”
At this point, the perimeter around the excavations has been smoothed out and tamped down so that construction traffic can get around the site safely, and part of that access will remain in use for parent drop-off when school starts.
The performing arts center excavation will finish up about mid-August, and stabilization of the gym basement will finish up about the same time. The PA basement does not require a stabilization process as the excavation is utilizing a “lay-back process” which greatly reduces shoring of the excavated sidewalls during construction. The foundation cement pours are slated to begin about mid-September. The entire site will be groomed for the opening of classes in the first weeks of August so, although it might be a bit dusty, student drop-off and pickup will be ready for the start of the school year. Watch for our monthly report on construction project and for updates in Facebook, Instagram and Twitter!
Beginning in June 2016 Harker launched two new state-of-the art building projects on the upper school campus, the result of a $45M capital campaign. The 33,000 square-foot athletic center, opening August 2017, features a 12,000 sq.-ft. gym, athletic training room with advanced hydrotherapy unit, and spacious team rooms. The Rothschild Performing Arts Center, opening spring of 2018, features a 450-seat theater with fly loft and hydraulic orchestra pit, a state of the art scene shop, vocal, instrumental, theater/musical theater classrooms and dressing rooms. For more information visit the news and video links below or contact communications@harker.org
The speech and debate team had some outstanding success in June! The upper school team was represented by Nikhil Dharmaraj, rising sophomore, at the National Speech & Debate Association championship in Salt Lake City, Utah, June 12-17. The tournament is the most competitive national championship for individual speaking events, which are his specialty.
Dharmaraj was one of 250 students in the country to qualify in original oratory (out of thousands who tried to qualify). He made it to the quarterfinals, ranking him 28th in the nation as a ninth grader. His topic was how we need to be better about avoiding the “sunk cost” fallacy or why it is better to admit mistakes and move on than to keep pouring resources into failed strategies based on bad decisions.
During the same week, the middle school team was represented by a large group at the National Junior Forensic League Tournament, also in Salt Lake City, June 14-17. The biggest news from NJFL was that Harker won the top Overall School of Excellence Award for the fifth consecutive year!
A detailed breakdown of individual accomplishments at the NJFL is below. All grades listed are for the 2016-17 school year:
Original oratory
Avi Gulati, grade 9, 2nd place
Arusha Patil, grade 8, 6th place
Public Forum Debate
Jeremy Ding and Kenneth Liou, both grade 9, double octofinalists
Lincoln-Douglas Debate
Sachin Shah, grade 9, finalist (2nd place)
Akshay Manglik, grade 8, quarterfinalist
Aditi Vinod, grade 8, octofinalist
Policy Debate
Jai Bahri, grade 9 and Jason Lin, grade 8, semifinalists
Andy Lee, grade 8 and Deven Shah, grade 7, quarterfinalists
Dramatic Interpretation
Nikki Solanki, grade 9, 9th place
Storytelling
Avi Gulati, grade 9, 6th place
Impromptu
Avi Gulati, grade 9, 2nd place
Prose Interpretation
Nikki Solanki, grade 9, 6th place
The coaches were incredibly proud of all of our students. They represented Harker very well as strong competitors and excellent community citizens. Recent graduates Karen Qi, Zarek Drozda and Panny Shan, all Class of 2016, came along to coach the middle school students. “Harker has a reputation for being smart, well spoken and gracious whether we win or lose, and that image is a result of how our students conduct themselves at every tournament,” noted Jenny Alme, department chair of communication studies.
The Harker DECA officer team, 15 strong, attended the DECA Emerging Leader Summit (ELS) at the Hilton San Francisco Financial District in early July to partake in leadership workshops and develop as a team. Officers from all over the country traveled to San Francisco for leadership training, networking opportunities and keynote speakers.
The group attended several workshops on communication, professional behavior, fundraising and chapter development. The students also attended an etiquette luncheon, took a bus tour of the city and held a chapter dinner.
“ELS was a good opportunity for the officer team to reconnect and get stuff ready and planned for DECA Launch,” co-CEO Alexis Gauba, grade 12, said. “It was also an opportunity for the officer team to bond and have some fun together, and it was definitely valuable that the teams had some designated team time.”
The team is now preparing for DECA Launch, which will happen Aug. 15-16.
Harker DECA is an international competitive business organization that prepares emerging leaders and entrepreneurs in four fields of business: marketing, finance, hospitality and management. Harker’s DECA chapter integrates classroom instruction, applies learning, connects to business and promotes competition so that the next generation will be academically prepared, community oriented, professionally responsible and experienced leaders.
Harker rising third grader Anika Rajaram, an avid chess player, was recently invited to represent the United States at the 2016 World Cadets Chess Championships, to be held in October in the Georgian city of Batumi. Rajaram has had a string of successes at recent tournaments, including the Susan Polgar Foundation World K-2 girls championship, where she earned a perfect score. At the Susan Polgar Foundation National Open, Rajaram took second place among girls in her age group. She tied for second place at the Renaissance Knights Chess Foundation’s All-Girls Nationals in the under 8 category. Consistently ranked among the top 100 of players in her age group nationwide, as of press time Rajaram was the top-ranked player in the country under the age of 8.
Following an extensive multiyear effort across the Harker community, The Harker School has now been recognized by as a Certified Green Business by the Bay Area Green Business Program. In addition to being a major sustainability goal, fulfilling the requirements for certification also is expected to reduce costs in a variety of ways.
“Aside from the primary goals of being a more environmentally sustainable institution and meeting Harker’s standard of modeling and teaching sustainability through our actions, CGB provides a report card,” said Jeff Sutton, Harker science teacher and a member of Harker’s Green Committee. “This report card provides positive feedback as to how much savings, both fiscal and in the reduction of our impact on the environment, the actions are generating. These numbers are estimates but still provide encouragement for continuance in the program.”
The effort to become a Certified Green Business began in late 2012, when the newly formed Green Committee was searching for a way to advance Harker’s sustainability goals. “[Harker head of school] Chris Nikoloff began the search for a tool to implement to gain better understanding of sustainability at Harker, including knowing what Harker was doing to be stewards of resources and looking for ways to improve the overall sustainability of the operation of the school,” Sutton said. “The CGB application provided an excellent framework because it was so comprehensive and very objective in the tasks needed to achieve CGB status.”
Preparation for the application process began in 2013 and lasted through the year. Applications for all four of Harker’s campuses were submitted in May 2014, and inspectors from Santa Clara County visited in June and noted what needed to be done to qualify for the certification.
The schoolwide effort to become certified lasted for the next two years, with key projects and initiatives occurring on all campuses. Shipping/receiving manager Bob Benge and business manager Clif Wilcox devised a more sustainable policy for school purchases. Stephen Martin, executive director of food services, worked with the Harker kitchen staff to acquire food products that had been sustainably produced, in addition to using more environmentally friendly paper products and discontinuing the use of polystyrene. Thanks to transportation supervisor Heather Armada, all of Harker’s vehicles now use recycled oil. Other projects included spearheading the use of Energy Star-rated electronics, using recycled paper for photocopying, examining the use of LED lighting and much more.
Harker’s Green Business certification is up for renewal in three years, and Sutton is confident that the school will maintain its dedication to sustainability. “As an institution of education, it is awesome to see Harker modeling ways to improve its sustainability in its relationship with the environment,” he said.
Thanks to a nationwide effort co-sponsored by Harvest Snaps and Table for Two (TFT), Harker’s middle school students were able to help combat hunger simply by enjoying free samples of Harvest Snaps snacks handed out by members of the Academic and Cultural/Cuisine Exchange (ACE Club).
The ACE Club, co-led by Jennifer Walrod, director of global education, and middle school math teacher Kathy Pazirandeh, coordinated the arrival and distribution of the snack donations. They were handed out to students during lunchtime last month.
For each snack handed out, Harvest Snaps donated 25 cents to TFT to provide healthy school meals for children in East Africa, as well as in low-income communities in the U.S. ACE Club members raised $250 by distributing 1,000 bags of Harvest Snaps, reported Walrod.
By participating, Harker students had the opportunity to learn about healthy eating habits while providing nutritional school meals for malnourished children. The goal of the program was to elevate awareness on both childhood hunger and obesity around the world.
Through their partnership, Harvest Snaps and TFT raised enough money nationwide to provide more than 100,000 school meals to African children in Rwanda, Tanzania and Ethiopia, as well as in the U.S. In Africa, 25 cents funds one school meal for a child, and in the U.S. it enables school meal upgrades for healthier options in low-income neighborhoods.
“It was fun – and easy!” recalled Walrod, sharing that ACE Club members had created a PowerPoint about the project, which they presented at a schoolwide meeting in advance of the effort.
ACE Club members Jackie Hu, Ritika Rajamani and Niecey Atwood, all grade 6, called the project a great way to have fun while helping others.
“It’s a creative way to not only advertise their project but to raise awareness of the needs of good school lunches. We have good lunches but other schools do not,” said Rajamani.
“It’s something where you can be social and raise awareness of a good cause,” added Atwood.
According to TFT statistics, of the more than 7 billion people in the world, 1 billion suffer from hunger and malnutrition, while 2 billion are overweight or obese.