The middle school’s annual canned food drive began in early October and will run until mid-November. This year’s drive is being hosted by The Service Club in conjunction with Second Harvest Food Bank. At least 40 receptacles have been placed around the school for students and teachers to donate nonperishable food items.
“It’s a fun and good cause,” said Lorena Martinez, BEST director for the middle school, who is spearheading the project.
Martinez reported that if the students bring in 5,000 cans (10 per student), she and BJ Hathaway, assistant director of the Blackford campus’ BEST program, will dress up as turkeys after the drive’s conclusion. To date, nearly 800 cans have been collected.
“It is a house challenge. Whichever house wins gets 100 spirit points. Beneficium is in the lead as of now,” she said.
Stepping up to help those in need during the holiday season – and year round – is especially important now, as some 15.8 million children under 18 live in households where they are unable to consistently access enough nutritious food necessary for a healthy life, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Grade 1 students in teacher Rita Stone’s class had a great time celebrating Diwali, an important Hindu holiday. After enjoying their Diwali Party, the children had a better understanding of the annual Hindu festival. For example, they discovered that the word Diwali means “rows of lighted lamps.” Diwali is known as the Festival of Lights because houses, shops and public places are decorated with small earthenware oil lamps called diyas.
UPDATE: Freshman Katherine Zhu played a phenomenal golf game, shooting 3 under 69, to take second place in the CCS Championships. That is the best finish by any Harker golfer, male or female, in history. On the par 3 sixth hole, her tee shot found some branches on the right, but she was able to make an incredible up and down in a sloping green. That set the tone for the day, as Zhu played smart and relaxed golf. She had a hot streak of 3 birdies on 12, 13 and 15. Zhu advances to Norcals Monday at Salinas Country Club. Let’s wish her the best of luck as she represents Harker on the golf course. If there was every any doubt, hard work pays off. Congratulations K-Zhu!
In other news, Senior Sid Krishnamurthi is the School Winner of the Wendy’s High School Heisman award. The program supports the pursuit of athletic and academic excellence with integrity, honors student accomplishments and intends to inspire future high school students to pursue their higher education goals.
Nov. 4, 2014 The championships are coming! The golf squad has one of its own competing in the CCS Championships today. Volleyball and tennis have wrapped up their seasons with amazing records. The varsity water polo clubs have their league tournament this week. And the cross country squad competes on Friday!
Golf
Freshman golfing prodigy Katherine Zhu won an individual league championship last week and plays in the CCS Championships today in Carmel! The team finished third in the league championships.
In middle school golf news, the Harker MS team took first place at the WBAL tournament on Oct. 27 at Los Lagos! This is the Eagles sixth WBAL tournament championship in a row! Pinewood took second place and Sacred Heart took third.
Harker’s top four scorers were Scout McNealy (33), grade 8; Alex King (36), grade 7; Aditya Tadimeti (37), grade 6; and Ronit Gagneja (40), grade 7. Also posting great scores were Abhinav Joshi (41), grade 8; Natalie Vo (41), grade 6; Katelyn Vo (43), grade 7; and Elvin Chen (51), grade 6.
Volleyball
The girls varsity squad kept rolling last week, beating Mercy-SF to improve to 7-1 in league play. Celebrate this year’s seniors Shreya Dixit and Katy Sanchez this Thursday evening as the team takes on Sacred Heart Prep for Senior Night.
Water Polo
All three clubs beat Cupertino last week, with the sweep putting an exclamation point on the Senior Night festivities. The third-place varsity boys and fourth-place varsity girls are gearing up for the league tournament this week!
Tennis
Despite losing twice last week, the girls ended their season with a 14-6 overall record, having won 70 percent of their matches this year. They’ll look to add a few more, starting tonight in the league qualifier. The team will learn its CCS fate this coming weekend.
Football
Freshman Nate Kelly’s touchdown pass to junior Johnathon Keller and senior Alyssa Amick’s extra point were not enough for the Eagles to overcome a strong Immanuel High School squad. The team has a bye week and resume play on Nov. 14 at Senior Night against St. Francis-Watsonville.
Cross Country
This Friday, the cross country team competes in the league championships at Crystal Springs!
Harker’s youngest students enjoyed a spooktacular Halloween party! The second-annual event was held in the late afternoon on Oct.30. The festivities included activities in the classroom, special Halloween goodies and even trick-or-treating. Parents were encouraged to attend and participate.
“Preschool students trick-or-treated around the yards of the school. Treats (non-food items) were passed out by Harker staff members. Parents coordinated classroom parties. Costumes were worn by nearly all students, teachers and staff. It was a fun afternoon!” recalled Andrea Hart, director of Harker Preschool.
This week’s sports scores are hot off the presses – literally! The San Jose Mercury News recognized both an Eagles volleyball player and football player, while a freshman golfer won an WBAL championship! Let’s get to the scores and news:
Golf:
Freshman golfing sensation Katherine Zhu shot a 71 at Poplar Creek to win the WBAL individual championship! Zhu’s spectacular performance launches her into Tuesday’s section championship at Rancho Canada in Carmel, where she will have the opportunity to compete against the best in CCS.
At Poplar Creek, the team came in third overall, while junior Ashley Zhong tied for ninth. Last week, the girls lost to both first-place Castilleja and to Menlo, but overpowered Notre Dame-San Jose en route to a 210-249 victory. The team finished the regular season with a .500 record at 5-5-1.
Volleyball:
With a 14-8 record, the girls varsity volleyball team was ranked No. 15 on the San Jose Mercury News’ CCS rankings. Meanwhile, the Merc named senior Shreya Dixit Santa Clara County girls Athlete of the Week for her 31 kills in a 3-2 win against Menlo, 22 kills in Harker’s 3-1 victory over Notre Dame-San Jose, and average of 12.2 kills in Harker’s four victories out of five matches in the Notre Dame-Belmont Tournament. The paper also commended Dixit for being accepted into Yale next year!
Last week, girls volleyball won against both Notre Dame-San Jose and rival Menlo, giving them a share of first place with Menlo in the WBAL-Foothill Division. The girls reached the finals in the Notre Dame-Belmont Tournament.
Football:
The Merc also commended a freshman standout on Harker’s varsity football squad. Nate Kelly was featured in the Mercury News’ high school sports highlight reel of top performances for the last week. He was recognized for throwing for 210 yards and five touchdowns and running for 108 yards in three touchdowns in Harker’s 64-40 victory over Emery. Kelly’s unbelievable game gave the Eagles’ their third win of the year. Harker also got touchdowns from juniors Johnathon Keller and Miles DeWitt, and seniors Sid Krishnamurthi, Christian Williams and Keanu Forbes. Senior Alyssa Amick was perfect on extra points, kicking all four of her attempts through the uprights. Today, the team travels to Fresno to take on Immanuel High School.
Tennis:
The girls varsity squad won twice last week, trumping both King’s Academy and Crystal Springs by scores of 6-1, catapulting the team’s record to a fantastic 14-4.
Cross Country:
Last week, junior Lev Sepetov, and sophomores Andrew Rule and Steven Cao, all ran personal bests for the boys. On the girls’ side, sophomore Niki Iyer led from the start and won by 20 seconds with a 18:24 time, while junior Alex Dellar ran a 21:03.
Water Polo:
The girls avenged an earlier double-overtime loss to Monta Vista by crushing them 10-5 last week. The team is now 7-12 overall and playing their best games of the season heading into the league tournament. The boys lost to strong Wilcox and Los Gatos teams, dropping their record to 9-10 overall.
We are saddened to announce that James “Jim” Near, father of longtime history teacher John Near, passed away Oct. 12 in Maui, Hawaii. He was 87 years old.
Jim and his wife, Patricia, established The Harker School’s first endowment, the John Near Excellence in History Education Endowment Fund, in 2009, to honor their son’s teaching career after he passed away in September of that year. Many students and families have since made memorial contributions to the endowment, increasing both the scope and breadth of the research that students honored as Near Scholars have been able to explore each year with their grants from the endowment. Recent research topics have included the impact of the feminist and civil rights movements on the disability rights movement of the 1960s and ’70s, and an in-depth review of news coverage on the Vietnam War and the resulting tension between news media and the federal government.
Jim Near’s generosity and vision will support our students and their teacher mentors in perpetuity, as they explore their interest in history research at The Harker School. The Endowment also funds the continued development of the John Near Resource Center in Shah Hall on the Saratoga campus.
Jim is survived by his granddaughter, Casey Near ’06, and daughter-in-law, Pam Dickinson, Harker’s Office of Communication director, as well as his wife, three sons and daughter. Contributions can be made in Jim’s honor to the John Near Excellence in History Education Endowment Fund by emailing Allison Vaughan at allison.vaughan@harker.org.
During a special assembly on Oct. 19, upper school students heard from three representatives of The James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS). Based at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, CNS aims to prevent weapons of mass destruction from spreading by educating young people on issues of nonproliferation.
At the beginning of the assembly, Diana Nichols, former head of school and member of the Harker Board of Trustees, announced a new partnership with CNS and introduced CNS researcher and project manager Masako Toki. After giving a brief rundown of CNS and its goals, Toki told students about the center’s Critical Issues Forum (CIF), a program that enables high school students from around the world to come together to discuss and present research on nonproliferation topics. Next year’s CIF Student Conference will be held in Hiroshima, Japan, where the first of two atomic bombs was dropped in 1945 to hasten the end of World War II.
Another speaker was Tom Greg, a CNS graduate and researcher who served in the U.S. Navy on a nuclear submarine and held a crucial role in the decision to launch nuclear missiles. He recounted the story of his visit to Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Museum, which he called “one of the most intense experiences of my life.” He later decided to devote his graduate studies to researching nuclear nonproliferation.
The final speaker was Avner Cohen, senior fellow and professor at CNS, who spoke about the history of the nuclear age, including the discovery of Israel’s nuclear weapons program, which had been hidden for many years. Cohen showed a video that recapped the advent of nuclear weapons, from the earliest threat of their potential use by the Nazis to the arms race that helped drive the Cold War.
Recently, a group of Harker students began working with computer science department chair Eric Nelson on nonproliferation studies. The students plan to research a topic yet to be chosen and present at the conference in Hiroshima.
“I see a future of going into politics or political science, and I’m also on the debate team, so it seemed like a topic that would be of interest to me,” said Zarek Drozda, grade 11, one of the students working with Nelson. “Certainly I’ve heard about nuclear problems through debate and such, so I think kind of doing debate awakened me to these issues and I found an interest in it.”
“We’re just every week trying to find different topics to cover that will take us in the right direction once the project gets started,” said Jeton Gutierrez-Bujari, grade 12, who discovered the topic through his interest in physics. “I’m really interested in physics and so I’ve been talking to Dr. Nelson about just nuclear weapons in general for the past year or so. He brought to my attention this project and I liked the politics part of it as well.”
This year Harker was thrilled to welcome one of the largest-ever contingents of students from its sister school, the Tamagawa K-12 School & University in Tokyo, Japan. On Oct.14, the 28 exchange students, along with their three chaperones, arrived at the middle school for their first in-person meeting with their grade 6 Harker buddies.
Each fall, as part of a long-running program, the Tamagawa students come to Harker for a much-anticipated weeklong visit. Prior to that, Harker and Tamgawa peers keep in contact through video conferences and email exchanges.
While here, the Japanese students stayed with their Harker buddies and their families. They went sightseeing around the Bay Area, and visited and observed classes at the Blackford campus.
Among their many activities, the students made tie-dyed T-shirts with both the Harker eagle and Tamagawa eagle on them (the schools coincidentally share the same mascot), made slushies, went on a scavenger hunt and enjoyed a bittersweet ice cream farewell party. The Japanese students also joined in on classes such as dance, drama, art and P.E.
The Tamagawa students also spent time at the lower school, where they worked with the kindergarteners on an origami activity. Previously, the kindergarten students had received an album depicting life at Tamagawa’s kindergarten.
Kishan Sood, a grade 6 Harker student, said that he and his buddy, Satoya, had a lot of fun together. “We went to San Francisco and saw a lot of amazing things there.”
After his buddy returned to Japan, Sood received a thank you email from Satoya. “That really made me feel that he had a great time in America and he appreciated everything that we did for him. That made me feel special,” said Sood.
Fellow Harker sixth grader Ruya Ozveren added, “Mao Tominaga is my buddy and she is awesome. We had a great time together. It was really hard letting my buddy go, because she felt like my sister and I’ve never had a sister before. When she left she said she couldn’t wait till I come to Japan. She talked about her family and where she would take me when I got there. I also learned a lot about my buddy. I learned a lot of lessons from this experience and can’t wait for the rest in Japan!”
Jennifer Walrod, Harker’s director of global education, reported that all the students had an amazing time. “When the Tamagawa buddies first arrived everyone was so quiet and shy. But by the farewell party, the kids were all running around, laughing, taking photos and behaving like the best of friends that they have become,” she said.
In other Tamagawa news, middle school P.E. teacher Chrissy Chang spent time in Japan as Harker’s visiting exchange teacher. In the spring, Harker students will head to Tamagawa as part of the reciprocal exchange program. (Look for further coverage on that from Harker News!)
In May, Manthra Panchapakesan, grade 12, was named the state and national first-place winner in the InvestWrite competition, put on by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA). The annual competition, launched in 2004, presents students in grades 4-12 with an investment scenario for which they must make portfolio recommendations for both short- and long-term financial goals. As a culmination of The Stock Market Game, which is played by nearly 600,000 students nationwide, the InvestWrite competition, with 20,000 participants each year, helps students develop the know-how to make real-world financial decisions.
The parents of Harker’s littlest learners recently gathered on the Union campus for Harker Preschool’s much-anticipated Back-to-School Night. Held on Oct. 16, the event began with parents heading to their child’s regular classroom before visiting several specialty classrooms. Parents enjoyed coming together as a community, and chatting with one another as well as with the teachers. They left with a better understanding of how their children spend their days, learning and growing as students. For some parents the event was especially memorable as it marked their very first Back-to-School Night experience!