Two former Harker students suited up for Stanford’s Rose Bowl victory on New Year’s day, and Usua Amanam ’09, played a key role and was named MVP for defense. Amanan, who attended Harker’s lower and middle schools from 1996-2005, went on to a stellar career at Bellarmine (Harker had recently opened its upper school and the football program was still growing). In the Rose Bowl, Amanam was first tagged for roughing the kicker, but luckily the penalty was declined. Then, Amanam made his big play, intercepting a pass in Wisconsin’s final drive with two minutes remaining to lock down the game for Stanford.
Gautam Krishnamurthi ’11, a sophomore at Stanford, was suited up – number 38 – and ready to play. He joined the team during the off-season and is working towards a starting slot. Krishnamurthi earned two varsity letters as a wide receiver and safety and had a stellar, record-setting career with Harker, including being named an AP Scholar Athlete with Distinction. Read all about it in his Stanford team profile.
Congrats to both men and best of luck in future efforts!
Harker debate students made history in the final week leading up to the holiday break, being the first team to both win the Public Forum open invitational and the elite Public Forum round robin hosted by The Blake School in Minneapolis.
Anuj Sharma and Aneesh Chona, both grade 12, won the Public Forum division of the 50th annual John Edie Holiday Classic, a tournament that boasts 104 entries from throughout the United States. Chona also earned 11th overall speaker and Sharma earned 12th overall speaker out of 208 students. Seniors David Grossman and Nikhil Agarwal made it to the top 16 teams and seniors Reyhan Kader and Kiran Arimilli earned a spot in the top 32.
The Twin Cities Round Robin, an elite tournament inviting 12 of the top Public Forum teams in the country, was held the day after the open invitational concluded. Sharma and Chona won their preliminary pod and went on to win the round robin. Chona was named the top overall speaker at the round robin and Sharma earned second overall speaker.
Sarah Howells ’12, now a freshman at Princeton University, recently won first place in the Churchill Research Paper Competition sponsored by the University of Minnesota’s Churchill Center. “The history department is delighted to congratulate Sarah on winning first prize in the Churchill Research Paper competition,” said Harker history department chair Donna Gilbert.
Howells is the contest’s first winner, and it’s not the only first that she has earned for the paper, titled “Winston Churchill’s Efforts to Unify Britain from 1940-1941.” It was also Howells’ submission to earn a grant from the Mitra Family Endowment, which was established last year by Harker parents Samir and Sundari Mitra (Shivani, grade 11). Howells went on to become the first Mitra Scholar for her entry.
“I was pretty surprised, since this being the first year of the competition I was not sure what the expectations were,” Howells said. “I would like to thank the Mitra family for supporting humanities research at Harker, Ms. [Donna] Gilbert, Dr. [Ruth] Meyer and Ms. [Susan] Smith for helping me with research and making the Harker history department a strong supporter of independent work, and Ms. [Julie] Wheeler for convincing me to apply for the grant in the first place.”
Several Harker students successfully auditioned for roles in an upcoming independent film being produced by the Bay Area-based Silk Road Films. Auditions for the movie, to be titled “Family Party,” were held Dec. 4-5 at the upper school campus. With filming scheduled for April, during Harker’s spring break, the film will feature students Vishal Vaidya, grade 10, as Nick; Apurva Tandon, grade 12, as Arti; Jai Ahuja, grade 10, in the role of Sahil; Rahul Nalamasu, grade 12, playing Sanjay; Cecilia Lang-Ree, grade 12, as Tanya; and Alice Tsui, grade 12, as Amanda.
Basketball The grade 5 junior varsity B1 boys basketball team beat Sacred Heart in the Championship game of the WBAL tournament 26-21 Wednesday. They won the league with a 7-0 record and also won the championship tournament to finish at 9-0 overall.
The JVA boys basketball team took second in their WBAL bracket, losing to Sacred Heart in the Championship game 10-18. They finished 8-1 in league play and second in the tournament to finish at 9-2.
Basketball Boys varsity basketball went 1-2 in the Lynbrook Tournament last week, scoring a blowout 72-28 victory over Lynbrook to salve the pain of two nail-biter losses to Mills and Santa Teresa; the boys fell to Santa Teresa 41-40 on a last-minute shot as time expired.
Girls varsity basketball opened their season by cruising to the finals of the King’s Academy Tournament with victories over Prospect 48-32 and Lincoln 61-31. In the final round, the girls fell to Burlingame High 85-52 despite senior Priscilla Auyeung’s 21 points.
Soccer Boys varsity soccer blanked Gunderson in their season opener last week, 3-0, behind goals from Omar Hamade, Oisin Coveney, both grade 9, and Sumit Minocha, grade 12. The JV squad defeated SLV 6-1 to even their record at 1-1, as Neil Kishore, grade 10, scored a goal and had four assists.
Girls soccer went 1-1 last week after picking up a 2-0 shutout victory over Pacific Collegiate, with goals by Nikita Parulkar, grade 10, and Sondra Leal Da Costa, grade 12. Days before, the girls had dropped their season opener by a margin of 2-1 against Notre Dame, with Parulkar scoring the lone goal for the Eagles on a Leal Da Costa assist. Next, the team faces Mills High this Saturday in the Burlingame Tournament.
Wrestling
At the Fremont High Tournament on Saturday, wrestlers Danny Wang, grade 12, and Darian Edvalson, grade 11, earned a victory and two losses apiece. They face Milpitas High next week.
Water Polo
Congratulations to water polo players Keri Clifford and Karan Das-Grande, both seniors. Clifford was selected as a first team, division II All-CCS honoree and a second team division I honoree. Das-Grande recieved honorable mention on the second team for the boys, division II. This is a tremendous honor and excellent way to cap off their Harker water polo careers.
Harker students Richard Yi, grade 9, and Rahul Sridhar, grade 11, placed eighth and ninth, respectively, out of 276 participants at the CalTech Harvey Mudd Math Competition, held in mid-November at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, Calif. Additionally, Sridhar and Ashwath Thirumalai, grade 10, took third in the team competition, while Yi and sophomore David Lin’s team took fifth out of a total of 47 teams.
Harker was also among the top-performing schools in the California Mathematics League in November and December. The upper school tied for first place with 60 points and scored 54 points with the middle school students’ scores included. A total of 13 students earned a perfect score: Shaya Zarkesh, grade 7; David Zhu, grade 8; Michael Zhao, grade 9; Patrick Lin, Cindy Liu, Suzy Lou, Nitya Mani and Sachin Peddada, all grade 10; Varun Mohan, Alex Pei, Rahul Sridhar and Vikram Sundar, all grade 11; and Ashvin Swaminathan, grade 12.
At the Mexican Mathematical Olympiad in November, Varun Mohan, grade 11, was one of four members the United States team that was one of 200 teams at the event. Mohan won silver, just a few points shy of the gold medal award.
In the Mandelbrot Competition, which takes place in five rounds occurring over the course of the school year, Harker currently sits at fourth place among the 55 schools in the Redwood Region, and seventh place nationally. Sophomores Patrick Lin, Cindy Liu and Andrew Zhang are among the top individual contests in the Redwood Region, tied with the other top scorers at 14 points. At the national level, Varun Mohan, grade 11, has 12 points and David Lin has 11.
At the fourth annual Math Prize for Girls Contest in September, held at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cindy Liu, Nitya Mani and Suzy Lou, all grade 10, received Honorable Mentions for their performance. As they were among the top 44 students in the contest, all three students were later invited to compete in the 2012 Math Prize for Girls Olympiad.
Current grade 5 families were treated to an informative on location preview of middle school life at Harker during two separately held events last month – one for parents; the other for students.
The transition from elementary to middle school is a major academic milestone for students and their families, filled with change, even for those who continue on at Harker. The tours helped take the mystery out of the matriculation process, yet still left plenty of room for excitement over the road ahead.
In early November the annual “What’s Brewing?” event at the Blackford campus provided parents of soon-to-be middle school students a chance to explore the school and learn about all the exciting opportunities available for incoming sixth graders.
Billed as an opportunity to gather for “coffee, muffins and middle school,” the preview started immediately after school drop-off in the multipurpose room, giving parents a chance to meet and socialize before the official program began.
During the event participants had the opportunity to tour the campus, meet with administrators and familiarize themselves with the middle school from a parent point of view – in short, to see “what’s brewing” in the middle school.
The program covered how the sixth grade day is broken up, what kinds of classes the students will be taking, global opportunities (such as the grade 6 trip to Japan), community life, clubs, middle school field trips and more. At the end of the presentation, parents were given the opportunity to ask the administrators any other questions they might have about the campus, school life and academics.
Then, in mid-November, it was time for the students to have a chance to get a firsthand look at the middle school. Grade 5 students were given a fun preview tailored just for them, highlighting various aspects of their potential future lives as middle school students during Step-Up Day.
The entire grade 5 class traveled by bus to the Blackford campus where they enjoyed a free dress day and spent their time meeting with grade 6 teachers and other staff, touring the campus, eating lunch, visiting classes, and watching a presentation by the performing arts department. They also learned more about the various aspects of middle school life, such as the BEST program, athletics, laptop options, foreign language classes and electives.
According to Kristin Giammona, elementary division head, it was a great day for the students, leaving them excited about the experience. She further called both What’s Brewing in the Middle School and Step-Up Day wonderful opportunities for both students and parents to learn more about Harker’s middle school, and familiarize themselves with the Blackford campus.
There was no shortage of fun activities to keep grade 6 students united and active during their recent class trip to the Santa Cruz Mountains. From kayaking to hiking, bird watching, completing a ropes course, and simply enjoying the area’s gorgeous weather and scenic beauty, there was something for everyone.
The group’s home base was Mt. Cross, a camping and retreat site located in the redwood forests of the Santa Cruz Mountains. With its ropes course, swimming pool, athletic field and close proximity to an abundance of tourist attractions, the site proved a perfect alternative to the originally planned trip to Yosemite National Park, which had been cancelled due to Hantavirus warnings.
The class trip was a mix of learning and fun, as highlighted by a visit to The Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, one of 28 such reserves established nationwide as field laboratories for scientific research and estuarine education.
The Elkhorn Reserve is administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and managed by the California Department of Fish and Game. Following the reserve visit was an excursion to nearby Moss Landing, a quaint, historic fishing village known for its shopping, fresh seafood, fine art studios, bird and whale watching.
Even before the field trip to the Santa Cruz Mountains anticipation had run high as many grade 6 students took a weeklong opportunity to wear hiking boots to school in place of their usual uniform shoes.
It was all part of “boot break-in” week, a traditional Harker offering to sixth graders for more than 20 years. During the week, held in October just before the field trip, grade 6 students could be seen walking around campus clad in their regular school outfits but wearing their boots.
With the knowledge that broken-in boots make for happy hikers, Cindy Ellis, middle school head, had invited the students to wear their hiking shoes to school, especially if they had brand new ones to break in. In doing so, the students created quite the fashion statements, complete with skirts and dresses worn with hiking boots.
According to Ellis, all that pre-boot wearing paid off during the trip. “I watched students soar through the trees as their hiking group manipulated the ropes and helped them achieve new heights!” she said. After a fun-filled day out and about, students ended their days back at Mt. Cross for delicious dinners followed by incredibly popular freshly made chocolate cake and brownies for dessert.
“The students really enjoyed the trip and all its adventures,” Ellis said, noting that all of Harker’s middle school classes go on weeklong outings during the fall. (Grade 7 visits national parks around the Southwest, and grade 8 travels to Washington, D.C.)
Dec. 4 marks a historic moment for The Harker School. When The Palo Alto Military Academy and Miss Harker’s School for Girls merged and moved from Palo Alto to San Jose in 1972, the Nichols family took enormous risks in settling the school’s new home in San Jose. More than four decades later, the San Jose City Council unanimously approved The Harker School’s use permit of the 4525 Union Avenue property. “This historic vote moves Harker one step closer towards owning all three of our campuses, and securing the City of San Jose as the permanent home of our wonderful community,” said Chris Nikoloff, head of school.
Harker plans to open a preschool in the fall of 2013 on the Union campus and later, as part of a broader strategy of unwinding from the Blackford lease, move the lower school program to Union and the middle school program to Bucknall. At that time the school will own all three of its San Jose sites, each uniquely dedicated to the needs of its students.
“An effort like the securing of the Union Avenue campus is not possible without the help of a great team and the support of the community. I want to thank everyone in the Harker community who leaned in to make this historic accomplishment a reality,” said Nikoloff.
At a Santa Clara University debate tournament held Nov. 16-18, three grade 9 students earned speaker awards. Esther Wong earned the 10th place speaker award, Divya Periyakoil earned fifth place and Sanil Rajput was second speaker. Additionally, Periyakoil and Rajput reached quarterfinals and the team of Ameek Singh, grade 9, and Alex Tuharsky, grade 10, advanced to semifinals.
The weekend before Thanksgiving, six Harker students competed in the Public Forum division of the Glenbrooks National Invitational. With 136 teams in attendance, Harker had two of its three teams make it into the round of 32. Juniors Sreyas Misra and Neil Khemani were eliminated in this round, while the team of Aneesh Chona and Anuj Sharma, both grade 12, made it to the round of 16.
Out of 272 total Public Forum speakers at the tournament, senior Neel Jani took home the seventh overall speaker award. Rounding out the top 25 speakers at the tournament, Sharma was named 20th overall speaker, Kiran Arimilli, grade 12, earned the 24th overall award, and Misra was named 25th speaker at the tournament.