DECEMBER 2001 (VOL. 8, NO. 3)
Harker Now in Space! See article on this page under Harker Headlines…
N E W S L E T T E R
F R O M
student ■ The Blood Drive on the Saratoga campus in November was a wonder ful success. Students, faculty, staff and parents demonstrated their commitment—and their courage—as they filed in all day long to donate blood. A special thanks to US student Shalini Lal who arranged for the Stanford Blood Bank to come to our campus and to all the US students who assisted throughout the day. Also, special thanks to Debra Nott, Harker’s Head Nurse, for managing the schedule. Congratulations and thanks to all of you who braved the needle, especially you first timers. Your gift means ever ything to someone in need. Ever yone helped make it a huge success—a total of 68 pints of blood!
■ The Bucknall campus held a contest to design a t-shirt that would then be sold as a fundraiser to raise money for the Relief Fund. The winning designs were created by 6th grader Tonia Sun and 3rd grader Brianna Tran. Congratulations to both of these talented students! Tonia’s design includes an American Eagle holding a flag, a peace dove holding an olive branch, and a Harker eagle holding ribbons that say, “Harker Cares.”
T H E
H A R K E R
S C H O O L
outreach wonderful, and the t-shir ts are currently in production. Design by Brianna Tran
M O N T H L Y
Design by Tonia Sun
A
SARATOGA CAMPUS
Brianna’s design says “Harker School Cares” and features three children holding hands on one side of the ocean and three children holding hands on the other side of the ocean. Both designs are
hArker ■ A microgravity experiment developed by a core group of 13 US students under the direction of Physics instructor Philip Becker was blasted into space on November 19 along with 29 other student experiments from around the world as part of NASA’s five year old SEM (Space Experiment Module) educational program. Students designed and constructed the SEM unit which will test the effects of microgravity on the restorative proper ties of springs and other mechanical devices composed of the shape-memory alloy Nitinol. The Space Shuttle bearing Harker’s experiment is scheduled to return to Ear th on Dec. 10, 2001, and Becker expects to receive the module back from NASA this spring. The materials will then be analyzed and evaluated by students on the Harker SEM team. Watch future issues for more details about this incredible project! ■ In recent announcements of student achievements, Alex Combs,
■ Jennifer Gargano, US Math teacher and Community Service advisor, announced that the US students and staff have adopted 38 homeless families in this year’s “Adopt A Family” program, sponsored by the Emergency Housing Consortium of San Jose. The Harker student and staff groups participating have each adopted one of these families and continued on pg. 4
headlines Gr. 12, was named a scholar in the National Hispanic Recognition Program sponsored by the College Board. The program recognizes about 4,000 of the Hispanic students who scored highest on the PSAT in their junior year. ■ Alexa Bush, Gr. 12, was named a semi-finalist in the National Achievement Scholarship Program and can go on to compete for the scholarship award. Ashley Alston and Rahwa Iman were commended for their outstanding performance in the competition. This scholarship program is an academic competition for black high school students and these Harker students are among California’s highest-scoring black students on the 2000 PSAT. Congratulations to all these outstanding seniors! ■ Congratulations to Harker faculty Giresh Ghooray, Jacob Hazard and Pat Walsh who successfully completed an eightweek Summer Fellowship with Lockheed Mar tin Missiles & Space, Intel Corporation and Micro Metallics, respectively.
around
campus - middle school
Students Guide Open House Visitors
Impressive Math Performances
Many thanks to the following students who served as guides at the Nov. 18th Open House on the Saratoga campus: Casey Blair, Elizabeth Burstein, Lauren Gutstein, Colleen Lee, Daniece Loomis, Polina Minkin, Casey Near, Aneesha Nilakantan, Amanda Polzin, Diane Strutner and Mika Sugawara.
Open House entertainment included performances by the Orchestra, Bel Canto and the Show Choir (pictured here).
Chris Doll (shown here with guide Casey Near) is instrumental in organizing the Open House each year.
Middle School Notes ■ Cindy Kerr, Middle School Math teacher, reported that 85 of Harker’s 6th-8th graders participated recently in the AMC-8 (American Mathematics Competitions) sponsored by the Univ. of Nebraska-Lincoln and the American Mathemetics Association. Results will be available at the end of Jan. ■ Michael Hammersley and Amit Mukherjee are working on a series of pictures in Shah Hall to capture middle school life, including randomly selected “Students of the Week” profiles. ■ Middle School Division Head Chris Nikoloff reports that Abhishek Belani and Onur Erbilgin “are doing a bang-up job” with
On Saturday, Nov. 17, twenty five Harker students participated in the 20th annual Crystal Springs Middle School Math Contest in Hillsborough. Harker sent one 6th grade team, two 7th grade teams and two 8th grade teams to this year’s event which attracted 300 students from 16 different schools in the Bay Area. Harker also participated in individual events. Special thanks to teacher/math coaches Vandana Kadam, Leah Moll and Cindy Kerr. The students performed exceptionally well and earned the following awards:
INDIVIDUAL CONTEST 6TH GRADE: Alex Fandrianto, 2nd; Tonia Sun, 4th; Victor Chen, 5th.
Sports Wrap. He also added that Student Mentors have chosen the topics for their next session with the sixth grade: cliques, groups, popularity, inclusion, exclusion, etc.
7TH GRADE: Justin Chin, 1st.
■ Dan Gelineau, Asst. Head of School, has trained a handful of our middle school students in the art of raising, lowering and folding the U.S. flag. The following students are rotating this daily responsibility, and we appreciate their commitment to this honorable and patriotic tradition: Nicole Chuang, Adam Creasman, Amit Mukherjee, Oriel Nissim, Kei Ogawa, Matt Wong, Aaron Grant, Elyse Trinh, Mansi Shah, Adam Creasman, Ammar Kothari and Matt Wong.
TEAM CONTEST
8TH GRADE: (A very impressive sweep of the first 6 places out of 10 winners!) Yi Sun, 1st (with all correct answers); Hailey Lam, 2nd; Robert Li, 3rd; Jasper Shau, 4th; Michael Lee, 5th; Jonathan Tan, 6th.
6TH GRADE: 1st place: Kenric Tam, Spencer Liang, Joshua Wang, Charlie Fang, Tonia Sun, and Leah Rajaratnam. 7TH GRADE: 2nd place: Justin Chin, Jessie Li, Jessica Lee, Victor Chen (6th grade),and Harry Tseng. They missed getting first place by just 1 point! 8TH GRADE: 1st place: Jonathan Tan, Hailey Lam, Yi Sun, Jasper Shau, and Michael Lee; 2nd place: Robert Li, Mark Hsu (7th grade), Jackson Davis, and Neel Joshi.
Homeroom Competitions ■ The middle school student council theme this year is “Your Voice Writes the Future,” and the spirit committee held a homeroom poster contest recently. The winning homerooms were Mrs. Swaminathan’s 7th grade homeroom and Mrs. Kadam's 8th grade homeroom.
winning 7th grade entries were: 1st place - Mr. Osaka (a banana); 2nd place - Ms. McGovern (M & M); 3rd place - Mrs. Swaminathan (Patriotic Peace Pals). The winning 8th grade entries were: 1st place - Mr. Kielty (Dragon); 2nd place- Mr. Hewitt (Sony Character); 3rd place - Mr. Fukuda (Sushi).
■ In addition, there was a homeroom mascot competition. The
Thanks to 8th grader Alexandra Nazari for this month’s Spirit Committee report!
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The Banana Mascot was #1
Middle School students enjoying a weekly spirit activity
campus - upper school
around Upper School Notes ■ The US student members of The Helm, Harker’s “Eclectic Literary Magazine,” are currently accepting student submissions of poetry, art, stories, photography, and any other work of creative merit to publish in their annual Helm Magazine. Encourage your 9-12th grade students to display their talents in the magazine by submitting their work to the Helm staff. Deadline is Dec. 18th. However, if they speak to a Helm member, they can extend the deadline to the first day of school in January. This publication is entirely written and published by the US students and is then sold to the Harker community.
Contact Dean of Students and faculty advisor for the Helm, Kevin Williamson, for more information at kevinw@harker.org ■ In November, students and faculty from the three newspaper classes gathered in the library to hear former Mercury News Book Editor Carol Mueller speak about her experiences as a journalist. Ms. Mueller’s background ranges from editing her own high school newspaper in Missouri to editing the book review section of the Mercury News before the paper’s recent reorganization. Students had ample opportunity to sound her out on such issues as news reporting in a quarterly format, high interest subjects for the Harker audience, and the best education for those interested in careers in journalism. Many thanks to Harker parent Shirley Kanada for arranging for this special opportunity for our students. She has also arranged for Jay Harris, former Mercury News editor, to speak to our staff
and students in December, so more on that to come in the next issue! ■ On Nov. 15th, over 60 people attended a special ceremony in the dorm dining room where Harker’s new Key Club was presented its charter by the local West San Jose Kiwanis Club. In attendance were the Key Club members and their families, Key Club Advisors Ms. Gargano and Ms. Radice, West San Jose Kiwanis president, Steve Oliver, Dr. Richard Hartzel, US Division Head, Kevin Williamson, Dean of Students, and a few members of the Del Mar Key Club who work with Harker students on service trips. Mr. Oliver presented our Key Club president, Yassmin Sadeghi, with a Key Club banner, gavel and bell for our club. Key Club international is a nonprofit organization for high school students who want to help their community by volunteering their time and effort toward making their community a better place in which to live. Located in over 16 countries, Key Club International helps kids learn the meaning of teamwork and organization, and we're extremely proud of our new Key Club at Harker. ■ The Upper School Robotics club led by Dr. Rand Harrington and Computer Science teacher Robb Culter attended the Battle Bot Competition on Treasure Island in San Francisco recently. There were 28 battles from all divisions and, despite the rain, everyone had a great time. The popular competition is a tournament for remote controlled robots which takes place within a battledome constructed with traps to make the event extremely challenging. There are 4 different weight classes (light, medium, heavy, and super heavyweight) based on the size and weight of the robot. Since our students were in the audience, they may appear on the Comedy Channel, so watch for them! Thanks to parent Diane Reese for helping to get tickets and to bus driver Dan Hughes! Harker US students who attended: Greg Finkelstein, Adrik McIlroy, Greg Perkins, Aaron Kleinstauber, Alex Segal, Tim Rodriquiz, Jerry Chi, Alan Malek, and Justin Wu. Harker Middle School students who attended: Philip Perkins, Chris Keller, and Jacob Yanovsky.
Conquering Teams Honored Blue Ribbons Galore at JCL Ludi At the annual Northern California JCL Ludi on Sat., Nov. 17th, 18 Harker Latin students joined 300+ students from 14 other schools to compete and share “Latin” moments. Harker’s delegates won the most 1st place blue ribbons of any school at the event. Congratulations to those participating and to Latin teacher and advisor John Hawley: Chris Keller (7th grade), Roberta
Wolfson, Ivan Osokine, Shaun Mohan, Sarada Pyda, Jennifer Shangkuan, Sridhar Chadalavada, Vivek Bansal, Utsab Saha, Wesley Wu, Allison Kwong, Sheena Reddy, Anita Mazloom, Gabrielle De Mers, Brian Biskeborn, Elnora Hawley and Catherine Kim. Visit the Harker web site for more details about this event and the awards won.
Debaters Earn Place on USC Perpetual Trophy Over 50 schools representing 5 different states competed recently at the USC Trojan National Championship Debate Tournament on the campus of the University of Southern California. Harker entered 42 students in both policy and LincolnDouglas debate. Harker earned the First Place Grand Sweepstakes Award and several individual awards as well. Harker’s name will now be included on the USC Perpetual Trophy along with the names of
other schools that have won the Grand Sweepstakes Award since 1960. For more information on Debate news, see the Harker web site.
Excellent Showing at Certamen Competition In their first Certamen (ker-tah'men) competition of the year, Harker’s Latin students performed very well. Returning members did exceptionally well, and the participation of first year students showed promise, especially from 7th grader Chris Keller who is taking Upper School Latin I. The event was held in Dwinelle Hall on the UC Berkeley campus. Certamen is a quiz bowl for students of Latin and Greek. Questions pertain to Roman history and daily life, Greek and Roman mythology, Latin grammar, Latin vocabulary, derivatives from Latin in English, mottoes,
proverbs and quotations, and Latin language skills. Students compete in teams of four in groups of three teams. UPPER LEVEL: 1st Place, Catherine Kim and Brian Biskeborn; 4th Place, Allison Kwong, Anita Mazloom, Ethan Karpel LEVEL 2: 1st Place, Vivek Bansal, Luke Wyman, Jennifer Shangkuan; 2nd Place, Sridhar Chadalavada, Utsab Saha, and 2 students from Miramonte in Orinda LEVEL 1: 4th Place, Chris Keller, Ivan Osokine; 9th Place: Shaun Mohan, Sheena Tomar, Alex Hsu
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event
Outreach, cont.
news
will purchase holiday gifts for them based on “wish lists” provided to the Consortium. All gifts will be collected by Thurs., Dec. 13th and then delivered to the center by Ms. Gargano and members of the Key Club on Sat., Dec. 15th. We thank Ms. Gargano and the Key Club members for organizing our participation in this worthwhile program again this year.
Day of the Dead Celebration Spanish classes celebrated the Mexican/Central American holiday, “El Día de los Muertos” or Day of the Dead during the week of October 29th. In Mexico, this holiday is not a sad or solemn event, but rather a celebration in memory of deceased loved ones whose spirits are thought to return to visit on November 2nd, El Día de los Muertos. Altars are put up with offerings of food, flowers, candles, artwork and photographs. Spanish teachers Karen Villavicencio, Gueli Ugarte, Concha Grande and art teacher Eric Hoffman coordinated the construction of the altar and students’ art work at Bucknall. At Saratoga Ms. Garcia’s and Mrs. Pinzás’ middle school students contributed art and offerings, and the altar was built opposite the library by Ms. Moss’s Spanish 3 honors students.
The Sobrato Living Center in Santa Clara is a transitional housing development for homeless families who live in these new apartments while they participate in an intensive program of case management, employment services and education. Parents wishing to donate to the program may contact Ms. Gargano by e-mailing her at jenniferg@harker.org.
Some of the wonderful altars that our Harker students created are pictured here.
news Middle School
■ US Spanish teacher Diana Moss reports that the upper school International Club is collecting small holiday gifts to fill a large suitcase which will be taken by one of our tutors, Mrs. Margarita Vincent, to Bogotá, Colombia. She will distribute the gifts at Christmas to children living in tent camps whose homes have been destroyed due to terrorism there.
you need school student lounge which is located in the dorm building at the far end of the rear drive.
■ Now that it is dark earlier in the evening, a reminder to parents ■ The administration wishes to that all middle school students not remind all parents that with the picked up from the loading zones current world tensions, we have by 5:30 p.m. will be relocated to increased our state of readiness at the back hallway of the main Harker. As outlined in recent letters academic building, closest to the sent home, we have staged ar t center loading zone. Shah Hall additional emergency drills at both and many other par ts of the campuses over the past month and campus are closed. A recreation have thoroughly reviewed emerstaff member remains in the junior gency procedures with students, high loading zone with a walkiefaculty and staff. We have taken talkie and calls for students who are being supervised indoors until 6 p.m.. After 6 p.m., parents will need to park and come to the main hallway to retrieve students. Parents are reminded that supervision charges begin at 6 p.m. (unless children are returning from a late athletic event, late dance rehearsal, etc.). Parents are required to sign their children out after 6 p.m., Drop, Cover, and Hold drill at Bucknall acknowledging the super vision charges. After 6:30 p.m., students stock of emergency supplies on remaining on campus are both campuses and added super vised in The Edge, the upper additional emergency lighting, water
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Building evacuation drill for lower school storage, solar blankets, and available food. We have also reworked our emergency action plan, adding a Central Shelter component in addition to our Building Evacuation (fire response), Drop, Cover, and Hold (earthquake response), Shelter in Place (intruder, civil disturbance response) and Directed Transportation (campus evacuation response). The Central Shelter response would be used for responding to a toxic spill resulting from an accident on the freeway or other exposure to airborne contaminants.
We wish to reassure our parents that the safety of the children is our highest priority, and we will continually keep you posted as we update our emergency plans. Please contact Dan Gelineau, Asst. Head of School if you have any questions at dang@harker.org.
Upper School ■ For your children's safety, and to ensure they do not receive an unexcused absence, please remember to send a note to school when your child will be leaving during the day for a dentist or doctor’s appointment. ■ As always, parents are urged to respect school vacation dates and understand the attendance policies and consequences, as outlined in the Student Handbook, pages 16-17. Excessive absences will result in a loss of credit for the course involved.
briefs
SPORTS Middle School This year’s fall sport season is over, and over 250 kids in grades 4-8 participated in the sports of flag football, swimming and volleyball. All did an outstanding job! A few highlights: The A1 girls finished the season with a league record of 4-4. They won 5 matches and came in 3rd at the Sequoia “Smack Down” tournament held in Redwood City in Nov. where twelve teams participated in the 8th grade division. The A2 girls volleyball team finished with a 1-5 league record. B1 girls volleyball finished the season 6-2 and came in 3rd in the Harker Tournament held Oct. 26th and 27th. The B2 girls volleyball finished the season 3-2 and came in 4th place in the Harker Tournament, and the C1 volleyball team finished 1st at the Hillbrook Tournament. The girls beat Carden two games to none in the Championship game. It was the first time the team had beaten Carden all season. The A1 boys flag football team finished the season a perfect 6-0, and the B1 team finished 2-4. Also, last week coaches and players marked the end of the season by having their athletic award presentations and parties. Each team named their seasons’ MVP, Most Improved, and Most Iinspirational players. Congratulations to all players for a great fall season. And last but not least, a huge thank you to
all coaches for their hard work and dedication. You all did a great job. Now on to basketball and soccer! Sports Brief Reporter: PE Teacher and Coach, Mary Kay Olks
Upper School Football The Eagle football team celebrated the final game for the team’s 11 seniors with a pregame ceremony honoring the players and their parents. Flowers were given to the parents, and pictures of game action were presented to the players. It was an emotional moment for players, coaches, and parents as this marked the culmination of four years of commitment. The team finished the season on a high note defeating St. Lawrence 55-0 behind team MVP Adam Vucurevich, Hyun-Ki Na, and Kevin Hartsoch to finish the year with a 4-4-1 record. Kevin and senior lineman Abbas Kothari also earned recognition as Eagle Award winners at last week’s award banquet.
Volleyball The Eagle volleyball team finished with a 17-6 record this fall, placing fourth in the tough PSAL. They advanced to the second round of the CCS divsion five playoffs, defeating Liberty Baptist in the first round. Facing Woodside Priory in the semi finals proved to be too much as the defending state champion Priory ended the Eagles’ otherwise outstanding season. Led by MVP Rebecca Chang, the team loses three seniors and will be back for another great season next year.
Tennis The Eagle tennis team had an outstanding season this fall, finishing 14-2 and placing second in the PSAL. Advancing to the second round of the CCS team playoffs, the Eagles narrowly missed upsetting perennial tennis power Monte Vista, losing 4-3 after having defeated Presentation 4-3 in the first round. Ranju Kumar was named the MVP of the entire PSAL league, with Kathleen Ko earning team
MVP and 1st team All League. Jessica Travis and Sonia Rastogi also earned All League honors as did freshman Emily His.Watch out for this team next year! Senior captain Kathleen Ko went undefeated in league play with a record of 12-0!
Soccer The Eagle soccer team took on some tough and big teams this year, with a roster full of freshmen and sophomores. Playing skilled and highly technical soccer, the team usually was facing physically larger and older competition, which will serve them well next year as team leaders Kevin Busch and Alex Dodd will return as sophomores with all league honorable mention midfielder Rishi Mandal and goal scorer Zlatan Kremonic returning for the Eagles.
Cross Country The Eagle cross country team qualified three runners for the State Cross Country Championships in Fresno this month. Jennifer Shangkuan finished second in the Division Five CCS meet on November 10th, with teammate Deepa Mathew finishing right behind her in third place. Both advanced to the State Meet. On the boys side, Sean Dyal and Palak Patel ran in the CCS championships with Sean advancing to the State Finals with his big finishing kick! Out of a field of over 100 runners at the State Meet, Deepa finished 17th and Jennifer finished 23rd.
Golf In the girls’ inaugural golf season at Harker, Jen Jenq led the team to a second place PSAL finish, and she qualified for the CCS finals as well. Kelly Gault joined Jen on the All League team, with Jen receiving first team honors and Kelly, second team. Rachel Warecki and Audrey Leungeach swung a mean club in helping the Eagles compile a 5-3 season record. With the entire team returning, the Eagles hope to soar to greater heights next year!
Harker US Sports Line
345-9295 Call for weekly, up-to-date game and match information!
Eagle Booster Club It’s not too late to jump on the rolling Eagle Bandwagon! The entire Harker community is invited to be part of the Eagle Booster Club and go where only Eagles dare! The EAGLE CLUB—the Official Booster Club of Harker Eagle Sports—is still enrolling members for the 2001-2002 year!
2001-2002 Membership Levels Bronze—$200 Free admission for 2 adults to all home Harker games, 2 Eagle Club hats, 2 Eagle Club tee-shirts
Silver—$300 All bronze-level items plus 2 Eagle Club jackets
Gold—$500 All silver-level items plus your choice of 2 personalized Eagle Club coats or a Stadium package including blanket and cushions Regardless of the membership level you choose, your support will go a long way in showing our Harker athletes that we are behind them with cheers and support. (Contributions are tax-deductible less the value of promotional items.) To sign up, e-mail Chris Collins (christinec@harker.org). Feel free to direct your questions to club leader Nancy Hartsoch (n.hartsoch@att.net; 408-209-9250) or Athletic Director Jack Bither (jackb@harker.org; 408345-9627). Thanks for your support!
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Harker Halloween Among the many Halloween festivities on the Saratoga campus, the Harker Boarding Program hosted a Haunted House for the middle school on Halloween Day. “It was a huge success,” said Terry Walsh, Boarding Program Manager. “The lines were out the door.” Mrs. Walsh extends a special thanks to Margaret McGovern, Harker art teacher and dorm girl’s houseparent, for her hard work in putting this together. It was a huge success and lots of fun for the kids. “Milton Lee helped almost every day before Halloween for a week with props, and all of the boarders fully participated,” Ms. McGovern added. Many thanks to our boarding students and staff for this wonderful idea! Parent Joan Havard reported that the 7th grade parents organized a “Healthy Halloween Party,” which included fruit and low-fat pumpkin muffins, along with the usual candy offerings. Word has it that the kids really loved the healthy offerings!
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Our first Shakespearean production, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, was a smashing success! Over 1,000 people saw the show which was produced in-the-round in the Saratoga Gym. The students did a tremendous job, and audiences loved their characters, clever costumes and interesting set. Congratulations to Director Jeffrey Draper and all the parents and students involved! Coming Up: The Upper School vocal groups are gearing up for the holiday season. Bel Canto will be performing at Vallco Mall at
Photos by Chris Daren
6:00 p.m. on Fri., Dec. 7th, and caroling over at Bucknall on Fri., Dec. 14th. Show Choir goes on Holiday Day Tour on Dec. 1st and on their Holiday Night Tour on Dec. 5 to the SJ Fairmont and other festive locations. Also, the Middle School Harmonics will be embarking on their Holiday Tour on December 6th, with performances all over the Bay Area! Check the Harker calendars for a complete lineup of all the holiday performances, and plan to attend! —Laura Lang-Ree, Performing Arts Dept. Head
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Tues., Dec. 4, Faculty Meeting No after school activities or athletics, except paid activities Mon., Dec. 3, 5-6:30 p.m., Library Drug Education Workshop for 7-12th grade parents, $10 per person. Limited child care available. RSVP to kellys@harker.org
Wed., Dec. 5, 8:15-9:30 a.m., Harker Bookstore “Picnic in Paris” Volunteer Meeting - all are welcome! (94 N. San Tomas Aquino Rd.) Wed., Dec. 5, 5:30-7 p.m., STG Gym Gr. 7 & 8 Choir & Orchestra Show Wed., Dec. 5, 8-8:30 p.m., Fairmont Hotel, SJ Show Choir performance (part of night tour)
For more news about our Parent Volunteer Programs, visit the Parent Home Page!
Fri., Dec. 7, 6-6:30 p.m., Vallco Mall Bel Canto performance
spirit
Sun., Dec. 9, 10 a.m.-Noon K-6th Open House (for the general public) Tues., Dec. 11, 5-6 p.m., Library Gr. 11 Parent Coffee
alive
Spirit is Alive and Kickin’
Wed., Dec. 12, 5-6 p.m., Library Gr. 9 Parent Coffee
Once again, a huge thank you to our Development Council members for their time and efforts during the November phonathons. We would especially like to thank those families who have participated in the campaign thus far, bringing us to over 52% committed!
Wed., Dec. 19 - Wed., Jan. 2 Winter Vacation Thurs., Jan. 3 Classes Resume HAVE A WONDERFUL HOLIDAY SEASON!
notes
Mesdames and messieurs, the Champs Elysee and the Tour Eiffel will provide the colorful backdrop for Harker’s “Picnic in Paris” coming April 28th. Is it too soon for us to think about this big volunteer undertaking? Absolument, non! Individuals who signed up in the fall to participate in Picnic planning are soon to be contacted by members of the Picnic Steering Committee and Picnic Coordinator, Lynette Stapleton. Interested parents are invited to stop at our own little Paris “bistro” at the Advancement Office at 94 N. San Tomas Aquino Road on the morning of Wed., Dec. 5, right after morning drop-off, to learn more about our exciting Picnic plans! 8th grade parent volunteers are planning a parent-sponsored Graduation Party for the grads in June. Important information about their plans, including the location, cost of the party, etc. are being mailed out now by this parent group, with invitations soon to come for the students themselves. Parents interested in working on this grand party should contact parent Cherrie Blair at cherrieblair@ix.netcom.com. The Middle School Winter Dance will be Sat., Dec. 15, and, following longstanding Harker tradition, G8 parent volunteers take responsibility for decorating the gym for this event. This Middle School service is reversed in the spring when G7 parents do the decorating for the final Middle School dance of the school year as a tribute to the year’s “graduating” class.
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Winter Holiday parties for K- 8 will be held Tues. afternoon, Dec. 18, the final day of classes before the Winter Break. Like Santa’s industrious elves, grade level coordinators and room parents will be putting the finishing touches to their party plans in the coming weeks. Parents who are interested in lending assistance or in contributing special goodies, please contact the room parent contact for your child’s homeroom. Thanks to the careful tallying of recorded service hours by Parent Volunteer Leadership Council member Leslie Nielsen, we are thrilled to repor t that we have logged well over 1000 volunteer hours to date, including our Grandparents’ Day and Book Fair volunteers this past month, performed by 143 parents. Be sure that your hard work gets recognized regularly by signing in and out of our Logbooks at the front desk at Bucknall, in Shah Hall and at the front desk in the Administrative building on Saratoga. Or for your convenience, try our new monthly volunteer cards which you can mail in to record your service to the school.
Tues., Dec. 4, 5:30-6:30 p.m., Library Gr. 10 Parent Coffee
Volunteer
Cherrie Blair, G8 grade level coordinator, will be organizing room parents and other enthusiastic G8 parents in preparation for this dance. Please contact Cherrie at cherrieblair@ix.netcom.com if you able to help.
As mentioned in the November edition, we are thrilled to announce that a Harker family has generously offered Harker a $25,000 Matching Challenge Grant. This participation grant will matched, dollar-for-dollar, gifts received from returning families who did not participate in the Million for the Millennium Annual Giving Campaign. If you qualify for this grant, it is a magnificent way to double your contribution and, ultimately, double the support of your children. We have additional ways you can support your children and their educational and extracurricular experiences at Harker. One program in particular is eScrip. According to San Jose Middle School, their 400 registered families have generated $2,700-$3,000 a month for their school. This program is a wonderful opportunity that directly enhances what we can provide for your children. To find out more about this program, other programs available and the Campaign itself, please contact Amalia Keyashian, Director of Annual Giving (amaliak@harker.org). You can log on to www.harker.org and click on ADVANCEMENT & ALUMNI for more information as well. Again, we thank you so much for keeping the spirit alive! —Kelly S. Parker, Development Director The Saratoga and Bucknall editions of the Parent Pages are published monthly by the Harker Office of Communications. They are also available on the web at: www.harker.org. Click on PARENTS. Editor: Pam Dickinson
Design: Blue Heron Design
Photography: Chris Daren, Martha Acosta, Eric Hoffman, Bran-Dee Torres, Eric Chamlis, Joey Tyndal, and Jessica Luo (student) Printing : Communicart
DECEMBER
2001
Parent Input In an online survey last summer, many of you shared your compliments, concerns and ideas with us. Though we hope you will share your concerns and ideas with us at any time, we used an independent firm for the survey since this anonymous method better ensured honest and candid answers. We are grateful for your time and input and will be printing some of these results over the next few months, beginning with this issue. We will also be offering several other brief, online parent surveys this year (beginning this month!) to encourage your input on a variety of topics. First, we were overwhelmed with the positive feedback we received regarding your child’s experiences at Harker. The following words and phrases were repeated frequently in your praise regarding the school, and we’ve included a sprinkling of comments from parents at different grade levels:
“Ample personal assistance” “Lots of individual attention” “Extremely supportive environment” “Well tailored to ability” “Opportunities for extra help” “High academic standards” “Great academic discipline and structure” “Caring and motivating environment” “Ability for individualized placement”
“An excellent academic education where students come eager and ready to learn and are nurtured in a supportive environment where prejudice and
“Well rounded” “Well-rounded education, excellent after-school program, individual attention for each child.” — 1st grade parent “A Harker education provides a student with an excellent education in not only academics, but also in non-academic areas such as the arts and social activities, which allows the student to grow as an entire person.” — 2nd grade parent
“The high level of expectations placed on the children, combined with a really excellent support network.” — 6th grade parent “A robust, well-grounded, wellrounded academic foundation.” — 8th grade parent “A well balanced and competitive program, with stress on both the mental and physical aspects of growth.” — 9th grade parent
disrespect are not tolerated.”
We’re privileged to teach your children and to have a parent body that appreciates the value of a demanding and rigorous education. We thank you for entrusting your children to us and believing in the Harker vision.
— 4th grade parent
We received a number of questions and suggestions in the survey regarding parent communication. We have been reviewing all of our methods of communication over this past year, and based on your input, here’s an update of our current programs:
Survey of the Month Go to the “Survey of the Month” on our Parent Home Page and let us know how we’re doing!
E-Mails E-mails are a “green,” ef ficient way to impar t timely information, and we will continue to use this method for per tinent parent communication. Our Technology Dept. is currently writing a program which will allow each Harker family to have multiple e-mails in our system, and we appreciate your patience as we finish this useful program. Also, a big “thank you” to all of you who were so patient through our broadcast e-mail problems this past fall. The program we wrote to override the “spam” protector on other ser vers that was causing the problems seems to be working, thank goodness!
Parent Communication Parent Home Page Based on parent input, we felt it was time to create a place on the web where parents could easily access the information most important to them. Click on Parents at the top of the Harker home page. Some of the links currently there or in the works are: Calendars, Faculty E-Mail directory, Menus, Athletic Schedules, Academic Schedules, Contact the Nurse, Emergency Information, Frequently Asked Questions, Archived Broadcast E-Mails, Handbooks, Policy and Procedures and PDFs of the Monthly Parent Newsletters. In addition, there are links for both Bucknall and Saratoga questions so that we can address your concerns and inquiries individually. This Parent Home Page will be password protected as of Dec. 10th, and the user name and password is included in this packet. We’ll also e-mail you serveral times before we activate the password protection.
Web Calendars Since we have four lively divisions at Harker—Primar y, Elementar y, Middle and Upper—the time came for us to separate our date
information by division so families wouldn’t be over whelmed by the immensity of one schoolwide calendar. These are posted on the web, and a printed version is sent home each month. Though we print two months at a time on these one-page sheets for your convenience, please recycle last month’s calendar when you receive the new one to ensure you have the most current information. When in doubt, go to the web site to confirm. (The date each calendar was last updated is noted at the top of each.) We continue to work on the calendar to provide the information you’re wanting and get it in a format you also like. It’s a work in progress! In addition, we have recently modified our Yearat-a-Glance, all-school calendar on the web to reflect only vacations &
holidays so parents have a clear, definitive place to refer to for planning purposes. We have included an updated copy of this calendar with this month’s distribution.
Newsletters and Web News As a K-12 school, Harker has a lot going on. The quarterly magazine format wasn’t providing parents with the timely news and updates they wanted, so we have replaced the quarterly publications with a monthly edition for each campus. We will produce fancier, expanded newsletters during cer tain times of the year to better showcase the events and activities of the season. We’ll address concerns and questions with a monthly Q & A column. We are also expanding our “news space” on our web site so that the world can know about some of the great things our kids are doing!
Mailings Good old-fashioned mail is still necessar y for some things. However, we will be making an ef for t to consolidate our mailings as much as possible to reduce the amount of mail you receive from us and conser ve on paper and postage. Many of you have e-mailed me your comments, both positive and negative, and I hope you continue to do so. This kind of feedback helps us ef fectively direct our communication ef for ts to best meet your needs. Now go to the Harker Home Page and complete that sur vey!
Pam Dickinson Director of Communications pamd@harker.org
Next month: More results of the summer survey, suggestions from this month’s on-line survey and a recap of the outstanding achievements of our Harker students.