O c t o b e r 2 0 0 1 (VOL. 8, NO. 1)
A
M O N T H L Y
Harker Responds to Tragedy
SARATOGA CAMPUS
N E W S L E T T E R
In The
F R O M
T H E
H A R K E R
world office and some of the school administrators, has turned it into a Harker-wide project. The tentative date is Nov. 2nd. Details will follow in next month's newsletter.
The tragedy of
■ The Speech and Debate Club members are selling pins of the American flag at school events to raise funds and will also be donating 10% of their proceeds from the Harker Debate Tournament to relief efforts in New York City.
September 11 brought the entire Harker community together to try to understand the events that occurred and respond to those in need.
S C H O O L
■ Several groups in the Middle and Upper School initiated projects to help the relief efforts on the East Coast.
Middle School Assembly September 11 ■ Howard and Diana Nichols held special assemblies at the Bucknall and Saratoga campuses with all of the students immediately after the events to provide age appropriate guidance and reassurances, and to provide opportunities for discussion. Our counseling staff provided further support to Harker students. ■ Our front desk and support staffs on both campuses handled hundreds of parent phone calls on the day of the events and kept our parents informed and reassured of their children’s safety. Our webmaster posted emergency information on the web within hours of the event, and it was updated daily during the first week to further keep parents constantly informed. ■ Members of the Harker US Show Choir participated in a candlelight vigil in Chavez Park in San Jose on Sunday, Sept. 23, to honor the victims and survivors of the bombings. Over 5,000 people attended the event, including San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales and Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown. The Harker Show Choir, wearing red, white and blue and holding candles, performed “God Bless
America” and led a sing-a-long of “America the Beautiful.”
■ The US Theatre Arts program is working on a unique project about the tragedy (see IN THE CLASSROOM for more details).
■ Shalini Lal (Gr. 12) is spearheading an effort to organize a blood drive with the Stanford Blood Center and, with the help of the nurse's
■ The administration is currently working on centralizing Harker's relief efforts, and will have more to report in the next newsletter.
harker
headlines
Sixteen National Merit Semifinalists Named Harker is delighted to announce that 16 out of the 89 seniors in our first graduating class this year have been named National Merit Semifinalists, giving Harker one of the highest percentages in the countr y. These National Merit semifinalists are within the top 16,000 students in the United States based on PSAT scores achieved in the junior year: Jerry Chi, Alex A. Combs, Arjun Dave, Liang Dong, Shally Garg, Benjamin Y. Hu, Alexander S. Janofsky, Benjamin H. Janofsky, Kimberly N. Kanada, Anjali Khurana, Shalini H. Lal, Alan V. Liu, Nadia N. Raza, Stephanie C. Tsai,
Matthew G. Wong and Jennifer Sun Yao. Congratulations to each and every one of them!
Harker Middle School Students Exceptional Each year Johns Hopkins University conducts a search for exceptional children, and once identified these children receive recognition at an awards ceremony and become eligible for advanced summer programs. To qualify, students must be in the 97th percentile or above on Math or English segments of the ERB, and this year Harker is proud to announce that 219 Harker middle school students qualified. Congratulations to all of our fine middle school students! continued on pg. 3
In The
classroom
■ The students in Catherine Snyder’s Study of Music class (10th) are in the process of writing a Gregorian Chant. After studying the principles of Gregorian chants, students are choosing one of three poem excerpts they've been given and are creating a chant “melody” and their own music notation. Standard music notations or the use of a computer are not allowed, and they are being encouraged to decorate the chant in the style of a medieval illuminated manuscript. ■ Sharron Mittelstet’s Literature to Film students (Gr. 12) will be using their laptops to explore the connections between the Surrealist art of Salvador Dalí and Surrealist filmmakers, such as Luis Buñuel and Antonin Artaud. ■ In honor of National Hispanic Heritage Month next month, Spanish 1-3 will be attending a special screening in Spanish of the current IMAX film entitled “Mexico” at the Tech Museum. Advanced Spanish 4 and AP will be attending the National Theater of the Performing Arts Biligual production of “Las Adventuras de Don Quijote” in Santa Cruz. ■ AP Computer Science did a programming lab this month called “The Full Monty: Using a Monte Carlo Simulation to Solve the Monty Hall Problem.” Using the concept of popular game show “Let’s Make a Deal” where players choose what’s behind three closed doors, faculty member Robb Cutler explained that “when you run the simulation a million times—it takes less than a second of computer time to do so—and print out the results, you get a good idea of whether it’s better to keep or switch. The results aren't always what you expect!” ■ US Study of Theatre Arts teachers, Jeffrey Draper and Brian O'Sullivan, are doing a special “theatrical journalism” project in their acting and scene study classes about the World Trade Center/Pentagon tragedy. Styled after “The Laramie Project,” a documentary theatrical piece about the murder of a University of Wyoming student in 1998, as well as pieces by dramatist, Anna Deavere Smith, Draper and O’Sullivan's project involves Harker
students re-creating real characters, rather than imaginary ones. The students are to audiotape an interview with someone who has a unique perspective on the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, using a series of agreed-upon questions. Using the audio tape and extensive notes regarding facial expressions, energy, posture and gestures, the students must then recreate the exact “per formance” of the original speaker in a monologue to the class. Mr. Draper feels that this unique and demanding exercise is, “an opportunity for our upper school students to improve their acting skills while creatively exploring their feelings about the recent tragedies.”
art
Middle School Homeroom Officers GRADE 7 Cuningham: Matthew Wong, Pres.; Greggory Ringold, VP; Julia Havard, Spirit. Garcia: Sharon Huang, Pres.; Rohan Narayen, VP; Shoban Pothula, Spirit. Gathy: Shilpika Lahri, Pres.; Samantha Peppard, VP; Jamie Cisar, Spirit. McGovern: Ammar Kothari, Pres.; Siobhan Stevenson, VP; Rupan Bose, Spirit. Osoka: Ayse Celebioglu, Pres.; Alexandra Nicholaeff, VP; Molly Newman, Spirit. Saint: Victoria Phan, Pres.; Grayson Hurd, VP; Cassie Kerkoff, Spirit. Swaminathan: Elyse Trinh, Pres.; Kathryn Cooper, VP; Paula Gitis, Spirit. Zetterquist: Adam Creasman, Pres.; Emily Isaacs, VP; Lucas Motro, Spirit. GRADE 8 Blum: Nicole Chuang, Pres.; Willy Ho, VP; Milton Lee, Spirit. Fukuda: Shivani Bhargava, Pres.; Elizabeth
gallery Student samples from US art teacher Jaap Bongers. Students were asked to create a work model for a huge piece using the earth as their “canvas,” inspired by the work of world famous artist, Christo.
Peter Noonan
Ranjitha Kumar Valentina Alessandrini
Ilana Traynis
Moul, VP; Swasti Sarna, Spirit. Hatfield: Kei Ogawa, Pres.; Katy Yu, VP; Daisuke Ito, Spirit. Hazard: Mina Lee, Pres.; Jonathan Jenq, VP; Mariam Rangwala, Spirit. Hewitt: Samantha Fang, Pres.; Christopher Caswell, VP; Nicholas Navarro, Spirit. Kadam: Michael Hammersley, Pres.; Avanti Deshpande, VP; Freya Waldern, Spirit. Keilty: Casey Near, Pres.; Lauren Harriman, VP; Alisha Tolani, Spirit. Merrill: Amit Mukerjee, Pres.; Gareth Scheerder, VP; Aaron Grant, Spirit. Pinzas: Sean Turner, Pres.; Christopher Sutardja, VP; Michael Lee, Spirit. Siemens: Ariel Wang, Pres.; Mika Sugawara, VP; Young Jo Kim, Spirit. White: Candace Chang, Pres.; Lauren Harries, VP; Arjun Kohli, Spirit.
Deborah Tu
online
www.harker.org
Database Access Available to Harker Families
Parent Info
■ Facts on File http://www.fofweb.com/ User name: harker. Password: harker
Harker Teachers Receive International Grant
■ Galenet Databases http://galenet.gale.com/a/acp/ name/harker. Password: harker ■ Grove Dictionary of Art Online http://www.groveart.com/ User name: harker. Password: grvart ■ Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians http://www.grovemusic.com/. User name: harker. Password: grvmusic
SPORTS Middle School The A1 and B1 teams traveled to Valley Christian to open their seasons. The A1 lost a close one. The scores were 8-15, 15-11, and 15-17. The last game was a heartbreaker, and the win wasn’t an easy one for Valley. The Eagles fought to the last point, they looked great and played well as a team. The B1 team, coached by Mary Oaks, beat Valley. The scores were 15-12, 15-7. Strong ser ving by Elyse Trihn and Stacy DosSantos in game one and Esther Teplitsky in game two, sealed the win for the Eagles. “It was a great win for us and a great learning experience,” said Coach Oaks. “I plan to build on what we did today!”
Upper School Varsity football took on undefeated Branham HS on Friday night, and
Joanne Mason and Bradley Stoll, Harker School mathematics teachers, are recipients of one of six prestigious Wolfram Research Mathematica Grants awarded worldwide for the 2001-2002 school year. Other recipients include teachers from Savannah, Georgia; Washington, D.C.; Champaign, Illinois; Palm Springs, California; and Nishinomiya, Japan.
■ Infotrac Student Edition and Kid's Edition http://infotrac.galegroup.com/ itk12/thsl_main Password: harker ■ Lexis/Nexis https://web.lexis-nexis.com/ scholastic User name: HHIGH. Password: 112ZT8 ■ The New York Times Historical http://proquest.umi.com/ pqdweb?RQT=306&TS=10008 24840 User name: 4k9bc9n97v. Password: welcome ■ Proquest Direct http://www.umi.com/proquest/ User name: 4k9bc9n97v. Password: welcome
headlines continued from Pg. 1
Enid Davis, Harker’s Library Director, announced that the following new subscription-based electronic databases are available for our Harker students and families via our Website. Please be aware that in accordance with our contracts, passwords are not to be given out to anyone but your household members. You may find these great sources of online, accurate information by going to the The Harker School library site: http:// library.harker.org, then going to “Subscription Links” on the menu.
■ Encyclopedia Britannica Online http://www.search.eb.com User name:!@#Harker. Password: KTwelve
harker
The PARENTS site on the Harker home page is evolving into a HOME PAGE FOR PARENTS. Among the features of this expanding site are links to all the division calendars, a PDF version of this monthly newsletter that you can download and print from your home computer, and links to other pages in the site of interest to parents. Please email pamd@harker.org if you have questions or suggestions.
According to Melanie Traxler, a Wolfram spokesperson, Mason and Stoll were chosen to receive the grant because of their “commitment to actively engaging students in a top-quality educational experience that emphasizes the integration of technology to enhance the curriculum.” She sees Wolfram’s Mathematica 4.1 software as a “good fit for the richness of the mathematics program at Harker School, whose emphasis is on problem solving and concept exploration for students, and presentation and demonstration for teachers.”
briefs narrowly missed the biggest victory of their young careers, ending in a 14-14 tie. The Eagles ended up on the Branham three yard line as time expired. The heavily favored Bruins couldn't contain senior fullback Adam Vucurevich, who ran for 171 yards on 31 carries. Quarterback Kevin Hartsoch scored twice to lead the Eagles to a 1-1-1 record at this point of the season. The defense was led by Matt and Adam Vucurevich as well as Kenny Wat, who had two sacks during crucial Branham drives. The Eagles take on undefeated Westmont on Friday night at Westmont at 7:15 The Eagle volleyball team captured a thrilling five set match vs league rival Redwood Christian on Friday Sept 21st. After losing the first two games, the Eagles charged back to win the final three games,
with the fifth game score 16-14! Redwood Christian had been undefeated in PSAL play up until the Eagles’ landing. Rebecca Chang led Harker with 24 kills, and Sumana Rao chipped in eight kills. Liz Brentano led the defense with five blocks on the evening. The Eagles take their 2-1 league mark up against Mercy San Francisco on Tuesday the 25th. Eagle Golf remains undefeated with a 2-0 record after their win over Notre Dame SJ on Monday the 24th. Jen Jenq led the way earning medallist honors with a score of 43. Kelly Gault shot a sizzling 48 to tie for second place in the individual scores. The Harker tennis team improved its season record to 5-2 overall and 5-1 in league play with a 7-0 victory over Fremont Christian.
Currently Kathleen Ko (4-0), Jessica Travis (2-0), and Sonia Rastogi (20) lead the way for the Eagles. The Eagle soccer team followed up their second place tournament finish with a resounding 5-0 victory over Mid Peninsula. They also played tough against defending Division 3CCS champion Sacred Heart Prep in a 4-1 loss. Kevin Busch and Zlatan Kremonic spearheaded the Eagle attack and Neil Mehta has scored several goals thus far in the season. Harker cross countr y runners finished 1-2-3 in the girls division in a three team meet last week. Jennifer Shangkuan, Deepa Mathew, and Maggie Chen led the dominant Eagles. In the boys division, Sean Dyal, Alfred See, and Jigish Patel ran outstanding races.
parent
events
Thursday, October 4, 6:45pm US Back to School Night (rescheduled due to power outage)
spirit
alive
Fundraising Campaign Underway
Saturday, October 20, 6pm Homecoming Game, PAL Stadium
Welcome back Harker parents! Last year’s Million for the Millennium Annual Giving Campaign was a great success, and we’re now in the midst of this year’s Keep the Spirit Alive with 1.25 campaign. Participation to date for this year’s Campaign has already put us at a little over 25% of our $1.25 million goal! We are incredibly grateful to have such a magnificent group of parents who support Harker so wholehear tedly. With your generosity and commitment to Harker's Keep the Spirit Alive with 1.25 campaign, we will surely provide your children with the most comprehensive educational and extracurricular experiences possible. Thank you for keeping our spirit alive!
Saturday, October 20, 8pm Monte Carlo Night (US parents mixer), BKN Gym
—Amalia Keyashian, Director of Annual Giving (amaliak@harker.org)
Friday, October 5 US Community Service Day (required for Gr. 9-11) Monday, October 8 Columbus Day holiday - NO SCHOOL Tuesday, October 9, 5-6pm Gr. 12 Parent Coffee & Grad Info Mtg. (Gym) Wednesday, October 10, 6:30pm Mother’s Dinner, Fairmont Hotel, SJ
Volunteer The Volunteer Breakfast on Aug. 31 brought out both veteran volunteers and new Harker parents who are eager to get involved in our community— many thanks! Already
several groups of volunteers have helped with mailings, and special thanks to those who helped get out
Mothers’ Dinner invitations in the midst of the recent and tragic events. Other mailing teams will soon be helping with Monte Carlo Night invitations, Upper School brochure mailings and more. Volunteer Leadership Council member and parent, Smita Patel, is this year’s Mailings Coordinator. To volunteer, contact smita24@pacbell.net.
notes
Grade level coordinators and room parents are now in place, and every Middle School homeroom has its own room parent (some have two!). This year’s grade level coordinators are Joan Havard (7th) and Cherrie Blair (8th). Nancy Hartsoch, Pat Vucurevich, Susan Lee, Jean Laws and Kim Thurgate are preparing for the Upper School Parent’s Monte Carlo Night on Sat., Oct. 20, in the Bucknall gym. Upper School parents, as well as US faculty and administrators, are invited to this special “get to know each other” evening of gaming fun and camaraderie. Volunteers are needed to assist Pat Vucurevich with set-up and decorations in the gym on Saturday morning, Oct. 20, beginning at 9 AM. To volunteer, contact Pat at Vucu@pacbell.net. Thanks to 8th grade parent, Cherrie Blair, and her crew of volunteers who will be making sure students are appropriately uniformed and looking their best for the professional photographers taking the fall pictures this year.
—Nancy Reiley Director of Community Relations nancyr@harker.org
2001
homecoming
All parents, faculty and students of Harker are invited to join the old-fashioned fun at Harker's Homecoming 2001. Harker will play Justin Senia at PAL Stadium in San Jose. Game time is 6pm on Saturday, October 20th. We're hoping to see everyone there to support the football team, cheer with the cheerleaders, congratulate the Homecoming Court and just enjoy a great evening outside as part of the Harker community! There will be an exciting halftime show, including a cheerleading routine, class competition between the 9th - 12th grades, processional and announcements by the Homecoming court and some fun surprises. Our goal is for Homecoming to become an annual event for graduating alumni to come join us! This year’s Homecoming Court of Princes and Princesses, voted on by the students in their grade are: Seniors: Alan Liu, Ahksar Kharebov, Adam Vucurevich, Tiffany Duong, Alexa Bush and Carmen Antoun. Juniors: Poorav Patel and Rebecca Chang. Sophomores: Max Kubota and Maya Hey. Freshmen: Abeer Desai and Catherine Ball.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Many thanks to the parents who worked hard over the past several years to keep the monthly newsletter idea alive with the Eagle Eye. This first issue of the monthly PARENT PAGES is a tribute and thank you to them. I look forward to getting ideas and suggestions from ALL of our parents over the coming year to ensure that this publication is useful and entertaining for all!—Pam Dickinson, Editor (pamd@harker.org)
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 Printing: Todd Whitaker in the Harker print shop! Photography: Chris Daren, Eugene Louie, Eric Hoffman, Mark Tantrum. Also, US students Carmen Antoun & Ana Brar