ANNIVERSARY
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WORDS BY ZACH JONES PHOTOGRAPHS PROVIDED BY THE HARKER ARCHIVES
Guinea Pigs: ast year, the upper school graduated its 20th class, a major milestone and validation of the massive risk and effort undertaken by Howard and Diana Nichols, as well as the staff, faculty and administrators who ran the school in its early years. The idea of adding a high school program to Harker had been discussed as early as the late 1980s, as Harker parents had long expressed their wish for their children to receive a Harker education beyond the eighth grade. In 1996, Howard and Diana Nichols – then the president and head of school, respectively – decided it was time to pursue the idea in earnest. They formed a team of teachers and administrators to visit a selection of East Coast private schools, with the idea of incorporating their best practices into Harker’s approach to establish a high school that would also reflect Silicon Valley’s reputation for innovation and entrepreneurial spirit. “Most of what was in the South Bay then were Jesuit schools,” recalled upper school history teacher Donna Gilbert, who joined Harker the year the upper school opened. “[Howard and Diana] Nichols tapped into something that was necessary, which was a nonsectarian college prep school for the valley. They hit the nail on the head.”
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HARK E R MAGA Z I N E l FA L L/W I N T E R 2018
20TH
Alumni and faculty reflect on the upper school’s
