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THE HARKER SCHOOL
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THE UPPER SCHOOL STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE HARKER SCHOOL
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UPCOMING DATES AP WEEKS MAY 6 - 17 GRADUATION THURSDAY, MAY 23
VOL. 25 NO. 6
FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2024
ASB council makes history with gender diversity
LAST DAY OF SCHOOL THURSDAY, MAY 30
inside the
ISSUE
news ................. 02
opinions ........... 9
features ............ 05
stem .................. 14
a&e/lifestyle ..... 07
sports ............... 17
Student-run boba sales fund canned food drive jessica wang
EMMA MILNER, ALISON YANG, KINNERA MULAM, FELIX CHEN
Green Team hosted a boba tea fundraiser outside of Manzanita on April 22 to raise money for the Martha’s Kitchen Food Fight canned food drive. They offered Happy Lemon’s milk tea with boba pearls, which students could buy for $7 each. As they ran low on supplies, they began to auction off their few remaining cups of tea, even offering “front of lunch line” passes for an extra $3. Harker ended up winning second place in the 2024 Food Fight with a score of 6,468 points.
Seniors team up and compete in chicken assassin game kinnera mulam
Class of 2024’s “Chicken Assassin” game began April 14 with 198 participating seniors and game rules changing every major round. As detailed in the initial rules, each senior received a target whom they had to “kill” by tapping the target with their chicken. However, targets visibly holding chickens wielded immunity and could not be eliminated. Before the semifinals round which started on April 25, 72 seniors remained. At the end of the game, which SAB predicts will finish today, two winners will emerge: the senior with the most eliminations and the last survivor, both of whom will receive prizes.
Students elect new class council leaders victor gong Students from 9th, 10th and 11th grades gathered in the Auxiliary Gym, Patil Theater and Nichols Auditorium for class council Q&A sessions after 5th period on April 23. Candidates responded to various prompts with topics ranging from dealing with setbacks to listing extracurricular activities. Class deans, who hosted the discussions, sourced questions from survey responses. Besides verbal responses, each candidate also provided written statements and recorded a Flipgrid video to further communicate their goals and initiatives for the next school year.
BREAKING BOUNDARIES The 2024-25 Associate Student Body officers are Sam Parapudi (11), Alicia Ran (11), Jia Jia Jiang (11), Daniel Chen (11) and Ananya Pradhan (10). The council breaks multiple gender precedents set by elected officers of the previous years.
U
jessica hu & lily shi
pper school students elected juniors Sam Parupudi, Alicia Ran, Jia Jia Jiang and Daniel Chen and sophomore Ananya Pradhan for the positions of Associated Student Body president, vice president, secretary, spirit coordinator and treasurer respectively, last week as the ASB officers for the 202425 school year. The newly elected ASB council is the first to have four non-male members out of five. According to Assistant to Upper School Dean of Students Kelley McCoy, 95% of students voted, one of the highest voting turnouts for an election at the upper school.
05 features
Meet your teacher feature: Acting with acuity
“
It cannot be the case that in nine consecutive years the most qualified candidate to lead the student body was a male-presenting person.”
CHRISTOPHER HURSHMAN
JUNIOR CLASS DEAN English teacher and junior class dean Christopher Hurshman reflects on the increasing gender diversity of ASB officers. He notes that the trend of non-
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male officers is becoming more prevalent, with this year representing the first instance of only one male officer. Sam’s role as president in the new student body also marks the first time in Harker history in which a non-binary individual has held the position. “It cannot be the case that in nine consecutive years the most qualified candidate to lead the student body was a male-presenting person,” Hurshman said. “The more years a trend like that continues, the more you start to suspect that something other than merit is playing into it. I think that the best response to that is to do more student education about civics and civic responsibility.” See NEWS Page 3 for more details
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@harkeraquilaDIA DESIGN BY VICTOR GONG AND JESSICA WANG