The Harker School is a private, non-profit school located in

San Jose, California San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 popul ...

. Founded in 1893 as Manzanita Hall, Harker now has three campuses: Bucknall, Union, and Saratoga, named after the streets on which they lie.

About

The Bucknall campus houses the Lower School (

kindergarten Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th cent ...

through grade 5), the Union campus houses the

Middle School A middle school (also known as intermediate school, junior high school, junior secondary school, or lower secondary school) is an educational stage which exists in some countries, providing education between primary school and secondary school. ...

(grades 6-8), and the Saratoga campus houses the Upper School (grades 9 through 12). Harker School's tuition is significantly higher than most comparable private schools in the

Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gov ...

. Many of the 35+ after-school programs have historically been included in the tuition.

History

The Harker School was founded as three distinct schools, which merged in 1972 to form Harker Academy and in 1993, Harker School.

Manzanita Hall and Palo Alto Military Academy

In 1891, founding

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

president

David Starr Jordan David Starr Jordan (January 19, 1851 – September 19, 1931) was the founding president of Stanford University, serving from 1891 to 1913. He was an ichthyologist during his research career. Prior to serving as president of Stanford Univer ...

influenced

Frank Cramer Frank Cramer (b. Wausau, Wisconsin November 4, 1861, d. Santa Clara County, California January, 30 1948) was an American writer, biologist and educator. Cramer was born on November 4, 1861 in Wausau, Wisconsin. He attended Lawrence College in Appl ...

to open the Palo Alto Preparatory School for Boys. The school was renamed Manzanita Hall in 1892, and by September 1894 the school had enrolled 24 students. In 1893, the school was a boys day school and boarding school, by the name of ''Manzanita Hall'' founded by Frank Cramer. The ''Manzanita Hall'' school was originally located at 1129 Parkinson Avenue in

Palo Alto Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was estab ...

, California. In 1915, the enrollment was 60 boys. in 1919, ''Manzanita Hall'' was purchased and renamed as ''Palo Alto Military Academy'', and that school remained until 1972.

Miss Harker's School

In 1902, ''Miss Harker's School'' was founded by Cathrine Harker as a girls day school, with a limited boarding school, also located in Palo Alto. In 1917, the enrollment was 40 girls and was served as a preparatory school for competitive colleges such as

. From 1902 to 1907, ''Miss Harker's School'' was located at 1121 Bryant Street in Palo Alto; and moved to 1050 Greenwood Avenue in Palo Alto, where the campus grew in size and the nearby streets were renamed (Melville and Harker Street) to reflect the campus.

Harker Academy

In 1972, there was a merger between the ''Palo Alto Military Academy'' and ''Miss Harker's School'' in order to form the ''Harker Academy''. With the merger, the school moved to 500 Saratoga Avenue in San Jose, California. in 1993, the school name changed to ''Harker School''. In 1954, the Harker School joined the California Association of Independent Schools (CAIS) and the

Western Association of Schools and Colleges The Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) was an organization providing School accreditation, accreditation of public and private universities, colleges, secondary school, secondary and elementary schools in California and Hawaii, ...

Campus

Upper school

The upper school, offering grades 9 through 12, is located on the Saratoga Avenue campus. The campus was previously home to an all-girls school, ''Mother Butler Memorial High School'', which merged with

Archbishop Mitty High School Archbishop Mitty High School (commonly known as Mitty) is a private, Roman Catholic high school located in San Jose, California, United States. The school is named for the late John Joseph Mitty, the fourth Archbishop of San Francisco. It was the ...

in 1969. The upper school was added to the K-8 program in 1998, with the first class of graduates in 2002.

Middle school

The middle school is located on the Union campus, the former site of the Harker Preschool. Since the opening of the upper school in 1998, most students choose to remain at Harker School after middle school. Many components ease the shift from the lower school to the middle school, including various athletic and artistic programs. There is also a fine arts requirement: students in grades 7 and 8 must take at least one arts class or participate in one art event in order to graduate (sixth graders are encouraged to do so, as well).

Lower school

The elementary school is located on the Bucknall campus, the former site of ''Bucknall Elementary School''. The campus was sold to Harker School by the Moreland School District, and classes started there in the 1998–1999 school year. The lower school also has an after-school orchestra, as well as sports and other activities.

Academics

Academic Olympiad competitions

Harker school started competing at US Physics Olympiad in 2004 with Yi Sun winning the gold medal at International Physics Olympiad as part of the US team at South Korea. In 2009, a record 3 students made the final 24, and Anand Natarajan of Harker School, representing the US team won the gold medal in Mexico.

Science research competitions

In the

Siemens Competition The Siemens Competition was a science competition for US high school students funded by the Siemens Foundation, which was administered by the College Board from 1999-2013 and by Discovery Education from 2014–2017. The Siemens Foundation released ...

, Harker School had four national semi-finalists in both 2006 and 2007, and six in 2008. In 2012, Harker had four regional finalists and six semifinalists: one-fourth of the regional finalists in California were from The Harker School. The Harker School started participating in the Intel/Regeneron Science Talent Search competition with its first graduating class of 2002. Between the first graduating class of 2002 until 2019 Harker high school has produced a record 92 semi-finalists and 18 finalists. 1 In just 17 years Harker High School has become one of the top three high schools in the USA with a total number of 18 finalists and top ten high schools in the total number of 92 semi-finalists.. In the

Intel Science Talent Search The Regeneron Science Talent Search, known for its first 57 years as the Westinghouse Science Talent Search, and then as the Intel Science Talent Search (Intel STS) from 1998 through 2016, is a research-based science competition in the United Sta ...

, a Harker student won the $75,000 second place award in 2006. From 2007 to 2009, 12 Harker School seniors were named national semifinalists, the largest number of any school west of the Mississippi in those years. In 2010, Harker School had another Intel finalist,. In 2011, Harker School had seven semifinalists and was the only school with two Intel finalists. In 2012, Harker School had 11 Intel semifinalists, the most in California and second in the nation behind

Stuyvesant High School Stuyvesant High School (pronounced ), commonly referred to among its students as Stuy (pronounced ), is a State school, public university-preparatory school, college-preparatory, Specialized high schools in New York City, specialized high school ...

in New York. In 2013, Harker School again had six Intel semifinalists, the most in California for the second year in a row, and one finalist. In 2014 Intel STS Harker had 10 semi-finalists, most of any school in California and one finalists. In 2015 Intel STS Harker had record 15 semi-finalists, most of any school in the USA and three finalists, again most of any school in USA with a student winning the first prize of $150,000. In 2016 Intel STS Harker had four semi-finalists and one finalists. In the 2019 Regeneron Science Talent Search competition, Harker had seven semi-finalists, the most of any school in California and three finalists, tied with another school as the most of any school in USA. In 2018 Regeneron STS Harker had six semi-finalists, tied as most of any school in California and two finalists. In 2017 Regeneron STS Harker had nine semi-finalists, tied as most of any school in USA with two other schools and had three finalists most of any school alone in USA.

Athletics

Harker School offers an athletics program which includes

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

softball Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...

lacrosse Lacrosse is a team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins with the indigenous people of North America as early as the 12th century. The game was extensively ...

cross country running Cross country running is a sport in which teams and individuals run a race on open-air courses over natural terrain such as dirt or grass. The course, typically long, may include surfaces of grass and earth, pass through woodlands and open coun ...

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

water polo Water polo is a competitive team sport played in water between two teams of seven players each. The game consists of four quarters in which the teams attempt to score goals by throwing the ball into the opposing team's goal. The team with the ...

wrestling Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat ...

cheerleading Cheerleading is an activity in which the participants (called cheerleaders) cheer for their team as a form of encouragement. It can range from chanting slogans to intense physical activity. It can be performed to motivate sports teams, to ente ...

yoga Yoga (; sa, योग, lit=yoke' or 'union ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India and aim to control (yoke) and still the mind, recognizing a detached witness-consciou ...

, fitness,

physical education Physical education, often abbreviated to Phys Ed. or P.E., is a subject taught in schools around the world. It is usually taught during primary and secondary education, and encourages psychomotor learning by using a play and movement explorati ...

, and

dance Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoir ...

. Students are encouraged to participate in sports from 4th grade onwards. In August 2017, Harker finished construction on their new athletic center on the upper school campus.

Performing arts

Harker School offers a K–12 performing arts program. The upper school program offers courses in vocal and instrumental ensembles, acting, dance, and technical theater, as well as a program named the Certificate Program. In February 2018, Harker opened a new performing arts building on the Saratoga campus, which includes a 463-seat theater, dressing rooms and practice rooms, and a Bosendorfer 214VC CS grand piano.

Publications

Harker has student-run journalistic publications: newspaper (''Winged Post''), yearbook (''Talon''), news website (Harker Aquila, formerly talonwp.com), and news magazine (''Wingspan''), as well as a social media presence. Harker also has a science research magazine, ''Harker Horizon'', which has an online presence and printed its inaugural issue in 2017. In addition, Harker began an economics magazine, ''Equilibrium,'' in 2019, and will maintain both an online presence and print its inaugural version in Summer 2020. The school's art and literature magazine (''HELM),'' has published 17 print issues as of late 2017.

Notable alumni and faculty

Priscilla Chan Priscilla Chan (born February 24, 1985) is an American philanthropist and a former pediatrician. She and her husband, Mark Zuckerberg, a co-founder and CEO of Meta Platforms, established the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative in December 2015, with a p ...

(former faculty in 2007 to 2008), philanthropist and pediatrician; wife of

Mark Zuckerberg Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (; born ) is an American business magnate, internet entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is known for co-founding the social media website Facebook and its parent company Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook, Inc.), o ...

. *

Andy Fang Andy Fang (born 1992) is a Chinese-American billionaire tech entrepreneur. He is best known as the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at DoorDash, which he started along with Stanley Tang, Tony Xu and Evan Moore in 2013. DoorDash had its ...

(class of 2010), Billionaire Co-Founder and CTO of

DoorDash DoorDash, Inc. is an American company that operates an online food ordering and food delivery platform. The company is based in San Francisco, California. It went public in December 2020 on NYSE and trades under the symbol DASH. With a 56% mar ...

. *

Maverick McNealy Maverick Scott McNealy (born November 7, 1995) is an American professional golfer and 2018 graduate of Stanford University with a degree in Management Science and Engineering. In late 2016 and early 2017, he was the number one ranked golfer in t ...

(class of 2013), number one ranked golfer in the

World Amateur Golf Ranking The World Amateur Golf Ranking for men was introduced by The R&A, the governing body of the sport of golf outside the United States and Mexico, on 23 January 2007. It is based on the results of over 2,600 amateur tournaments per year (and amateurs p ...

; son of

Scott McNealy Scott McNealy (born November 13, 1954) is an American businessman. He is most famous for co-founding the computer technology company Sun Microsystems in 1982 along with Vinod Khosla, Bill Joy, and Andy Bechtolsheim. In 2004, while still at Sun, ...

. * Andrea Nott, Olympic synchronized swimmer * John B. Owens, Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit *

Robert Rothbart Robert Rothbart ( he, רוברט רות'בארט, born Boris Kajmaković on June 16, 1986) is a Bosnian-Israeli professional basketball player playing the position of center for Elitzur Eito Ashkelon of the Israeli National League. He was named t ...

(born Boris Kajmaković in 1986), Bosnian-Israeli-Serbian professional basketball player playing

center Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentrici ...

for

Ironi Nahariya Ironi Nahariya Basketball Club ( he, מועדון הכדורסל עירוני נהריה; ) known for sponsorship reasons as Ironi Rain Nahariya () is a professional basketball club based in city of Nahariya in northern Israel. The team plays in t ...

in Israel * Alexander Wang,

fashion designer Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy at a particular period and place and in a specific context, of clothing, footwear, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and body posture. The term implies a look defined by the fashion in ...

and former creative director of

Balenciaga Balenciaga SA ( ) is a luxury fashion house founded in 1919 by the Spanish designer Cristóbal Balenciaga in San Sebastian, Spain. Balenciaga produces ready-to-wear, footwear, handbags, and accessories and licenses its name and branding to C ...

; named one of ''Time''s "100 Most Influential People" in the artists category in 2015 * Matt Wolf, documentary filmmaker; director and producer of ''Teenage''

References

External links

Harker's homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harker School Private K-12 schools in California Preparatory schools in California Performing arts education in the United States Educational institutions established in 1893 High schools in San Jose, California Private schools in San Jose, California 1893 establishments in California