staff kudos

Longtime primary division head Sarah Leonard retired in June. Her 41 years at Harker included time as a teacher, department chair and summer principal, and she led the primary school for 25 years. Leonard’s two sons attended Harker: Lifer Michael ’04 and Eric ’94, who currently teaches at the lower school. Harker thanks Leonard for her incredible service and wishes her the best!

In January, longtime upper school art teacher Pilar Agüero-Esparza was among the 12 most recent Bay Area artists to join the Fleishhacker Foundation’s Eureka Fellowship Program, which has provided funding to local artists since 1986. A national panel of arts experts evaluated the work of each of the 123 artists nominated by local nonprofits. Agüero-Esparza will receive her award of $35,000 in 2025 as part of the program’s three-year cycle. For more on this story, visit Harker News: https://news.harker.org/ art-teacher-receives-prestigious-eureka-fellowship/.

Charles Shuttleworth, upper school English teacher, appeared at the Triton Museum of Art in Santa Clara to discuss “Desolation Peak: Collected Writings,” a compilation of the writings of Jack Kerouac written during his time as a fire lookout with the U.S. Forest Service. Shuttleworth edited the volume, which was published in fall 2022. A devoted Kerouac scholar, Shuttleworth teaches a class called Kerouac and the Beat Generation as an upper school elective.

In March, speech and debate coach Greg Achten was inducted into the Emory University Barkley Forum’s Gold Key Society, which was founded in 1964 to honor successful high school debate coaches. Existing members of the society select coaches to be inducted, which takes place at a ceremony during the Barkley Forum for High Schools Tournament. To date, 204 coaches have been inducted, including Harker coach Jenny Achten in 2007.

Brian Davis, Harker’s diversity, equity and inclusion director, was a speaker at the 2023 Equity Conference in January, hosted by the San Diego County Office of Education. Titled “Transinstitutional Equity: A Framework for Equity and Justice in K-12 School Settings,” the workshop informed attendees on how to establish DEI departments at their institutions and how to advance learning processes to help schools meet their goals.