![“[Building nerf blasters] became this outlet of creativity for me that hasn't been matched by anything else. The process [of] making a build complete to your desire is such a painstakingly difficult process, but I've had to learn from [the skills needed from] soldering to proper painting. There's so many different options for everything, if you think about it, it exists. The best part is [that] if it doesn't exist, you can build it yourself," Ishaan Parate said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/DSC_8149-900x604.jpg)
![“When I came into high school, I was ready to be a follower. But DECA was a game changer for me. It helped me overcome my fear of public speaking, and it's played such a major role in who I've become today. To be able to successfully lead a chapter of 150 students, an officer team and be one of the upperclassmen I once really admired is something I'm [really] proud of,” Anvitha Tummala ('21) said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Screen-Shot-2021-07-25-at-9.50.05-AM-900x594.png)
![“I think getting up in the morning and having a sense of purpose [is exciting]. I think without a certain amount of drive, life is kind of obsolete and mundane, and I think having that every single day is what makes each day unique and kind of makes life exciting,” Neymika Jain (12) said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Screen-Shot-2017-06-03-at-4.54.16-PM.png)
![“My slogan is ‘slow feet, don’t eat, and I’m hungry.’ You need to run fast to get where you are–you aren't going to get those championships if you aren't fast,” Angel Cervantes (12) said. “I want to do well in school on my tests and in track and win championships for my team. I live by that, [and] I can do that anywhere: in the classroom or on the field.”](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/DSC5146-900x601.jpg)
![“[Volleyball has] taught me how to fall correctly, and another thing it taught is that you don’t have to be the best at something to be good at it. If you just hit the ball in a smart way, then it still scores points and you’re good at it. You could be a background player and still make a much bigger impact on the team than you would think,” Anya Gert (’20) said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/AnnaGert_JinTuan_HoHPhotoEdited-600x900.jpeg)
![“I'm not nearly there yet, but [my confidence has] definitely been getting better since I was pretty shy and timid coming into Harker my freshman year. I know that there's a lot of people that are really confident in what they do, and I really admire them. Everyone's so driven and that has really pushed me to kind of try to find my own place in high school and be more confident,” Alyssa Huang (’20) said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/AlyssaHuang_EmilyChen_HoHPhoto-900x749.jpeg)
On Tuesday, September 4, students were locked out of their students.harker.org email and associated files. Anyone attempting to access their email received an error message informing them that their “password had been changed [a number of] hours ago.”
The services were taken offline as part of a reorganization of the entire email system, according to Director of Instructional Technology Daniel Hudkin’s announcement in last week’s school meeting. While all email is being stored during the transfer, any Google Documents that were not downloaded are not recoverable.
Students found themselves increasingly frustrated when, on September 5, the email system remained offline.
“It’s annoying, especially because there are teachers that I need to email about college apps, which is a time sensitive thing, but we’re not allowed to email teachers with our personal accounts,” Sierra Lincoln (12) said. “It’s a bit frustrating, but understandable because updates need to happen.”
While most teachers were also aware of the scheduled shutdown, many did not know that the service would be down for longer than a day and continued to use their still-active teacher emails to contact their students. Some, like AP European History teacher Carol Zink, found their classes disrupted by the lack of email.
“It’s astonishing to me that this didn’t get taken care of before school started,” she said. “The only way for Harker teachers to communicate with their students is through email, so our hands are tied.”
Unable to communicate with their students through email, teachers like Chemistry teacher Andrew Irvine were forced to resort to other platforms like Athena2 to convey materials and messages to students.
“[This situation is] pretty challenging, especially in the second week of school where communication is critical [and] in general I need to be able to communicate with my students,” he said. “I realized I could use Athena and post other topics there, and at least HHMS is still up, so I could use those.”
According to Upper School Division Head Butch Keller, the continuation of the shutdown was not in the original plan; regardless, this situation will prove beneficial in the long run.
“All of this is an upgrade, […] but it’s just one of those things that we don’t have any control over,” he said. “It’s an inconvenience now for an upgrade later.”
According to an announcement on the Daily Bulletin, student email is estimated to come back online on Friday, September 7.
![Winged Post Editor-in-Chief Katerina Matta and Managing Editor Young Min were selected as first place winners from a pool of around 2,000 students. “This page [shows] how much we paid attention to detail and how much we pushed ourselves to ensure the best quality that we could,” Young said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/IMG_4254-900x1200.jpeg)
