Gabriel Martinez ‘24
We hear the story every year. In 1988, Montgomery County terminated the lease St. Andrew’s had on its Bradmoor campus in Bethesda. The school had no idea what to do, but through the grace of god and the generosity of the Board of Trustees, we were able to purchase the Postoak campus. It’s a tale as old as time (or at least as old as the school). But what many don’t know is that before our plucky independent school bought the property, there was another, perhaps even pluckier, independent school on campus.
That’s right, prior to St. Andrew’s purchase of the Postoak campus, it was owned by the Harker College Preparatory School.
In its final years, Harker was nationally recognized as having one of the best high school basketball teams in the United States. They were the top-ranked team in The Washington Post rankings and No. 5 in the USA Today national rankings. And that Basketball team is partially the reason why they’re not around today.
Harker College Preparatory School (Harker Prep) was started as an alternative to a new wave of progressive schools during the 1960s. Looking online, there wasn’t much information about Harker Prep. So, I had to venture into the depths of the St. Andrew’s Archive, which actually had lots of information about Harker’s history and most of the old yearbooks.
The first headmaster, John E. Kieffer, in the mission statement in the 1963 Harker Yearbook, said that the school was “designed to prepare young men for college by returning to the highly prized traditional methods of education.”’
The school was named after Norman W. Harker, a personal friend of the first Headmaster, who described him in the 1966 Harker Yearbook as “…completely dedicated to the premise that a college education for everyone, no matter what the cost, is vital to the progress of our country.”
Harker was an attorney in New Jersey and in his free time tutored students and gave them college counseling advice. He was a vocal advocate for collegiate education, and believed that if a parent was sending their children to a “worthy secondary school,” that they should ask themselves: “how can they afford not to manage, somehow, to see that he gets the college education he deserves?”
While Norman W. Harker died before the school’s construction, much of the school’s philosophy was based on what he believed: that people had an obligation to their community, and that education could help them fulfill their obligations.
When the school first opened in 1963, it had around 51 students in the first class, and it stayed fairly small for the majority of its life. While new facilities were built, most of the school activities took place in the Kiplinger House (then known as La Garde). The house was used for seminars, hosted the library, and had administrative offices.
The Harker yearbooks in the St. Andrew’s Archives reminded me of Rushmore Academy from the Wes Anderson movie of the same name (if you haven’t watched, I recommend you do, it’s great!). It seemed like a quirky little independent school that had a lot of character, and certainly gave its students a good start for college.
But why did this school close down? Well, for the latter half of Harker’s existence the school struggled with enrolling students, and in the final years it attempted to gain recognition and money via investing in their basketball program. To this end they hired acclaimed high school basketball coach Stu Vetter to bolster the program. Vetter’s coaching, along with the players he brought, skyrocketed Harker’s basketball program, winning 23 out of 24 games, with their only defeat coming from Dunbar High School in Baltimore, the number one team in the nation. But while the publicity propelled the school into national fame, it didn’t increase enrollment locally, and the school was forced to shut down in 1992.
The story of Harker was almost the story of St. Andrew’s, a vision cut short by the reality of business. For the St. Andrew’s community, Harker’s story should remind us that it takes incredible hard work and sacrifice to keep the doors of our small private school open, and we should thank those people who work hard for the sake of our education.
Photograph via MVP International