Penn High School’s Drama Club will present “Boo Bash”  in the Studio Theater on Thursday, Oct. 25.

“Boo Bash” features two shows, and admission is free.

The first show, “Wren and Moose”, is scheduled for 6 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 25. It is a 25-minute children’s Halloween show written by Penn High School student Kenny Collymore-Williams. After the show, there will be Halloween candy and a short meet-and-greet with the characters.

The second show, “Death and All His Nonexistent Friends”, is a 30-minute young adult Halloween show, also written by Kenny Collymore-Williams. It is scheduled to start at 7 p.m., and features a few more jumps, bumps, and scares.

According to Drama Club Sponsor Crystal Ryan, “Boo Bash” is a student-led project. It is student-written, directed, acted, and teched.

“The Drama Club developed this event as a way to have a fun, free event for the community, but more importantly, the Drama Board members wanted a low pressure, fun way to engage incoming theatre students,” Ryan said. “With such a large program, it is a great way to get our “Intro to Theatre” involved in a performance situation. 

“The other unique thing about this event it is Penn’s first stage reading!” Ryan said. “Stage readings are how most professional playwrights get their works initially read before they go on to a huge, full production. Having several aspiring playwrights in our program, I would like begin implementing this more in our program to teach students how to get their work read, produced, and out in the professional world.“

Monday, Nov. 5
5:30 p.m.
Schmucker Middle School, 56045 N Bittersweet Rd.

Indiana law (IC 20-19-3-11) now requires that all schools provide age appropriate and research based instruction on child abuse and child sexual abuse to students in grades kindergarten through 12th. Penn-Harris-Madison has partnered with the Family Justice Center, Youth Service Bureau of St. Joseph County and the St. Joseph County Special Victims Unit to provide this instruction for our students.  

In November and early December, staff from the Family Justice Center and Youth Service Bureau St. Joseph County will present a series of age appropriate curriculum to elementary students in grades K-5. Each unit is age appropriate specific to the grade level.

To learn more about the new State mandated child abuse/sexual abuse prevention curriculum, all P-H-M parents are invited to attend an optional parent information night on Monday, November 5, 5:30 p.m., at Schmucker Middle School, 56045 N Bittersweet Rd.

Parents have the option to have their student(s) participate in the state mandated educational program.

Parents are asked to return either a paper version of the permission slip or click here to submit it electronically through our school website. *Please note a permission form needs to be returned for each individual child enrolled in a Penn-Harris-Madison School.

If you wish to fill out the electronic version of the form, please click here. 

To download and print a pdf copy of the elementary (grades K-5) permission form, please click here.

Adobe Acrobat Reader will be required to view the pdfs. If you do not have Adobe Acrobat Reader, please visit Adobe’s website, at this link www.get.adobe.com/reader/, to download your free version.

If you opt to fill out the paper form, you will need to print the form, fill it out and return it to the school.

Once again Penn-Harris-Madison School Corporation schools, in all grade levels tested, scored above Indiana’s averages. The variance between P-H-M’s pass rate over the state is at least 10% or higher across all grade levels and subjects.

For grade 10, 75.6% of P-H-M students passed the ELA test and 58.4% passed the Math portion. The district’s overall pass rate for grade 10 was 56.4%.

For grades 3-8, 78.0% of P-H-M students passed the ELA test and 74.8% passed the Math test. P-H-M’s overall district pass rate for grades 3-8 was 68.3%.

For grade 10, P-H-M ranks in the Top 5% out of 291 public school corporations. In grades 3-8, P-H-M is in the Top 6% of public school districts out of 294 public school corporations.

Other significant highlights from the Spring 2018 ISTEP+ results:

• Penn High School ranks 5th out of large public school districts (500+ students tested, based on both Math and ELA pass results of grade 10)
• Northpoint Elementary School is 2nd in Indiana public primary elementary schools (schools where grades 3-5 were tested)
• Discovery Middle School is 3rd in Indiana public middle schools (schools where grades 6-8 were tested)
• A total of four P-H-M elementary and one middle school—Northpoint, Prairie Vista, Horizon and Mary Frank Elementary Schools, along with Discovery Middle School—rank among the state’s Top 50 of all 1,426 public schools.

When reviewing the Corporation’s performance on the last round of ISTEP+ (grades 3-8) test results, P-H-M Superintendent Dr. Jerry Thacker commented “P-H-M teachers and administrators are incredibly committed to our vision of excellence and offer the best education in the Michiana area. I am very proud of the fact that P-H-M is one of the state’s top performing school districts. The credit goes to our outstanding teachers, students and parents.”

Students in Grades 3-8 and students enrolled in Biology at Penn will take ILEARN Indiana’s, new computer-adaptive standardized test, this spring (April 22 – May 17) replacing the state’s previous test, ISTEP+. To see what subjects students will be tested per their grade level, please click to visit the IDOE website. 

To help parents better understand how their children will be tested and to help them prepare their students for the test, the IDOE has put together a quick one page guide. Click here to download the pdf copy.

The ISTEP+ Grade 10 assessment will be administered during the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 school years. Click here for more information on the transition from the ISTEP+ Grade10 assessment to the College Entrance Exam.

IREAD-3 for Grade 3 will continue as is. Click for more details.

Starting this spring, the Indiana Department of Education will also transition to a new test to assess students with significant cognitive disabilities in Grades 3-8 and 10. IAM is the new summative accountability assessment. Click here for more details on IAM.

Click to view all the testing dates on the P-H-M Corporate Calendar or reference the 2018-19 P-H-M District Activities Wall Calendar.

The show schedule for the 2018-19 school year has been set, with the first show of the season kicking off on Wednesday, Sept. 12 at 6:30. Click here for the full schedule.

Patrons are now able to reserve and purchase tickets online through the P-H-M ​RevTrak Web Store. More  details online at www.phmschools.org/dvt.  

The first day back for the school of the 2018-19 school year for Penn-Harris-Madison schools was Wednesday, August 22. Superintendent Dr. Jerry Thacker and Penn Principal Sean Galiher were up early to do live interviews on local South Bend TV stations.

Dr. Thacker then began his annual 15 schools in 3 days tour. Longtime Board Member Larry Beehler accompanied Dr. Thacker on the first two days. Take a look at their visits …

Today was New Teacher Orientation for Penn-Harris-Madison. 

Northpoint is welcoming 3 new teachers.

Click to get more details on P-H-M’s Penn's New Teacher Class of 2018.

The 2018-19 District Activities Calendar will be mailed around August 9 and 10 to all P-H-M families. 

It lists key school and district events throughout the year. 

To get a jump start on your planning and to know all your schools’ important Back-to-School dates, click here to download a pdf copy.

Want a quick one pager of the 2018-19 School Year or want to import P-H-M’s Google Calendar to yours? Click here for more calendar and scheduling resources.

If you are a hard worker, a team player, and want to get better at basketball, Penn Girls Basketball coach invites you to join the Penn Community Junior & Senior Girls Basketball family and be a part of a winning tradition.

This community-sponsored AAU league is developed for the Penn-Harris-Madison Communities and has been given permission to be named the Penn Community Girls Basketball League. 

The “Junior” League is open to girls in grades 3-6 . The “Senior” League is open to grades 7 & 8.

Sign-ups are Sunday, August 26 th in the Penn Arena from 12:00 – 2:00 p.m. Registering on time is essential to the organization of the league. A late fee of $10.00 will be assessed for signing up after August 26. No sign-ups will be accepted after Friday, August 31. No refunds will be given after league begins.

All practices and games will be held in school facilities within the Penn-Harris-Madison district. All games will be played on Sundays.

Game Times are:

• 3rd & 4th grade league: 12:00 – 2:00 p.m.
• 5th & 6th grade league: 2:00 – 4:00 p.m.
• 7th & 8th grade league: 4:00 – 5:00 p.m. & 5:00 – 6:00 p.m.
   

The league will begin on September 9 th for ALL age groups. The “Junior” League will end on November 11 for grades 3- 6 and no tournament will take place.

The “Senior” League will end on November 18 th with an all day shootout.

Click to download information and sign-up forms for the “Junior” League (grades 3-6).

Click here to download information and sign-up forms for the “Senior” League (grades 7 & 8).

On June 5, 2018, Northpoint Elementary School Kindergarten students completed their first year of school and got to experience what it is like to graduate. The gym was packed with family, friends and many smiles to help the happy kindergartners celebrate their achievements and congratulate them on moving on to first grade next year.

Congratulations to all of the students and families!

Please see the photo gallery below. To download high resolution jpg files from the photo gallery below, just simply click the “DOWNLOAD” button on the bottom right-hand corner of the photo while viewing it in the Photo Gallery function. We are happy to provide this service to you free of charge.