Almost a year to the date Indiana schools shut down (P-H-M schools shut down on March 12, 2020), P-H-M teachers and staff got a literal shot in the arm and marked a major step forward in our fight against COVID-19.

On Monday, March 8, 202, Meijer Pharmacy set up a vaccination clinic inside the Main Arena at Penn High School and administered 1,170 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine. 

Every P-H-M teacher and staff member who wanted to get the vaccine was able to do so. 

The vaccines were made available under the federal allotment of vaccines through the Federal Retail Pharmacy Program. The White House announced that the federal allotment would be open to educational staff at schools so teachers and staff could receive the vaccine, especially in states where educational staff had not been included in the first responder group. P-H-M Human Resources reached out to Meijer as word spread that they were working with Indiana schools to set up on-site vaccination clinics.

We are so thankful to the team at Meijer and to EVERYBODY at P-H-M who worked so hard to make this event happen on very short notice. 

Jenni McCarthy, a kindergarten teacher at Bittersweet Elementary said “I honestly have to say that it was fantastic when I found out that we could get them right here at school. I didn’t have to go anywhere. I didn’t have to sign up on any list, I didn’t have to do anything. It just goes to show that Penn-Harris-Madison is a great place to work because they always think of their employees first and are trying to make sure that we are safe to be back in the classroom.”

In addition to the over 700 P-H-M staff members who received a vaccine, we also reached out to area schools to make doses available to others as well. P-H-M felt it was important to share any extra vaccines with educators and staff from other school districts and private schools within P-H-M’s boundaries so that no vaccines would be wasted. 

Dr. Jerry Thacker, P-H-M’s superintendent of schools said “…this just has a tremendous positive impact on the feeling the teachers, all school employees and the students have with regards to receiving a vaccine. They know they’re going to be safer, so this is the first step in that. It also gives us a barometer of what we need to be doing in the future with regard to reaching out and making sure that we can get our students back [in person].”

Watch the video to get a fuller sense of what the day was like. Meijer will return to Penn Monday, March 29th to administer the second dose. 

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!

Spring Break Kids Club

April 5 – 9, 2021

6:30 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.

Northpoint Elementary School (Door E)

Cost is $35 per child, per day or $150 per child for the full week. If you are not currently enrolled in Kids Club, you must also pay the $25 registration fee per child. Registration and payment are due, and non refundable, by Tuesday, March 30, 2021. 

Click here for more details and online registration.

Calling all kindergarten through fifth grade students and their families…it’s time for the VIRTUAL Young Author’s Conference! 

Sponsored by the P-H-M Education Foundation, the Young Authors’ Conference is an opportunity to meet and hear from multi-talented children’s author and speaker, Matthew Gollub.  Mr. Gollub has written over 20 picture books and will share his experiences as a writer during his engaging, grade-level presentations.

Participants will also enjoy an interactive music and movement experience with Horizon Elementary School’s very own music teacher, Jon West. 

Mr. West is a seasoned Elementary music teacher in the P-H-M School Corporation in addition to being the Executive Director of a local nonprofit community theater company, The Main Stage Inc.

COST:

• FREE for any K-5 P-H-M Student.

REGISTRATION:

• Students MUST be registered and registration is limited!
• Every student, including multiple students within the same family must have their own registration.
• Register at YAC Virtual Registration.
• Deadline for registration is Friday, February 19, 2021

VIRTUAL EVENT DETAILS:

Saturday, March 6, 2021       

9:00am – 10:30am

• Prior to the conference at the beginning of March, participating students will receive the link for the virtual event and additional information.
• This information will be sent to the email that was provided on the registration form.
• If you have any questions, please contact Lindsay Schirripa at lschirripa@phm.k12.in.us

Special thanks to our community partners who help make events like these possible: 

May Oberfell Lorber, Laidig Systems, Crowe Horwath, Gibson, Teachers Credit Union, Tuesley Hall Konopa, Lake CityBank,  Holiday Coral, EdwardJones – Joel Laidig & Barnes & Noble.

During a normal school year, Penn High School students enrolled in Childhood Development classes would be offering two unique programs for preschoolers in our community, Playschool and Toddler Time.

However due to COVID suspending these programs for the time being, Penn Child Development teachers Mrs. Kylee Wetzel and Ms. Rachael Meyers have created lessons that children can do in their own homes. 

The Penn High School Early Childhood Education Classes are offering free eLearning lessons to children in the P-H-M community within the age ranges of 1-10 years old.

Children can participate at home with a caregiver, or during the school day via Google Meet with the Penn student facilitating the lesson.

Please fill out the Enrollment Form by Friday, Jan. 15 in order to participate.

Please contact Kylee Wetzel at kwetzel@phm.k12.in.us for any further information.

The communication below was emailed to staff and parents today:

July 30, 2020

Dear P-H-M Families, 

We have been communicating regularly with medical professionals at the St. Joseph County Department of Health (SJCDH) and receiving guidance regarding the status of coronavirus activity and community transmission in making decisions regarding the safest model for curriculum delivery. The current thresholds for consideration by SJCDH strongly recommend that St. Joseph County Schools open in a virtual learning environment.

They also provided guidance on extracurricular and co-curricular activities. Those programs are being monitored and are under review.

The administration will recommend to the P-H-M Board of School Trustees at a School Board meeting on August 3, 2020, at 7:00 p.m. that all students participate in a virtual learning environment from the first day of school, August 19 through October 22. During the established virtual learning period, we will continue to collaborate with the SJCDH regarding further discussions and recommendations.

Prior to October 22, and the decision to return students to in-person instruction, we will ask parents which option they will be choosing by providing a parent survey. Parents will not be bound by their previous choice.

When we return, we will continue to offer two options: in-person or virtual instruction. 

• On October 27 (or when the SJCDH deems it appropriate) students who are enrolled in the in-person program will return to school.
• On October 27 students who are enrolled in the virtual learning program will continue with virtual learning.

Established metrics, provided by the SJCDH, will determine when it is safe to return to in-person learning. Families will be given a two week notice of any changes to return to in-person learning.

Thank you for your ongoing support and partnership. 

Please stay safe and healthy!

Dr. Jerry Thacker
Superintendent

Want to help prevent the “summer slide”? Help keep your students motivated with these grade specific lessons:

P-H-M Virtual Learning Summer Resources

Additionally, the IDOE has provided summer resources for parents to use with their children, grades 1^st – 8^th, to help keep their math and reading skills up over the summer.

Parents and students have access to the Lexile® Find a Book tool and the Quantile® Summer Math Challenge.

The Lexile® Find a Book tool helps students create a personalized reading list and then locate those books at the nearest library or bookseller.

The Quantile® Summer Math Challenge is a six-week refresher course for students in grades 1^st – 8^th.

For more information, visit MetaMetrics’ Summer Learning website. 

The Food Service Department of the Penn-Harris-Madison School Corporation is participating in the Summer Food Service Program for Summer 2020. The summer program will run June 4 – August 18 at nine locations. 

Our school year meal service at the three locations of Prairie Vista, Grissom and Penn will continue through June 3. Click here for details on those pickup hours. Monday, May 25 is Memorial Day and no meals will be available. However, we will be handing out food backpacks at Grissom and Penn Friday, May 22 during lunch. Each backpack will have enough food for two meals for two kids. More details can be found here. 

The summer meal program will operate Monday through Friday, June 4 – August 18 at nine locations. Each location has different hours and dates of service. Please click here for more information and a complete list of sites and dates.

All sites will be closed on Friday, July 3, 2020.

FREE MEALS will be available to children 18 years of age and under, or persons more than 18 who are determined by a state or local public education agency to be mentally or physically disabled and who participate in a public or non-profit private school program established for the mentally or physically disabled.

The message below was sent out to all P-H-M staff and families the afternoon of March 3, 2020.

Dear P-H-M Families,

The health, safety and well-being of Penn-Harris-Madison students and staff are our top priorities. With the ongoing elevated discussion regarding the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the world news, we are reaching out to remind everyone in the P-H-M family about the preventive safety measures we can all take, as well as to inform you what we at P-H-M are doing.

As a school district, we are closely monitoring the situation via the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website. The CDC is providing local expert and community guidance through the St. Joseph County Department of Health and the Indiana Department of Health. We are also receiving information from the U.S. Department of Education and the Indiana Department of Education, as well as a host of other state and national professional organizations. The one good thing about this situation is that there is an abundance of expert guidance. We are following the advice and direction of the governmental entities in charge. As a district, we are focusing on the things within our control.

All of the health officials are uniformly reiterating that the best preventive measure that each and every one of us can do is practice good hand hygiene. The same precautions that we annually remind our students, at all grade levels, during the cold and flu season are the exact same practices that the CDC is recommending to help prevent the spread of COVID-19:

1. Clean hands. Washing your hands often will help protect you from germs. If soap and water are not available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer.
2. Cover your mouth and nose. Remind your students to cover their mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing. The best thing to do is to cough/sneeze into your elbow. Second best is to cover the mouth and nose area with a tissue and then throw the tissue away.
3. Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. Germs are often spread when a person touches something that is contaminated with germs and then touches his or her eyes, nose, or mouth.
4. Avoid close contact with people who are sick. When you are sick, keep your distance from others to protect them from getting sick too.

P-H-M’s janitorial staff already cleans common areas and disinfects common touch surfaces regularly. We ramp up these efforts during the cold and flu season. Under the current circumstances and in an abundance of precaution, P-H-M is taking extra steps to increase our normal diligent disinfectant measures.

As stated in all P-H-M Student Handbooks if students are sick please keep them home. Students should not return to school until they are fever and symptom free for 24 hours. We are constantly reminding families to practice this ongoing safety practice year round.

As it pertains to concerns over COVID-19 symptoms, the CDC has very specific recommendations if the symptoms coincide with recent travel to specific countries on their watch lists.

This situation continues to evolve. P-H-M Administrators are staying abreast of the information, as we have since the beginning. If the need should arise to change or defer from our normal operations, rest assured we will communicate with our families and staff immediately.

Thank you for your ongoing support,

Dr. Jerry Thacker

Superintendent of Schools