Winter Guard Call-Out November 27 at Bittersweet Elementary
Do you like to dance? Do you want to learn how to spin a flag? Do you like to perform?
All levels are welcome to come to the Penn Winter Guard Call-Out at Bittersweet Elementary School (next to Penn HS). The call-out will be on Tuesday, November 27th at 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Girls and boys, grades 4-12, will be accepted.
Come be a part of this incredible performing arts group!
Meadow’s Edge polling location for Election Day
When Indiana’s election takes place Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018, Meadow’s Edge will serve as a polling center, as it has in years past. Polling hours are 6:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. Meadow’s Edge school hours are 7:55 a.m. – 2:20 p.m.; you might want to avoid student arrival and departure times because of increased traffic congestion.
Voters should park at the north end of the parking lot, enter the gymnasium directly through the marked exterior doorway. Voting will take place in the gymnasium. Voters will not be allowed passage into other areas of the school.
Other P-H-M schools that will serve as voting locations Election Day are Mary Frank Elementary School, Prairie Vista Elementary School, Walt Disney Elementary School, Schmucker Middle School and Penn High School. Of course registered voters may only use the polling location that serves their precinct, based on home address. Here is a link to the precincts maps and polling location information provided by St. Joseph County.
Breakfast with Santa
Breakfast with Santa is an annual beloved family event sponsored by P-H-M’s Community Education Department held at Bittersweet Elementary. The program is only for children in grades kindergarten through 3rd grade and all children must be accompanied by an adult. Tickets must be purchased for each person attending.
Breakfast with Santa event
Saturday, Dec. 1
8 a.m., 9:30 a.m., & 11 a.m.
Bittersweet Elementary School
$7 for all tickets
Online ticket sales begin on Thursday, November 1 at 9:00 a.m. Tickets will only be sold online through phm.revtrak.net. We strongly encourage that those wishing to buy tickets go online to phm.revtrak.net prior to Nov. 1 and create their account if they don’t already have one. This will save time and ensure a speedier online checkout. Tickets are online on a first-come, first-served basis and space is limited to 100 participants for each time slot. Online payment can be done with an eCheck, Discover, Visa or MasterCard credit cards as well as debit cards. Please note there is a 3.49% fee for using this service. Tickets will be mailed to you prior to the event on Dec. 1.
There will be no refunds and tickets will not be available at the door.
“Boo Bash” set for Thursday, Oct. 25
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.“
Parent meeting & permission form for new State mandated curriculum
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.
P-H-M Spring 2018 ISTEP+ Scores Above State Average
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.
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.”
What parents need to know about ILEARN
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.
DVT & Planetarium 2018-19 Show Schedule
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.
A Look at P-H-M First Days of School for 2018-19 School Year
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 …
Meadow’s Edge New Teachers Class of 2018
Today was New Teacher Orientation for Penn-Harris-Madison.
Meadow’s Edge is welcoming 6 new teachers.
Click to get more details on P-H-M’s Penn's New Teacher Class of 2018.