From mosaic masks that featured a dazzling kaleidoscope of color, to visionary photography that encased social commentary, Penn High School students took their artist creativity and expression to higher levels through the Scholastic Art competition.

Penn students claimed 57 awards at three levels (Gold Key, Silver Key, Honorable Mention) regionally. The art of Gold Key winners will be in a competition at the national level in New York City.

Click here for a gallery of some of the award-winning art.

All three levels will be displayed for a public exhibition in the Warner Gallery at the South Bend Museum of Art in the Century Center from January 30th to Feb 27th.

Principal Steve Hope appreciated the showing of Penn’s student-artists.

“It was great to see so many student-artists from Penn recognized at the regional Scholastic Arts Awards,” Hope said. “The work from these creative and talented students is varied in subject and media from realistic to abstract and from drawing to sculpture. The work displayed at The South Bend Museum of Art is a testament to the hard work put forth by these student-artists and to the great art instruction at Penn High School. We should never take for granted the benefits of living in a community which values and supports the arts.

“In this age of both teacher and student accountability, many schools have cut programming to the arts,” Hope said. “At Penn, we have continued to emphasize the development of the whole person – body, mind and soul. The arts feed our soul and help us develop a better understanding of ourselves and our place in the world. Decades of research have supported that study in the arts help further develop an understanding in all academic areas.”

According to a Scholastic Art press release, the Scholastic Art competition is nation’s longest-running and most prestigious recognition initiative for creative teens. It has been credited with identifying the early promise of some of our nation’s most accomplished visionaries and encouraged young artists and writers to pursue a variety of creative career paths and endeavors.

Penn High School art instructor Barbara Miller said the Scholastic Art competition for high school and junior high school students is in its 92^nd year and that it involves students in all 50 states. It is sponsored by the Scholastic Book Company.

“Penn and (Penn-Harris-Madison School Corporation) have always been in the top 10, if not the top three-to-five 3-5 for earning awards of about 72 schools in our region,” Miller said. “That is important to help recognize our hard-working students and our outstanding visual arts program and the quality teaching that takes place in our schools.”

Miller said that the Scholastic Award winning-work by Penn students will be displayed in the Kingsmen Fine Arts Gallery March 10-April 18.

“We have three professional art exhibits and three student art exhibits in our Penn Kingsmen Fine Arts Gallery each school year,” Miller said. “We are very fortunate to have this gallery. It is something that few schools in our state, or even country have. It was originally the vision of our principal, Steve Hope, to have this and he worked for many years with the P-H-M Educational Foundation to establish it.”

Art Instructor Becky Hope also appreciated Penn’s commitment to Art, which has played a key role in the success of Penn students in the Scholastic Art competition.

“Penn has supported the Visual Arts through providing an amazingly diverse selection of teachers in specialized course art work so that student can develop master skills in drawing, graphic design and sculpture to name a few of the opportunities,” Hope said.

Penn High School Scholastic Art Awards 2015-16

Penn High School student Kennedy Parker offers an insider’s look at the spring musical, “Mary Poppins.”

    Penn’s spring musical this year is “Mary Poppins”! The performances are Friday and Saturday, March 4 and 5 at 7 p.m. and Sunday, March 6, at 3 p.m., all in the Penn Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets are $10 if purchased in advance or $12 at the door. Pre-sale tickets are available Tuesday-Friday March 1-4 during all lunches.

Students and directors are hard at work preparing for the performances. Over the weeks leading up to the show, I will be writing about different aspects of the show to give you a sneak-preview.

Enjoy, spotlight on “Mary Poppins”!

• Mary Poppins: “Jane and Michael Banks' new nanny. She is extraordinary and strange, neat and tidy, delightfully vain yet particular, and sometimes a little frightening but always exciting. She is practically perfect in every way and always means what she says.”

• Played by: Reagan Stohler

• Penn Senior

• Her second Penn musical

• She has been doing theatre since 5th grade. Her first role was Ariel in the Little Mermaid.

• She started doing shows because she is always happiest when she’s performing. From a young age, she has been singing and dancing for her family.

• She is most excited to perform for her peers. “Everyone has been so supportive of me throughout this experience,” she said. “so I can’t wait to pay them back with an exciting performance.”

• Theatre has taught her confidence, made her more well-rounded, and helped her learn more about herself.

• Stohler said it’s unreal to know that this is her last Penn show, and that in almost a month, she “will be performing with my best friends for the last time.”

• She is thrilled about her opportunity to play Mary Poppins, she is working hard to prepare for this performance.

• Bert: “The narrator of the story, is a good friend to Mary Poppins. An everyman, Bert has many occupations, including hurdy-gurdy player, sidewalk artist and chimney sweep. Bert watches over the children as well as the goings on in Cherry Tree Lane. He has charm, speaks with a Cockney accent and is a song-and-dance man.”

• Played by: Broderick Balsley

• Penn Senior

• Fourth Penn Musical

• He has been participating in theatre productions his whole life, starting with small church productions, moving to community theatres, and even musicals that travel across the country.

• He began to do shows because the first show he saw touched him so deeply. The very first musical he went to was Disney’s Beauty and the Beast at the Round Barn Theatre. He experienced the magic of musical theatre, and realized the impact that performances can have on an audience.

• He’s most excited for this show’s special effects. “Gravity isn’t exactly a law in this show” he said. He’s also looking forward to the energetic dance numbers.

• Theatre has given the Penn senior purpose. He enjoys the opportunity to impact people, and change their lives “…even just for a few hours” he said. Performing removes all distractions and worries, “that’s what makes it so magical.”

• It’s hard for him to know that this is his last Penn musical. He will miss the people especially. However he is excited to move on to bigger things, and he hopes to pursue professional musical theatre after high school!

• Jane Banks: “The high-spirited daughter of Mr. and Mr. Banks, is bright and precocious but can be willful and inclined to snobbishness.”

• Played by: Alyssa Chambers

• Penn Freshman

• First Penn musical

• She’s been doing theatre since she was in first grade, starting with school musicals, and then continued on to do Mainstage Inc. shows.

• She began doing shows because she loves the combination of singing, acting, and dancing.

• She’s most excited to fly in this show because it’s something she’s always dreamed of doing.

• She has gained confidence in herself and her abilities through theatre, and also she has become more comfortable around people and being in front of crowds. She’s thankful for these skills as she knows they will benefit her now and in the future.

• She’s enjoying the new perspective of being in a Penn show compared to the other shows she has been apart of. She’s also excited to have her first lead role! She’s working hard to balance school, swimming, and the musical, but she knows all of her effort will pay off.

• Michael Banks: “The cute and cheeky son of Mr. and Mrs. Banks. Excitable and naughty, he adores his father and tries to be like him. Both he and Jane misbehave in order to get the attention of their parents.”

• Played by: Eddie Bell

• Schmucker 6th grader

• First Penn musical

• Eddie has been doing theatre for 2 years.

• He did his first production in 4th grade at Prairie Vista, and he enjoyed it so much he decided to continue.

• The aspect of this show he’s looking forward to most is getting to fly!

• Theatre has helped Eddie gain confidence and improve his public speaking ability, both of which are valuable life skills that will certainly benefit him in the future.

• He’s very excited about his rare opportunity to be in a high school show as a middle schooler.

Character descriptions: http://www.mtishows.com/disney-and-cameron-mackintoshs-mary-poppins

By ARIELLE KIRSCH

Student reporter

At 7 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 5, relaxing and fun jazz music will sail through the Main Arena of Penn High School, as music lovers settle down for an exciting evening of Jazz at the Palace.  

Showcasing ensembles from Penn High School, Discovery Middle School, and Concord High School, the program will feature world-famous drummer Dana Hall, a professional musician since 1992 who has performed on six continents. Click here to watch a video of Dana Hall performing.

Included in the purchase of $7 student tickets and $10 adult tickets are free desserts for all who attend Jazz at the Palace.  The performances will feature contemporary and traditional pieces by composers including Duke Ellington and Alan Baylock.

Originally billed as “Jazz a la Mode” in the Penn High School cafeteria in 1995, Jazz at the Palace has now been moved to the Main Arena of the high school.  “As the event grew, especially over the past 7-8 years, we decided a larger scale format with the opportunity for better lighting, sound and atmosphere was the next step in making this a special event for the community,” said Bill Leather, a music instructor for the bands performing at Jazz at the Palace.

Overall, Jazz at the Palace has been very well received by the P-H-M community.

“We typically bring in anywhere from 450-500 people for this event. The community seems to enjoy the event,” said Leather.  “Both Dr. Thacker and Mr. Hope said last year's event was ‘one of the best events of any kind (they) have ever seen at Penn High School.’”

Tickets can be preordered for $5 for students and $8 for adults, by clicking here.

Penn students excelled in the recent Scholastic Art competition. Award-winning artwork will be displayed starting on Feb. 5, at the South Bend Museum of Art in the Century Center.

Here are a few of Penn’s award-winning pieces:

Congresswoman Jackie Walorski (R-IN 2nd District) made a surprise visit today to call Penn High School Principal Steve Hope out of the principal’s office!

Representative Walorski made the special drop-in visit to present Principal Hope with a Congressional Record recognition. The award is actually a framed letter from the Congresswoman that states that she submitted a statement about Mr. Hope to the official Congressional Record of the United States Congress honoring him for being named Indiana Principal of the Year. The Congressional Record is published daily when Congress is in session and is the official register of the proceedings of both the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives.

Mr. Hope was named Principal of the Year in November 2015 by the Indiana Association of School Principals (IASP). Principal Hope is known to his students as an attentive and compassionate leader, and a mentor to Penn’s 194 teachers and staff. During his time as principal, Penn’s graduation rate accelerated from 79% in 2008 to 97%. Indiana’s Department of Education named Penn an A-rated school, a 4-Star Award winner and a 90-25-90 high school. U.S. News and World Report named Penn an Outstanding High School in 2009 and again in 2015. 

On hand for today’s surprise visit and recognition by Representative Walorski, was Penn-Harris-Madison School Superintendent Dr. Jerry Thacker; members of the Board of School Trustees President Gary Fox and Randy Leliaert. Members of Penn’s administration, teaching staff, support staff and a handful of students were on hand for the presentation.

Penn-Harris-Madison will be performing computer network maintenance on February 12, 2016 from 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. to upgrade our current internet services. During that time, access to P-H-M online services, including P-H-M hosted websites, Canvas, APlus and Plato will be unavailable. This network maintenance is necessary in order for P-H-M to continue to offer excellent technology online service. We appreciate your patience.

The Penn-Harris-Madison Board of School Trustees voted to approve the sponsorship agreement between the P-H-M Education Foundation and Jordan Automotive Group at tonight’s Board meeting (Monday, January 25, 2016).

Per the agreement, Jordan Automotive Group will donate $25,000 to the P-H-M Education Foundation endowment for a 12-year naming rights period, thereby affording Jordan the opportunity to name the Penn High School baseball field. Jordan Automotive Group will also pay the signage costs to have the field renamed “Jordan Automotive Group Baseball Field at Penn High School.”

The mission of the Education Foundation is to develop alternative sources of income to support education initiatives in the School Corporation by strengthening partnerships between the community and the District. PHMEF supports education through awarding innovative teaching grants, scholarships to students, staff development and other corporation-wide initiatives.

Per PHMEF’s naming rights fundraising initiative, 80 percent of the donation will go into the Foundation’s endowment, which will in turn provide alternative and additional funding for various co-curricular and extracurricular programs. The remaining 20 percent will directly fund professional development initiatives for P-H-M teachers. Continuing education and training of teachers is a major priority for P-H-M School District. With the recent release of the 2015 ISTEP+ scores, P-H-M believes the key to providing an excellent education is excellent teachers.

“P-H-M’s ‘Triangle of Success’ is built upon students, teachers and parents. Community partners are vital to sustaining P-H-M’s excellence in education,” said P-H-M Superintendent Dr. Thacker. “Support and strong commitments from community partners like Jordan Automotive help ensure that our students will have access to resources better preparing them for college and career success.” 

This is the 2nd time in a month that a community business has contributed to the P-H-M Education Foundation Endowment. At the January 11, 2016 Board meeting, the Board of School Trustees approved the $25,000 donation by Zolman's Tire & Auto Care. The sponsorship gives Zolman's 12-year naming rights to name the north concession stand at Penn High School’s TCU Freed Field.  The area will now be named “The Zolman Tire Concession Stand.” To read more about past sponsorships and donations to the P-H-M Education Foundation Endowment, please click here.

The Indiana Department of Education released 2015 school accountability grades today and all 15 of Penn-Harris-Madison School Corporation’s schools earned an “A”! The final grades were approved unanimously by the State Board of Education during the January 26 Board meeting.

“This straight ‘A’ report card is a result of the hard work and dedication from principals and teachers to the staff, students and families at all of our schools,” said P-H-M School Superintendent Dr. Jerry Thacker. “This latest achievement is a result of our District’s commitment to excellence.”

Last year, 13 P-H-M schools earned an “A.” With Madison Elementary and Elsie Rogers Elementary each moving up from a “B” to an “A,” all 15 P-H-M schools (11 elementary, three middle and one high school) have now earned this top recognition from the IDOE. Out of 2,095 schools across the state that got a letter grade, only 123 schools saw their letter grades go up in this latest ranking.

A spreadsheet reflecting the final school grades as approved by the State Board of Education is available through this link, http://www.doe.in.gov/news/indiana-department-education-releases-2015-accountability-grades.

On January 6, 2016 the IDOE publicly released the 2015 ISTEP+ results. With an 81.4% pass rate for ELA (English/Language Arts) and a 78.0% pass rate for Math, P-H-M ranked 10th in the state among 293 public school districts. The District’s 2015 overall combined pass rate for both subject areas is 72.1%

Click here for more information on P-H-M’s 2015 ISTEP+ results.

With the Wednesday, January 6, 2016 public release of the 2015 ISTEP+ results, Penn-Harris-Madison School Corporation saw a jump in its ranking among Indiana’s 293 public school districts. With a 81.4% pass rate for ELA (English/Language Arts) and a 78.0% pass rate for Math, P-H-M ranks 10th in the state! The District’s 2015 overall combined pass rate for both subject areas is 72.1%.  

Another highlight from the 2015 ISTEP+ results for P-H-M … the School Corporation saw an increase in score variance. In grade 3, the variance between P-H-M’s scores and the state’s increased to 19.6 points; in grade 8, it goes up to 25.1 points. This shows that the younger a student enters the P-H-M education family, and the longer they are taught by P-H-M teachers, the better the students do!

Superintendent Jerry Thacker keeps the district’s focus on excellence in education, and acknowledges the partnership that makes it possible. “We commend our students and teachers, along with our parents for their concentrated hard work and dedication; that is the ‘Triangle of Success’ we tout at P-H-M.”

This link takes you to the full story of how P-H-M students fared on the 2015 assessment, including access to data charts that display individual school results. 

It started out as a joke.

It turned into a remarkable learning experience.

Students in Kelley Watts’ Penn High School Spanish 3 accelerated class were having a tough time finding information about artist Frank Romero online during an assignment about Spanish-speaking artists.

Then, one of the students managed to find a telephone number for Romero’s art studio.

“They asked what they should do, and sarcastically I told them to call him!” Watts said when the students told her that they found Romero’s phone number.

  “I think I said something like, "Get your phone out and call him!  What teacher tells you to take your phone out in class and make a phone call?"

The students called Romero’s number.

No answer.

A few days later, one of the students called Romero’s number again.

This time, Romero answered, and Watts’ students would soon embark on a unique learning journey.

Watts’ students were engaged in an assignment on Spanish-speaking artists to help them cultivate a better understanding of the artists’ work. The students were studying vocabulary essential to visual and performing arts.

Thanks to Penn’s technology, the learning event took a dramatic turn.

Romero agreed to be interviewed by the students.

“Five years ago, we would have never done this,” Watts said. “Ten years ago, it would have been impossible.”

Penn High School principal Steve Hope appreciated the efforts by Watts and her students to add a new dimension to learning.

“This is one more example of how our learning environments have changed in our technology-rich, flattened world,” Hope said. “We are using so many more primary sources.

“Last year our Early College Academy teachers spoke directly with different authors each quarter,” Hope said. “Mrs. Watts challenged her students to contact the artist they were studying. Much to the surprise of (the students), the artist, Frank Romero, was more than happy to speak with them.

“This makes the learning in our classrooms so much more authentic, so much more real and personalized than just reading from other sources. It was great to see and hear Romero sharing his passion with our students.”

Watts said that the students were excited about being able to have a real-time conversation with the artist.

“To get to hear from the artist himself tell us about how he had been commissioned to do some work for the ‘84 Olympics, had it trashed with graffiti, and how he may have the chance to fix it again made the art come to life,” Watts said. “We now knew the back story. We got to hear a lot about how he became an artist and how he had to study all disciplines to become an artist. He told us he was a math major in high school.”

Since the Skype event, Watts has noticed a change in how her students view learning.

“I have noticed that students now have this feeling that they have the world at their fingertips, and that they can reach out to the world for more information. “I love that my students called Mr. Romero, were polite and well-spoken enough that he would respond to them, and that he was willing to give my students this experience of actually speaking and interviewing him.

“The only hang up was that Mr. Romero is in his 70s and he didn't know how to actually Skype.  Haha!  We helped him and all went well!”

Scheel appreciated the doors of learning that were opened through the experience.

“It was cool because we learned the answers to questions that we wanted to know that weren't on the Internet,” Scheel said. “I suppose that using the Skype technology made it possible to do this as well as being able to do research on the Chromebooks in class together.”