The Penn High School Orchestras along with the 8^th ​grade orchestras from P-H-M’s three middle schools Discovery, Grissom, and Schmucker will perform a Rock Concert with world-renowned, Mark Wood, from the Trans Siberian Orchestra. Watch the video below from Mark Wood …

Mark Wood
Electrify Your Strings
THE ULTIMATE TOUR
Oct. 23, 7:30 p.m.
Penn High School, Center for the Performing Arts
Tickets $10
 

Win a chance for an autographed Mark Wood Electric Stingray Violin (must be present to win)
Raffle tickets $5 each or $10 for 3 tickets.

Click here to purchase the tickets and raffle tickets online.

The Penn Girls Cross Country Team won the Sectional Championship on Saturday, Oct. 12, 2019.

A Photo Gallery is posted below.

The Penn Boys Cross Country Team won the IHSAA Sectional Championship on Saturday, Oct. 12, 2019.

A Photo Gallery is posted below.

The Penn Boys Soccer Team played Elkhart Central in Sectional action at Northridge on Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2019.

A Photo Gallery is posted below.

Nearly 125 Penn High School students participated in Manufacturing Day events on Friday, Oct. 4, 2019. 

Penn-Harris-Madison Supt. Dr. Jerry Thacker attended the Manufacturing Day Kickoff event at B&B Molding in Mishawaka along with Penn students and Penn Instructors Tara Pieters and Scott Shelhart.

The event provided area high school students an opportunity to tour various local manufacturers and meet with current employees to discuss careers in the field.

"Manufacturing Day is a great way for students to experience manufacturing in our region and for them to see what that looks like in 2019,” Penn assistant Principal Josiah Parker said. “It really opens their eyes to the possibilities that are right in their own back yard. Many of them do not know the rubber landscape edging sold at national home improvement stores, medical devices used across the country, aerospace parts in millions of aircraft, and some of the worlds largest gears are made here."

Penn Senior Lyvia Li (pictured above with Penn Principal Sean Galiher, left, and Penn Speech/Debate Coach Jeremy Starkweather, right), was named a National Forensic League Academic All-American.

The Academic All American award recognizes high school students who have earned the degree of Superior Distinction (750 points); completed at least 5 semesters of high school; demonstrated outstanding character and leadership; and earned a GPA of 3.7 on a 4.0 scale (or its equivalent).

Lyvia has earned the degree of Outstanding Distinction with more than 1,000 points. Li has a 4.458 grade-point average (out of 4.0). She has been a captain on Penn's Speech/Debate team for the last two years and has qualified for the national tournament twice. She was a runner-up last year at the state tournament in policy debate. At Nationals, she qualified her Junior year in the United States Extemporaneous Speaking, and last year she and her partner finished in the top 64 in the nation in Policy Debate. 

"Lyvia is a fantastic captain and leader," Starkweather said. "She is always willing to help in any way she can, whether it's mentoring younger students, filling in on different positions when the team needs her to, and coming to every open house at Penn to help recruit students to join our team."

Tuesday, Oct. 15
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, Youth Service Bureau St. Joseph County and St. Joseph County Special Victims Unit will present the materials to secondary students in grades 6-12. Each unit is age appropriate specific to the grade level.

The elementary (grades K-5) curriculum can be viewed at http://fightchildabuse.org/. The program’s main goal is to educate children about what to do when confronted with abusive behavior, safe and unsafe touches, going to a parent or another trusted adult if they are confronted in an unsafe situation, and that it is not their fault. An “Unsafe Touch” is defined as touching private parts of the body that are covered by a bathing suit. Stranger safety, Internet safety and other situations are also presented. 

For middle school, P-H-M will be utilizing the Teen Lures Prevention curriculum on a variety of safety issues. For additional information about the curriculum, please visit https://childluresprevention.com/grades7-12/.  

At the high school level,  a video created by the St. Joseph County Special Victims Unit will be presented to students about ways youth can prevent, respond to and report all forms of child abuse, dating violence and sexual assault.  By talking openly with students about what constitutes healthy and respectful relationships, we prepare young people to better recognize and resist all forms of mistreatment.

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 Tuesday, Oct. 15, 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 complete the online permission slip through their student(s) school website. Please click here for Penn’s online permission slip. 

*Please note a permission form needs to be returned to your student’s school for each individual child enrolled in a Penn-Harris-Madison School. If you have a child in another school, please visit that school’s website and search for “Mandatory Curriculum Permission Slip” and fill out that online form.

Students from four different Penn classes are participating in a unique, cross discipline, experiential, and service learning opportunity. Sculpture, Robotics, Marketing, and Penn News Network students are joining forces to help make one child’s Halloween Trick-or-Treating an experience to remember!

We’re documenting the students’ progress in this cross-discipline project based learning project, take a look:

Here’s the back story and how the project got started … In 2015, Joe O’Reilly, a parent volunteer with an engineering background turned the wheel chair for his medically fragile daughter into a Batmobile. After seeing the joy that the costume gave his daughter, Joe became an official ambassador with Magic Wheelchair, a nonprofit organization that builds epic costumes for kiddos in wheelchairs — at no cost to families! 

Joe brought the idea of building a magic wheelchair to Penn High School Assistant Principal Josiah Parker who saw it as a perfect “Rigor, Relevance and Relationships” project based learning opportunity that Penn tries to provide to students.

Everybody agreed that this would be a terrific opportunity for collaborative learning between classes while simultaneously helping a young man cope with his disability.

Zephan Cantu is a 4-year-old Elkhart boy with cerebral palsy. Despite being confined to his wheelchair, Zephan is a cheerful boy with a love for superheroes and other comics. His favorite character is the Incredible Hulk, often wearing Incredible Hulk shirts to his doctor appointments to help him feel invincible.

Joe O’Reilly presented several sketches of Hulk themed ideas, but the drawing Zephan loved was a sketch of the Incredible Hulk riding in a smashed up jeep.

Beth Loth’s Sculpture class is working with foam to form all the parts for the wheelchair costume. Under Beth & Joe’s guidance, the students created full size drawings of the costume that they transferred to foam. Once the outlines were on the foam, the students cut out the patterns and began molding the pieces into shape.

Jim Langfeldt’s Robotics class is tasked with animating the sculpted pieces. Their plans are to make the sculpture come to life with movement and lights in the arms, as well as sound effects that Zephan can activate by pushing a button inside the wheelchair. 

Kyle Berres has put together a marketing plan with his Business & Marketing students to get the word out about the project. In addition to preparing materials showcasing the build, they have also been reaching out to local media to help spread the word.

Next up is Kevin McNulty’s class. Penn News Network (PNN) students are documenting the build in video and pictures. The students have interviewed Joe O’Reilly in the PNN studios. Students learned about Joe’s involvement with Magic Wheelchair as well as a description of how the various Penn classes, each in a different discipline, are collaborating to not only complete this project, but to make it a success on behalf of Zephan.

After the art students are done sculpting pieces, another community partner, Premier Arts, will professionally paint the creation before it  comes back to Penn for final assembly. 

Zephan will see his wheelchair costume for the first time on October 19th at a Halloween party hosted by A Rosie Place for Children, a non-profit organization/home situated on five beautiful acres in South Bend that serves all 92 counties in Indiana providing respite care for medically fragile children.

We are documenting all the students progress on this project and will continue to provide updates along with being there for the great reval on October 19^th when Zephan finally gets to see his “Incredible Hulk Smash Machine” in person! Stay tuned …

The Penn Football Team defeated South Bend St. Joseph, 34-2, on Saturday, Sept. 28, 2019.

A Photo Gallery is posted below.

The Penn Boys Tennis team beat Bremen, 4-1, on Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2019, in a Northern Indiana Conference Crossover match.

A Photo Gallery is posted below.