This week is National Teacher Appreciation Week and Penn-Harris-Madison Superintendent Dr. Jerry Thacker is making his rounds to surprise a couple of P-H-M’s best educators with some good news.

Today, Dr. Thacker with the help of Penn High School Principal Dr. Sean Galiher and Assistant Principal Jeanie Mitchell (a former PHM Teacher of the year herself), Jeremy Starkweather was taken off guard with the news that he had won P-H-M’s 2024 Secondary Teacher of the Year honor! Local TV stations were on hand to capture it all! Mr. Starkweather’s wife, Ally who is also a teacher at Penn, was told ahead of time so she could participate in the surprise. Along with the students, a big group of fellow Penn teachers and PHM District Administrators were in the classroom to congratulate him. Click to watch the video below.

Mr. and Mrs. Starkweather are both 2013 graduates of Penn High School. Mr. Starkweather attended P-H-M’s Moran Elementary School and Grissom Middle School.

Click here to see the full photo gallery below.

Jeremy Starkweather is wrapping up his 7th year of teaching at P-H-M; but including his time as a student, student-teacher, and now a teacher, he’s been at Penn for a total of 12 years! He’s even still on the Speech & Debate Team just like he was while in school, except now he’s the coach! Mr. Starkweather is everywhere; he serves as the Assistant Coach for the Boys Cross Country Team, Coaching Consultant for the Education Foundation’s Running is Elementary, and Vice President of the Penn Building Trades Board of Directors.

Mr. Starkweather’s interests have carried over from his student days into his teaching career. Along with teaching English, Mr. Starkweather also teaches Debate, and has been serving as Penn’s Speech and Debate Coach since his first year of teaching. Prior to Mr. Starkweather at the helm, the team struggled to attract student participants; now Mr. Starkweather has made it cool to be on the Speech and Debate Team! The 2023-2024 school year both teams did extremely well. The Speech Team has 20 students advancing to the national tournament this summer; and the Debate Team not only won the State Championship, but a couple of the students even broke a record previously held by Coach Starkweather when he was a student!

For the first time in Penn history, the Debate Team won a State Championship. Additionally, out of all five state championship debate categories, three Penn students came in 1st place in two categories (one team and one individual) adding two more State Titles to the list. One of those wins was a student duo in the Policy category. Policy received a traveling trophy that has been around almost a century (in existence since 1928); and the last time the trophy was in Penn High School’s possession was when Jeremy and a teammate won it back in 2013 (his senior year)! How’s that for full circle? 

Until recently, Mr. Starkweather was known for his big bushy, blonde afro. However, thanks to Jeremy’s topnotch debate coaching skills, his team captains convinced him last summer, when the team was at the national competition, that if they won the State Championship, he would allow the students to shave his head. Jeremey Starkweather is a man of his word! He didn’t just allow his students to cut his hair, he let ALL the Speech & Debate students, Speech teacher Mrs. Danielle Black, and Superintendent Dr. Jerry Thacker get in on the action. It took over an hour to cut off 9 inches of his golden locks! Now that’s showing commitment and dedication to your students! Click here to see that video and full photo gallery.

Speech and Debate has become so popular at Penn that Mr. Starkweather enlisted the help of his top students to see if they could create the same interest at the middle school level. Not only was there interest, there’s now Debate teams at all three middle schools with over 80 students. The past few summers Jeremy has also been offering Summer Debate Camp.

What is Mr. Starkweather’s secret to creating such an interest for Speech & Debate? It could be that he has the best and rowdiest student club floats in Penn’s Homecoming parade; but it’s also because he quite simply cares about his students and they know it. There’s no “debating” it!

During the week of May 6 along with surprising the Teacher of the Year winners, Dr. Thacker will also surprise the honoree of Classified Employee of the Year. Monday, May 6 Dr. Thacker surprised 3rd grade Northpoint teacher Nichol Mondy with the news that she was the district’s Elementary Teacher of the Year. All winners will be officially recognized at P-H-M’s Employee Recognition & Retiree Dinner on Wednesday, May 22nd. Along with a plaque, the two Teachers of the Year will also receive a grant from the P-H-M Education Foundation to use in their classroom. Both TOY winners will go on to compete for Indiana’s Teacher of the Year, which will be announced in early Fall 2024 by the IDOE.

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A group of six Penn students, members of the 8-member Team 12014/The FireWires will be competing in  the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) in Houston April 17-20. FireWires is a community based team through GEARS.

Click here to read an article that ran in the South Bend Tribune on March 31, 2024.

The FireWires Team is the Indiana State FTC champions and has qualified for the World Championship. At the time of this posting, the team was ranked 11th in the world! Penn Junior Nate Baker won the Dean’s List Award.

FireWires was also very instrumental in the passage of House Bill 1382 that passed the General Assembly on April 24, 2023. The bill provides grant funding that school-based eligible teams can apply for. Eligible schools include public, charter and state-accredited nonpublic schools. 

During this year’s General Assembly, the passage of House Bill 1233 amended the definition of “eligible school” to include community-based robotics competition teams like FireWires. HB 1233 takes effect July 1, 2024.

Team 12014/The FireWires is coached by P-H-M Corporate Web Designer Rich Lester.

We’re happy to introduce PHM bus driver Tim Tretheway, as the Culver’s Bus Driver of the Month for March 2024!

Tim drives for Prairie Vista Elementary School and Penn High School.

Transportation consistently receives compliments about Tim from coaches, teachers, and other leaders regarding trip efficiency and his willingness to help!

The surprise took place at Prairie Vista on March 27, 2024 as he waited for her students to board for afternoon pick-up. Some of his elementary student riders were in on the surprise.

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Thank you Culver’s and and the P-H-M Education Foundation for being valued partners to make this award possible!  If you would like to nominate your student’s bus driver, click here to fill out the nomination form.

Penn-Harris-Madison School Superintendent Dr. and Mrs. Thacker donated $10,000 to the P-H-M Education Foundation Naming Rights Campaign to name the the plaza located at Penn High School’s everwise Freed Field the Yeoman Family Plaza, after Penn High School Retiring Head Football Coach Cory Yeoman and his family.

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 directly funds professional development initiatives for P-H-M teachers. Continuing the education and training of teachers is a major priority for P-H-M School District.

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.

On February 8, 2024, Hall of Famer Coach Cory Yeoman announced to Kingsmen student-athletes and assistant coaches that after 40 years with the Kingsmen he’d be retiring at the end of the 2023-2024 school year. Coach Yeoman spent his first 19 years as an Assistant Coach under Hall of Famer ​Coach Chris Geesman, and the past 21 years as Head Coach. Yeoman took over the Kingsmen program in 2003 and compiled a 208-56 record overall.

In his first season after replacing legendary Coach Geesman, Yeoman guided Penn to the 2003 State Championship Game. Yeoman also led Penn to Semi-state titles in 2017, 2015 and 2011. In addition to winning four Semi-state Championships, the Kingsmen have won nine regional crowns under Yeoman’s leadership, 13 sectional titles and 17 Northern Indiana Conference championships. 

Coach Yeoman bleeds black and gold and has always been a Kingsmen. He played for Penn, earning all-state honors at defensive tackle. In 1979, Coach Yeoman led a Kingsmen defense that only allowed 33 yards rushing a game. That Kingsmen team finished 11-1, winning an NIC Championship before losing to Hobart in the second round of the playoffs. Yeoman graduated from Penn in 1980. Coach Yeoman is in the Indiana Football Hall of Fame, the first Penn player nominated for the Hall.

Coach Yeoman’s father, Wally Yeoman, coached under Chris Geesman. Wally then coached alongside Coach Cory. Brothers, Trent and Todd, were assistant coaches. Coach Cory coached his son Gary who played for Penn; Gary later also became an assistant coach.

At the March 25 meeting of the P-H-M Board of School Trustees, the Board approved the request of PHMEF to add the signage  to the plaza. The naming rights will be effective August 1, 2024 and will last for 12 years.

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 directly funds professional development initiatives for P-H-M teachers. Continuing the education and training of teachers is a major priority for P-H-M School District.

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.

A few hours after being introduced to his team as the Kingsmen’s new Head Football Coach, Pete Riordan was introduced to the South Bend sports media in his first news conference. News outlets in attendance were WHME-TV, WSBT, WNDU, ABC 57, and the South Bend Tribune. Students from PNN (Penn News Network) and The Pennant were also present and participated. Click here to see the full news conference. Click here to see a full photo gallery below.

Here are some highlights of the news conference. Penn High School Athletic Director Jeff Hart introduced Coach Pete, who made a few short remarks before opening up the discussion with reporter questions.

Also taking reporter questions were retiring Coach Cory Yeoman and Hall of Famer Chris Geesman. 

Returning Penn players Vinny Freeman and Kellen Watson also spoke to how excited they are to have Coach Pete take over. In the clip below Freeman talks about the sense of family that Coach Pete invoked at this morning’s team meeting.

Watson is also on the Penn Track & Field Team; as a member of the 4×100 team, Watson was one of the players that broke the school record. Watson was last year’s backup quarterback!

Click here to see the full news conference.

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Penn High School football players learned in a “surprise introduction” during an early morning team meeting that Pete Riordan would be their new head coach! The announcement came in the locker room of the Chris Geesman Kingsmen Athletic Center on Wednesday, March 20, 2024. Riordan has been an assistant coach on the Kingsmen Football staff for 20 years (most recently serving as Defensive Coordinator). Riordan will be the seventh head coach of the Kingsmen Football Team. 

It was important for Coach Riordan to talk to his players first this morning before making a public announcement. Coach Matt Cates and Coach Cory Yeoman set the stage for the team announcement. Click to watch the video below.

Click here to see the photo gallery below of this morning’s team meeting.

A news conference with local sports media was held at the P-H-M Educational Services Center later in the afternoon. Click here to watch the highlights and photo gallery.

Taking over one of Indiana’s elite Football programs, Riordan replaces Cory Yeoman, who recently retired as the Penn Football Head Coach. Penn finished the 2023 season with a 10-2 record, winning Sectional and Northern Indiana Conference Championships. Riordan has coached in four State Championship Football games as an assistant with the Kingsmen (2003, 2011, 2015 and 2017), with Penn earning a State Runner-up finish in those seasons.

Riordan started his teaching career at Penn High School in 2000. He relocated to Indianapolis from 2007-2009 while his wife was in residency as a physician. During this time, Coach Riordan served as assistant coach at Ben Davis for three seasons (2007-2009), the last two seasons as the Giants’ defensive coordinator.

Penn AD Jeff Hart was in on the planning of this morning’s surprise for the players.

“Coach Riordan brings a proven track record of elite success to this role, both on and off the field,” Hart said. “A state champion as a high school student-athlete, and two decades of coaching while being mentored by Hall of Fame coaches at both Penn and Ben Davis have shaped him for this moment.”

Riordan also teaches Economics, Advanced Placement Economics and ACP Business at Penn High School. He was recently named a teacher Impact Award winner by the Penn-Harris-Madison School Corporation for helping his students increase their test scores on their AP exams by as much as 20%. Click here for more information.

“He has a teacher’s heart and his high character leadership in the classroom and on the field fits our culture perfectly,” Hart said. “I can’t wait to see where his positive vision takes the program.”

Riordan is excited about the opportunity to lead one of Indiana’s elite Football programs.

“It is humbling and an incredible honor to be chosen to continue the success and tradition of the Long Black Line as the next Head Coach at Penn,” Riordan said. “While it is a great responsibility, it is one that I am thrilled to undertake.

“The Penn Football Program has always been a family that has supported each other,” Riordan added. “The coaches, their wives and families, the administration and boosters have always had great camaraderie and that is one of the things that helps make Penn Football such a special program.”  

Riordan is grateful to the Penn-Harris-Madison leadership for the opportunity to lead the Penn Football Program.

“I would like to thank Coach Cory (Yeoman), Coach Geesman, and all of the great Penn assistant coaches for helping me get to this point,” Riordan said. “Additionally, the support of the Penn Athletic Department led by Jeff Hart, the school Administration led by Dr. Galiher and the corporation’s leadership from Dr. Thacker and Dr. Leniski has been tremendous and I look forward to this opportunity.”

Coach Riordan and his wife, Nicole (Penn Class of 1999) have two daughters who attend P-H-M schools.

Riordan owns a state championship legacy. He played on the 1995 South Bend St. Joseph State Championship Football Team and was a three-year starter. Riordan also played one year of Football at Wabash College. He earned a B.A. from Wabash and earned an MBA in Finance from Indiana University South Bend.

Riordan credited his high school coach, Frank Amato, for teaching love and respect for the game of Football. He also credited former Penn Defensive Coordinator Don Monhaut for teaching the details and preparation of game-planning, and credited former Penn Head Coach Cory Yeoman for his unbelievable passion for the game.

Riordan embraces the standards of excellence that are at the foundation of Kingsmen Football.

“I look to continue the traditions and improve on the successes that have made Penn a premier program in the state,” Riordan said. “The staff and I will continue to evolve without losing sight of what makes Penn such a special place.” 

Yeoman leaves Penn after 21 seasons as the head coach. He compiled a record of 208-56, winning four Semi-state championships, nine Regional championships, 13 Sectional championships and 17 Northern Indiana Conference championships. Click here for more information on Coach Yeoman.

Prior to Yeoman’s tenure as the Penn Football Head Coach, Chris Geesman coached the Kingsmen. Geesman led Penn to five state championships and had an overall record of 310-48. The legendary Kingsmen Head Coach guided Penn to 16 undefeated regular seasons and a state-record 89-game regular-season winning streak. Click here for more information on Coach Geesman.

Riordan joins an elite Football fraternity as the Kingsmen head coach. Yeoman and Geesman are both Indiana Hall of Famers. Rogers Reynolds (1970-1972) played for the New York Giants, and Bob Ward (1965-69) played for Notre Dame. After coaching one season at Penn, Ron Meyer (1964) eventually coached at SMU and coached the Indianapolis Colts and New England Patriots. Dale O’Connell started the Penn Football program (1958-1963) and compiled a 32-21-4 record.

In addition to coaching Football at Penn, Riordan was a Junior Varsity Baseball Coach at Penn (2001-2003). Penn won State in Baseball in 2001. He served as the Boys Basketball Freshman Head Coach (2001), the season that the Kingsmen finished as State Runner-up. He was a volunteer assistant Football coach at Northridge for the 2000 season.

The P-H-M Board of School Trustees will officially approve Superintendent Dr. Jerry Thacker’s recommendation of Coach Riordan to this position at its meeting on Monday, March 25, 2024.

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While the Indianapolis area and south will experience 100% totality for the solar eclipse occurring on Monday, April 8, 2024, the St. Joseph County area will only experience 96%.

The Michiana area will start experiencing darkness at 1:53 p.m., lasting until 4:23 p.m., with 96% totality occurring at 3:09 p.m. and lasting just over 4 minutes.

Click to watch the video below and hear from P-H-M Digital Video Theater and Planetarium Director Melinda O’Malley as she shows us what to expect in our area.

Click here to see a Indiana Department of Natural Resources map of Indiana regions that will experience varying degrees of darkness.  Click here to also get more background information on the Great American Eclipse website.

Because the partial eclipse time is occurring around elementary school dismissal times and based on the recommendations of the Indiana Department of Homeland Security and the IDOE, P-H-M will have an eLearning day on April 8. Click here for more information on that decision.

Thanks to Old National Bank and P-H-M Education Foundation, all students will have a pair of eclipse glasses to use at home when watching the eclipse with their families. The glasses will be sent home the week of March 25 before P-H-M’s Spring Break.

DVT Director Mrs. O’Malley demonstrates how the eclipse glasses should be used.

Today Superintendent Dr. Jerry Thacker surprised another group of teachers hand-delivering the Spring 2024 round of Impact Awards. With the help of Penn Principal Dr. Sean Galiher, Dr. Thacker caught two Penn teachers off guard when he popped into their classrooms unannounced! Click to see the photo gallery below.

This round of P-H-M Impact Awards recognizes teachers with First Semester growth. While all P-H-M teachers across the district are dedicated to helping their students achieve personal academic success, the Impact Award shines the spotlight on educators who have helped their students achieve individual academic growth on their formative assessments over time. The first-ever Impact Awards were handed out in September 2023 and recognized the teachers with the most significant overall student growth during the 2022-2023 school year.

Penn High School Economics teacher Mr. Pete Riordan teaches both AP Microeconomics and AP Macroeconomics. During the 2022-2023 school year, both courses increased slightly in enrollment while simultaneously boasting large increases in achievement. Students in AP courses take standardized exams at the end of the school year designed to measure how well they’ve mastered the content and skills of the course. The final score for each AP Exam is reported on a 5-point scale that offers a recommendation about how qualified a student is to receive college credit or placement, but each college makes its own decisions. In general, a score of three or higher results in credit or placement.

In Mr. Riordan’s Microeconomics course, students earning a three or better jumped from 58.7% in 2022 to 70.8% in 2023. Likewise, in Macroeconomics, 80% of students earned a three or higher, an increase of 20.9%, and the highest pass rate for the course in Penn High School history! Not bad for Riordan who is also the Kingsmen Football Team’s Defensive Coordinator.

From Coach Riordan’s classroom, Principal Galiher took Dr. Thacker and Penn administrators down the hall to drop-in on Mrs. Jenny Dakins who teaches Learning Strategies,  which are classes designed to support student success and academic growth. Dakins teaches multiple blocks of the class and at mid semester 68% of her students’ grades were on track. This percentage improved to 92% by the end of the semester. Dakins’ student growth is a result of her dedication to supporting students and meeting with them individually to ensure academic success for every student. Her compassion, support and love for her students is reflected in their growth.

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At the P-H-M Board of School of Trustees meeting on Monday, February 26, district administration made a presentation to the Board regarding the total solar eclipse taking place on Monday, April 8. As part of the presentation, district administration announced that for a variety of reasons Monday, April 8 will be an eLearning Day. If the district has used all of its allotted three eLearning Days (we currently have used two), the day will be a Virtual Learning Day. No P-H-M sponsored field trips or planned evening activities will take place on this date. Monday, April 8 is the first day back after Spring Break (April 1-5). 

Indiana is in the path of totality and is centrally located in the United States, thus the Indiana Department of Homeland Security is telling tourists, residents, school districts and public agencies to be prepared for three days of potential impact such as, oversized crowds, gridlock traffic, communications disruptions, and even nocturnal animal confusion. Click here to see the full presentation from last night’s Board meeting.

The Indianapolis area and south will experience 100% totality; while the St. Joseph County area will experience 96%. Click here to see a map of Indiana regions that will experience varying degrees of darkness from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources website. The South Bend area will start experiencing darkness at 1:53 p.m., lasting until 4:23 p.m., with 96% totality occurring at 3:09 p.m. and lasting just over 4 minutes. Because these times are around school dismissal times and based on the recommendations of the Indiana Department of Homeland Security and the IDOE, P-H-M will not be holding in-person instruction on April 8. 

Thanks to Old National Bank and P-H-M Education Foundation, all students in the district will receive eclipse glasses to use at home with instructions. Mrs. Mindy O’Malley, Director of P-H-M’s Arthur M. Klinger Planetarium and Digital Video Theater, and a team of teachers, are preparing grade-level eclipse information to send home with students. In the classrooms leading up to April 8, teachers will educate students about this nearly once-in-a-lifetime event; the next total solar eclipse where portions of Indiana will be in full totality will be 2099.

If parents have any questions, they should contact their students’ principals. Employees should contact their supervisor or Human Resources.