Penn High School will once again host the FIRST Robotics St. Joseph District Event on Saturday, March 9 and Sunday, March 10.

Plan on coming out and enjoying the excitement of more than 40 high school FRC robotics teams from Indiana and Michigan battling it out on a basketball court-sized field with four-foot tall, 120-pound robots! Join more than 5,000 students, coaches, mentors, parents and fans during this one-of-a-kind two-day event! WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW to get a taste of all the excitement!

Cheer on Penn’s Team 135 and make sure to bring your Robotics fans to enjoy Next Gen, an area for students ages K-8, who can get hands-on engaging fun with some of Team 135’s other robots. Next Gen will be open Saturday from 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. The entire event is FREE ADMISSION!

Grissom Instrument Selection Night

Thursday, March 7, 2019

4:30 – 7:30 p.m.

Penn-Harris-Madison School Corporation is nationally recognized as one of the “Best Communities for Music Education” offering choir, band and orchestra at P-H-M’s three middle schools: Schmucker, Discovery, and Grissom Middle Schools.

Every P-H-M 5th grader who will be attending a P-H-M middle school as an incoming 6th grader in the Fall 2020 has the opportunity to join an instrumental music class, which includes either band or orchestra. “Instrument Selection Night” is when students and families get to make their choice!

In order to join 6th grade band or orchestra, students must select an instrument that they will learn, practice and perform for the school year.  Click this link to sign-up for your appointment at your designated school and date. *If you have not received a letter with details about this process, please contact Glenn Northern at gnorthern@phm.k12.in.us.

At “Instrument Selection Night,” a music professional will be available to give students advice about which instrument may be best suited for them. They will be allowed to “try out” instruments from various instrument groups.

Parents, your child’s teacher is using either Google Classroom or Canvas for their curriculum assignments. (If you are unsure, please contact your child’s teacher via email ASAP). Classroom teachers are reviewing with students the process today in case they have any questions.

In either situation, you will begin by going to the primary launchpad (primary.phmschools.org) and selecting either Canvas or Google (then Google Classroom). From there, you will sign in by entering your child’s username and password. Your child should be familiar with this username/password from regular use, but if you are unsure, please contact your child’s teacher.

After logging in, you should see a class from your child’s teacher. Click to proceed and follow the prompts.

As general reminders, you are not required to print any of the assignments, but you may do so if you choose. Students will have 5 days to submit the assignments after the missed school day. Keep in mind that the computer lab will be opened, when school is back in session, as an option before or after school for students as needed. Please contact your teacher for specifics if necessary.

Also remember that your primary contact on eLearning days is your child’s teacher. They will be accessible by email and will help to answer any questions you may have.

Registration for kindergarten students for the 2019-2020 school year opened on Tuesday, January 22, 2019.

This registration opportunity is for youngsters who live within the P-H-M district and who will be five-years-old on or before September 1, 2019. 

Registration for Elm Road Elementary will take place during the hours of 7:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. A parent or guardian must appear in person to register their child. 

Click here for more registration forms and more details on P-H-M Kindergarten Registration.

Penn-Harris-Madison also operates two preschool programs: Early Learning Academy (ELA) and Penn PALS. Elm Road is home to the Penn PALS program.

Click here to learn more about Penn PALS and download a registration form. Registration for the 2019-20 school year opens Monday, March 11, 2019.

Click here to learn more about ELA and to download a registration form. Registration for the 2019-20 school year opens Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2019.

Penn Robotics Team 135 is once again holding workshops for 1^st ​- 8th grade students over two days of Winter Recess (Thurs., Dec. 27 & Friday, Dec. 28).

Creative Workshop 8:00 AM – 10:00 AM

Suggested Age: 1^st ​- 3^rd graders. Price: $80.00. A camp that stretches the creative mind! Students are given a design challenge to complete over the course of two days. Students will be using K’NEX to build a solution to the stated problem. They will be on teams that will design, create, and improve upon their concept. While having fun in an exciting environment, the emphasis is always on the process of design to build, while always improving on previous ideas! On Friday students will have the opportunity to test their concepts against the other teams within the workshop. Parents are also welcome to attend the Parent Show which will take place the last 15 minutes of the workshop on the December 28th. High school robotics students will be mentors during these two days of fun!

Applied Workshop 10:30 AM – 12:30 PM

Suggested Age: 4^th – 8^th graders. Price: $80.00. This camp is geared towards students who want to expand their knowledge in designing and manufacturing! This workshop is also geared towards students who can follow instructions and are comfortable behind computer software. Over the two days, students will be designing 3D parts on the computer that can be brought to life with many CNC Machines. Students will have the opportunity to use the 3D printer, CNC Laser Cutter, the CNC Router, and many other tools/machines in the Penn Robotics Lab! High school students will be mentoring and helping students with their 3D computer designs and machining their parts.

Click here to sign-up and pay online today!

The holiday tree inside our school library has come to life! With the help of some helpful little “Eagle Elves,” Media Aide Linda Knapp put up the school’s annual Book Character Holiday Tree, which includes characters from students’ favorite children’s books and movies.

Some featured characters include the Grinch from Dr. Seuss’ “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” Olaf the Snowman from the Disney animated movie “Frozen,” and Ms. Frizzle from the animated educational show “The Magic School Bus.”

Decorating the tree gave the students an opportunity to get into the holiday spirit while being surrounded by all the books the library has to offer.

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. 

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 3^rd 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.

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.“

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.”

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.