Kindergarten Registration for 2019-2020 NOW OPEN!Archived
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 Offering Winter WorkshopsArchived
Penn Robotics Team 135 is once again holding workshops for 1st - 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: 1st - 3rd 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: 4th – 8th 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 Library’s Book Character Holiday TreeArchived
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 SantaArchived
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. 25Archived
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.“
P-H-M Spring 2018 ISTEP+ Scores Above State AverageArchived
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.”
DVT & Planetarium 2018-19 Show ScheduleArchived
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 YearArchived
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 …
Elm Road Welcomes a New TeacherArchived
Today was New Teacher Orientation for Penn-Harris-Madison.
Fransisco Cardoza will be Elm Road’s ENL teacher this year.
Click to get more details on P-H-M’s Penn's New Teacher Class of 2018.
ND’s Austin Torres to help lead Kingsmen Basketball CampArchived
Campers will have the opportunity to learn from Kingsmen and University of Notre Dame alum Austin Torres at the upcoming Kingsmen Basektball Day Camp!
After a great career at Notre Dame, Austin is giving back to Penn High School and Penn-Harris-Madison Schools by passing on his knowledge to younger players. Austin will be will be a lead instructor at the Kingsmen Day Camp June 11th -15th.

The camp is for boys currently in grades 4-8th grade. Registrations are still being accepted up until the first day of camp. Click here to register online or to download and print a pdf flier.
Click to check out the full list of other Kingsmen Athletic Camps being offered this summer.
