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.

Parents of 3rd through 8th graders and Penn sophomores, the Indiana Department of Education has released the testing windows for ISTEP+ and IREAD for the 2015-2016 school year. ISTEP will begin in late February and IREAD in mid-March. Part 1 of ISTEP will be done with paper/pencil and Part 2 will be done online. 

New this year:  In preparation for 2016 ISTEP+, the IDOE has now made ISTEP+ “Experience” available through Pearson, allowing students and parents to experience various technology-enhanced item types that will appear on the ISTEP+ Part 2 assessment as often as they like from home, at school, or on mobile devices. “Experience” is presented via the Pearson online platform (TestNav 8) that will be used for ISTEP+ online testing, as well as IREAD-3 online testing. P-H-M families can access ISTEP+ “Experience” through the P-H-M District website, as well as through the link provided on the RESOURCES menu of every school website.

Indiana Statewide Testing of Educational Progress Plus (ISTEP+ ) Grades 3-8, and 10*

                                                                           Window Begins                                              Window Ends

ISTEP+ Part 1 – paper/pencil                        February 29, 2016                                          March 11, 2016
(Applied Skills)

ISTEP+ Part 2 – online                                    April 18, 2016                                                  May 6, 2016
(Multiple-choice & Technology-Enhanced Items)

*New this year, high school sophomores will be required to take ISTEP

Indiana Reading And Evaluation Determination-3 (IREAD-3) Grade 3

IREAD-3                                                           March 14, 2016                                               March 18, 2016

For more information on the state assessment testing windows, please visit the Indiana Department of Education website, www.doe.in.gov/assessment.

Speak Up is a national research initiative that seeks to gather widespread input on the topic of educational technology.  

Each fall the Speak Up survey is posted online so students, parents, teachers, school staff, and the general public can share their views on technology in schools. 

The Speak Up survey has three primary objectives:

• To provide a means for local schools and districts to easily and effectively listen to and act upon the ideas of their stakeholders
• To provide a conduit for the voices of education stakeholders, most notably students, to inform national and state policies and programs
• To stimulate new local discussions around the use of technology within education.

Survey results are typically released in February, and are important to those who shape educational policy, direct school finance, create curriculum, and implement technology in our schools.

Penn-Harris-Madison participates in the survey in part because we are recipients of a Digital Learning Grant that helps to fund our technology.  

Another reason we support Speak Up is because the results can be helpful in the development of our formal technology plans. Each P-H-M school develops and follows a 3-year technology plan that outlines its goals for educational technology and directs how resources may be spent to achieve those goals.

Here’s a link to learn more about the SPEAK UP survey and the agency that conducts the research, Project Tomorrow.  Get answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Speak Up here.

Or, you may want to just jump right in and take the survey!

Parents and community members CLICK HERE to TAKE THE SPEAK UP SURVEY NOW

The survey takes 15-20 minutes to complete and you will not need to create an account. The survey will be open until December 18 and the link on this webpage will remain active until then. 

P-H-M staff and students will have opportunities to take their version of the Speak Up survey at school / at work through arrangements made in the coming weeks.

Calling all parents of P-H-M students in grades 4-8^th … is your child interested in robotics?

Does your child love playing with LEGOs®?

Then P-H-M’s FIRST® LEGO® League is your answer!

WHO:                   4^th-8^th grade P-H-M students, families, elementary and middle school teachers

WHAT:                 FIRST® LEGO® League (sponsored by Penn Robotics, Team 135)

WHEN:                 Wednesday, August 5
                              7:00 p.m.

WHERE:               Penn High School, Door J
                              56100 Bittersweet Rd Mishawaka, IN  46545

P-H-M’s FIRST® LEGO® League is sponsored by Penn Robotics, Team 135. Penn’s team was a 2015 Indiana District-Kokomo City winner of the FIRST® Robotics Competition; Penn’s team also won the Chairman’s award. FIRST® LEGO® League is a national program that introduces younger students to real-world engineering challenges by building LEGO-based robots to complete tasks on a thematic playing surface. This year’s challenge will be Trash Trek: discovering the hidden world of garbage!

In FLL, elementary and middle-school students (ages 9-14) get to:

• Design, build, test and program robots using LEGO MINDSTORMS® technology

• Apply real-world math and science concepts

• Research challenges facing today’s scientists

• Learn critical thinking, team-building and presentation skills

• Participate in tournaments and celebrations

What FLL teams accomplish is nothing short of amazing. It’s fun. It’s exciting.  And participants learn skills that will last a lifetime.

Come learn all about joining P-H-M’s FIRST® LEGO® League. Register, find out about the resources and get the season timeline.

If your busing needs change, please stop by our Moran office to submit a transportation change form. Please allow 3-5 school days for changes to take effect.

The 2015 Summer Visual Arts Academy is offered to all P-H-M elementary students – at no charge!

Moran Elementary School  has been rated an A school by the Indiana Department of Education. This grade reflects Moran's most recent academic performance and is calculated based on data collected throughout each school year. The grade takes into account a variety of factors including student performance and student growth. For more information and to see the report card, go to the Indiana Department of Education’s COMPASS website. There is a link on the this homepage.

Your child’s health is important to us. It is well known that healthy children are in a better position to take advantage of the educational opportunities presented to them than children who are physically or emotionally struggling.

Immunizations are used to protect your children against certain diseases as well as other children in the school. Under Indiana Public Law, when a child enrolls in school his/her parent/guardian is required to furnish written proof that a child is fully immunized as required by the Indiana State Department of Health. Parents must furnish immunization paperwork to the school health office before the first day of school, which is August 19, 2015.

Immunizations may be obtained from your family doctor, St. Joseph County Health Department, or other area clinics. Please call the school health office for resources.

Minimum Immunization Requirements for 2015-2016 School Year

1. 5 doses of DtaP/DTP/DT or 4 doses are acceptable if the fourth dose was administered on or after the fourth birthday
2. 4 doses of Polio-the 4th dose must be on or after the fourth birthday and at least 6 months after the previous dose or another dose will be required or 3 doses are acceptable if all are IPV or all are OPV and the 3rd dose was given after the 4th birthday and at least 6 months after the previous dose.
3. 3 doses of Hepatitis B
4. 2 doses of MMR- on or after the first birthday
5. 2 doses of Varicella (chickenpox)-on or after the first birthday and separated by 3 months or written physician documentation of the month and year of disease.
6. 2 doses of Hepatitis A

Questions about immunizations can be directed to the school health office.