What’s recently happened?
Fifteen Penn-Harris-Madison School Corporation (PHM) robotics teams from eight PHM schools were awarded a total grant of $53,600 this past month. Teams 135 and 328, both from Penn High School, took home $14,000 altogether.
The grant money pays for coaching stipends, team and competition registration, transportation, materials, and supplies. The PHM proposal was selected from more than 145 grant proposals submitted for the funding opportunity.
The Indiana Department of Education Review Team was impressed with PHM’s plan to design, construct, program, and participate in competitions with the goal of increasing Indiana student interest in STEM.
Exceptional Education Teacher Michelle Miller was the winner of radio station U93’s Who’s Cool at Your School? (WCAYS?) contest for the week of October 4. The weekly WCAYS? the competition has a randomly picked winner based on nominations which aim to highlight the significance of school staff.
Representatives from U93 gave Miller an award for her honor with a collection of items from local businesses. Miller began her journey at Penn last year and is now teaching learning strategies, life skills, social studies, and co-teaching biology.
Another Exceptional Education teacher at Penn is making a difference in the Michiana community. Aaron Allen manages the non-profit, donation based Salem’s Haunted House. The attraction is located on Sampson Street in South Bend.
“We’ve had a lot of people come in and out saying they had more fun at our haunted house than at Niles Haunted House, which I think is because it changes every year,” Allen said. “We tear it down and rebuild it from scratch.”
While the 2024 Halloween season is over, Salem’s Haunted House reconstructs annually, with no end in sight.
What’s coming up?
Short Hair Because We Care, an annual hair donation event created by Penn Alum Ella Smoker, will host its sixth annual donation event on Nov. 16.
On this day from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., a large group of people from Penn and its surrounding community will donate at least eight inches of hair each. If matching the standards of last year's event, 33 people will donate a total of 334 inches of hair.
All hair collected from this event is sent to Children with Hair Loss, a nonprofit organization that gives wigs to children with illnesses for free.
November 21 and 22 mark the return of the Penn National Honors Society (NHS) Biannual Blood Drive. Both members of NHS and general Penn students will gather on this day to donate blood to the local South Bend Medical Foundation.
“We have a large population at Penn High School, and this gives us more variety in blood source which will help save a lot of lives at the local hospitals,” Penn NHS Blood Drive Chair Luna Liu said.
One donation is equal to three pints of blood, resulting in the possible saving of three lives.
In sports news, Penn Football takes on Lake Central High School at home on November 1 for the first game of kickoffs. Afterwards, both Boys and Girls Cross Country teams race in Terre Haute on November 2 for the IHSAA State tournament after both placing second at Regionals, and Girls Volleyball goes to Huntington North for Semi-state that same day.
As November continues, basketball and wrestling start up. This season is the first Girls Wrestling will be an official IHSAA sport. With this new sanctioning, renowned wrestler Amy Hildebrandt is the new Girls Wrestling Head Coach.
Hildebrandt has a strong history in the wrestling world, both in general and with coaching. She was part of the Penn Wrestling Coaching Team from 2018 to 2020, and then was head coach at Trine University from 2020 to 2022.
“Just legitimizing the program and giving girls the opportunity to really feel what it’s like to be on that varsity sport is really what I’m most excited for,” Hildebrandt said, “I don’t think there’s another team out there working as hard.”
The team kicks off its season on November 9 at Illiana Christian High School.
Staff spotlight:
Coley Moore is a 12th year history teacher now in his first year teaching Geography & History of the World for Penn’s Early College Academy.
Moore is a Penn alum who just moved back to the Michiana area this past summer. After graduating from Penn in 2008, he taught at Avon High School, Warren Township School, and Brownsburg High School before coming back to Mishawaka.
“It’s been 16 years. I feel like things are different from when I was a student here,” Moore said. “There are probably more similarities than differences to be honest, though. These lockers were here when I was, all the classrooms look very much the same.”
While he had attended Penn for his high school education, Moore wasn’t used to being on the other side of block scheduling.
“No other school that I’ve been at has had block scheduling, and it’s definitely adjusted the way I teach and plan, but it makes preparing for class each day a lot easier,” Moore said.
In addition to teaching, Moore is an offensive coordinator and quarterback coach for the Kingsmen Football Team. He’s just another addition to the team, following current Head Coach Pete Riordan’s replacement of Former Head Coach Cory Yeoman. He's also a family man who enjoys spending time with his wife and two sons.
Student spotlight:
At a school full of athletic and STEM awards, Junior Nico Reyes has found solace in the world of literacy at Penn.
In the fall of her sophomore year, Reyes auditioned and pursued one of the main roles in the school’s fall play. After the performance of the play, she never looked back from the dreams she realized she had then.
“Auditioning was one of the best decisions I've ever made. It's the reason why I'm so much more outgoing than I used to be, and it’s given me a reason to look forward to the future,” she said.
Following the gain of her new found sociability, that same fall, Reyes began her coursework for Penn’s Education Professions Pathway to eventually become an English teacher. Reyes’ aspiration to teach began before her Principles of Teaching class, though. She says the initial reason she took the class was due to her eighth grade English teacher.
“He treated his students like people going through a rough stage of life and not just kids,” Reyes said. “Someday, I want to be a similar source of hope that some of my teachers have been, and be able to insight change in a place I feel needs it.”
With a strong leader as her example, Reyes knows she has what it takes to be a good teacher.
“I'm deeply empathetic, which is one of my biggest flaws, but also one of my biggest strengths,” she said. “I believe that before all else, empathy and feeling are what dictates a person's personality.”
Her proclaimed empathy combined with evident responsibility proves her point. With two immigrant parents owning a small business, Reyes has the responsibility of taking care of her two younger brothers.
“One of the main reasons I want to succeed in life is to be able to guide my siblings now and in their future and to lift a bit of weight off of my parents shoulders,” Reyes said.
From all the experiences she’s had that made her the person she is today, Reyes has set herself up for a future in English education.