Here is the flyer for our next PTO Family Fun Night, which will be on Friday, Nov. 9th.  We hope to see lots of Horizon families at this "Family Math Night" hosted by Mathnasium of Granger located in Heritage Square.  This was one of our best Family Fun Night's last year, and we are looking forward to another great evening of Math Games and Fun!

Ms. Jessica Moore and Ms. Kelly Ghyselinck, two very ingenious and creative lunch room aides, have discovered a way to bring the order back to the lunch room by involving the students in organized, fun activities. In honor of National School Lunch Week (Oct. 15-19), we put together this video so that our families could see how much fun our students are having …

October 25, 2018 from 6-8pm 

Join us for our annual Boogie Ball for a scary good time!

Click HERE to find out more information about location. Don’t forget to RSVP on the HORIZON PTO WEBSITE. 

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.

Other significant highlights from the Spring 2018 ISTEP+ results:

• Penn High School ranks 5th out of large public school districts (500+ students tested, based on both Math and ELA pass results of grade 10)
• Northpoint Elementary School is 2nd in Indiana public primary elementary schools (schools where grades 3-5 were tested)
• Discovery Middle School is 3rd in Indiana public middle schools (schools where grades 6-8 were tested)
• A total of four P-H-M elementary & one middle school—Northpoint, Prairie Vista, Horizon and Mary Frank Elementary Schools, along with Discovery Middle School—rank among the state’s Top 50 of all 1,426 public schools 

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.”

This program empowers students to adopt a design-thinking mindset through compelling activities, projects, and problems that build upon each other and relate to the world around them. And as students engage in hands-on activities in computer science, engineering, and biomedical science, they become creative, collaborative problem solvers ready to take on any challenge. 

Student of the Month is a great way for the teachers to show how much they appreciate and respect students that live out the lifelines that we try to instill in them. 

The teachers in each grade level, select one student (at times more than 1) each month from their classrooms that model the chosen lifeline(s) for that month.  August and September’s Lifelines were: Organization and Initiative. 

Organization is the efficient and orderly approach to tasks. Students who model this lifeline approach their classroom tasks in an efficient and orderly manner. 

Initiative is the power or opportunity to act or take charge before others do or more simply doing something without being told to do it.  Students who model this lifeline saw a task that needed to be done and took it upon themselves to see it to completion. 

Therein lies the beauty of these awards: it doesn't have anything to do with grades or accomplishments. It shows how important it is to “be yourself”.

 1^st grade award winners for Initiative:

1^st grade award winners for Organization: 

2^nd grade winners for both Organization and Initiative:

3^rd grade winners for Initiative:

3^rd grade winners for Organization:

4^th grade winners for Initiative:

4^th grade winners for Organization:

5^th grade winners for both Initiative and Organization:

Parents of Horizon! 

Mark your calendars! 

Today starts our, back by popular demand, YANKEE CANDLE FUNDRAISER! 

Our goal is to raise enough money to cover all the special events at the school that our general budget cannot cover. Your support is crucial to our fundraiser’s success!

Check your child’s folders, backpacks or where ever they seem to stuff papers for the order forms and product catalog! 

Click Here for the full PDF

Students in Grades 3-8 and students enrolled in Biology at Penn will take ILEARN Indiana’s, new computer-adaptive standardized test, this spring (April 22 – May 17) replacing the state’s previous test, ISTEP+. To see what subjects students will be tested per their grade level, please click to visit the IDOE website. 

To help parents better understand how their children will be tested and to help them prepare their students for the test, the IDOE has put together a quick one page guide. Click here to download the pdf copy.

The ISTEP+ Grade 10 assessment will be administered during the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 school years. Click here for more information on the transition from the ISTEP+ Grade10 assessment to the College Entrance Exam.

IREAD-3 for Grade 3 will continue as is. Click for more details.

Starting this spring, the Indiana Department of Education will also transition to a new test to assess students with significant cognitive disabilities in Grades 3-8 and 10. IAM is the new summative accountability assessment. Click here for more details on IAM.

Click to view all the testing dates on the P-H-M Corporate Calendar or reference the 2018-19 P-H-M District Activities Wall Calendar.

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.  

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 …