Almost a year to the date Indiana schools shut down (P-H-M schools shut down on March 12, 2020), P-H-M teachers and staff got a literal shot in the arm and marked a major step forward in our fight against COVID-19.

On Monday, March 8, 202, Meijer Pharmacy set up a vaccination clinic inside the Main Arena at Penn High School and administered 1,170 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine. 

Every P-H-M teacher and staff member who wanted to get the vaccine was able to do so. 

The vaccines were made available under the federal allotment of vaccines through the Federal Retail Pharmacy Program. The White House announced that the federal allotment would be open to educational staff at schools so teachers and staff could receive the vaccine, especially in states where educational staff had not been included in the first responder group. P-H-M Human Resources reached out to Meijer as word spread that they were working with Indiana schools to set up on-site vaccination clinics.

We are so thankful to the team at Meijer and to EVERYBODY at P-H-M who worked so hard to make this event happen on very short notice. 

Jenni McCarthy, a kindergarten teacher at Bittersweet Elementary said “I honestly have to say that it was fantastic when I found out that we could get them right here at school. I didn’t have to go anywhere. I didn’t have to sign up on any list, I didn’t have to do anything. It just goes to show that Penn-Harris-Madison is a great place to work because they always think of their employees first and are trying to make sure that we are safe to be back in the classroom.”

In addition to the over 700 P-H-M staff members who received a vaccine, we also reached out to area schools to make doses available to others as well. P-H-M felt it was important to share any extra vaccines with educators and staff from other school districts and private schools within P-H-M’s boundaries so that no vaccines would be wasted. 

Dr. Jerry Thacker, P-H-M’s superintendent of schools said “…this just has a tremendous positive impact on the feeling the teachers, all school employees and the students have with regards to receiving a vaccine. They know they’re going to be safer, so this is the first step in that. It also gives us a barometer of what we need to be doing in the future with regard to reaching out and making sure that we can get our students back [in person].”

Watch the video to get a fuller sense of what the day was like. Meijer will return to Penn Monday, March 29th to administer the second dose. 

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!

In early February, St. Joseph Health System Sports Medicine, Beacon Medical Group Sports Medicine and The South Bend Clinic notified Penn-Harris-Madison School Corporation and other St. Joseph County high schools that they would not be able to continue the practice of their physicians providing school based "on-site" pre-participation physical examinations for student-athletes.

The local health systems state in the letter that this is in compliance with recommendations from the Pre-participation Physical Evaluation (PPE) 5th Edition published and endorsed in 2019 by six organizations: American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Sports Medicine, American Medical Society for Sports Medicine, American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine, American Osteopathic Academy of Sports Medicine.

The letter states “The Physicians of the South Bend Clinic, Sports Medicine Physicians of Beacon Medical Group and St. Joseph Regional Medical Center believe that it is in the best interest of student athletes to establish a "Medical Home" and consequently seek an annual History and Physical Examination that can also satisfy IHSAA Sports Physicals requirements.” Click to read the 2019 PPE Pre-participation Physical Evaluation 5th Edition as supplied to P-H-M from the local health systems.

Parents will now need to make appointments with their student-athlete’s pediatrician/primary care physician to get a physical and to fill out the IHSAA Pre-participation Physical Evaluation (PPE) form. If an student-athlete does not have an established primary care physician, their parents will need to establish one. Click to download a copy of the IHSAA PPE form.

The IHSAA allows pre-participation exams to be signed after April 1 for the subsequent academic year. A PPE form filled out & signed after April 1, 2021 satisfies IHSAA exam requirements through June 2022.

As stated in the letter to P-H-M “If parents schedule a routine their student-athlete’s annual "well child" visit between January 1 and April 1 (some offices will schedule these exams to coincide with the patient’s birthday), then the examiner may consider completing and signing the IHSAA form after April 1—attesting that the exam was completed recently and athlete's health status remains the same. Thus, authorizing the April 1 signature and medical authorization to participate in sports for the upcoming academic year.

Grissom Instrument Selection Night

March 8 & 9 2021

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 Grissom and the other two P-H-M middle schools Discovery and Schmucker.

Every P-H-M 5th grader who will be attending a P-H-M middle school as an incoming 6th grader in the Fall 2021 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. 

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.

Tryouts:

Next year’s Freshmen (current 8th ​graders)

March 22, 23 and 24, 2021

4:00 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.

Enter through Door D

If interested, E-mail Varsity Coach Rita Szweda before March 18 for the tryout information at: rszweda@phm.k12.in.us.

The letter below was emailed to parents and staff on Thursday, Feb. 4, 2021.

Dear Parents,

It has always been our goal to have all of our students with us for in-person learning following COVID-19 safety protocols. Under the guidance of the Indiana Department of Health (IDOH) and the St. Joseph County Department of Health (SJCDoH), our secondary schools have either been in hybrid or virtual mode since the start of the school year because of the population size of those buildings. Since September, our elementary schools have been successfully educating students in-person. We’ve also been able to provide a virtual option for any family who was more comfortable with their student(s) learning at home. Through all of these scenarios, we’ve put the well-being and safety of our students and staff first while balancing the guidelines and protocols of federal, state, and local health agencies.

The efforts and precautions we’ve all made to help lower the community spread of COVID-19 have finally paid off! Yesterday (Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2021) the IDOH released their weekly updated County metrics; and St. Joseph County’s weekly 2-metric score has improved to Yellow (click here to visit the IDOH website & view the county metrics map). SJCDoH also sent out a news release yesterday (click here to read it in full) reinforcing the IDOH’s message that “a county must maintain a lower weekly 2-metric score for two consecutive weeks before moving down to a lower Advisory Level.” St. Joseph County’s Advisory Level does remain Orange. 

I am happy to notify our secondary parents that with the approval and permission of SJCDoH and in collaboration with the P-H-M Teachers Association, on Monday, February 8th, I will be recommending to the Board of School Trustees for their approval plans for the phase-in process of transitioning secondary students (grades 6-12 whose parents chose hybrid instruction for the 2nd semester) back into the classroom for in-person instruction working up to 5 days per week. Please note that the transition begins with Mondays as a virtual day for all students and four days of in school instruction. Please click here for a detailed breakdown of the Secondary Return to Learn Transition Plan.

We have developed this plan after many discussions with our Teachers Association and local health authorities. This plan is supported by both parties because of the factors listed below:
 

• Not all secondary students will be brought back all at once; grades will be transitioned back in on a weekly basis. Please click here for a detailed breakdown of the Secondary Return to Learn Transition Plan.
• This is an option only for those middle and high school students whose parents declared them hybrid for the 2nd semester, until SJCDoH increases the allowable capacity in our school buildings.
• P-H-M Administration will meet weekly with SJCDoH for data monitoring of local metrics. Data will continue to guide all decision making. We hope to eventually have all students back in school for face-to-face instruction.
• St. Joseph County, like the rest of the State, is experiencing a decrease in COVID-19 cases. However, we must maintain our risk mitigation strategies to avoid an increase in numbers.
• The federal and state governments are ramping up vaccination efforts and availability. While the IDOH still has not included teachers as part of essential workers or critical infrastructure, the State’s vaccine eligibility based on age groups is moving quickly. SJCDoH continues to support teacher vaccination. 
• SJCDoH encourages social distancing of 6 ft. or more whenever possible, but recognizes and accepts that the Governor’s guidelines for schools are the following:
  • If necessary, a minimum social distancing standard of 3 ft., if everyone is masked and facing the same direction (click to read Executive Order 21-02 (renewed 1/28/21).
• P-H-M continues to track the number of student and staff COVID cases reported to us. The cases are reflected on P-H-M’s COVID Dashboard. A link to the Dashboard is on the homepage of P-H-M’s district website for staff and families to easily find; it is updated daily except for weekends, holidays, and recess breaks. 

We do realize that there are probably students and families who chose virtual learning for a variety of reasons and who may prefer to be back in school with their teachers and classmates. Again, it is our utmost desire as educators to have 100% of our students back 100%. The determination for the possibility for 6-12 In-person students to go 5 days a week and 6-12 Virtual students to return to in-person learning will be based on the metrics, evaluation of internal data, and approval for capacity by the SJCHoD. This will remain to be under review and consideration for any changes to occur no sooner than after Spring Break.

As stated above  and in the Secondary Return to Learn Phase-in Plan, we will be meeting weekly with SJCDoH leaders to monitor and evaluate the community and P-H-M COVID-19 case data. When we can safely return those virtual students who want to return to the classrooms, we will do so as soon as it is permissible by SJCDoH. 

Please direct specific questions about your student and school to your building principal. Secondary principals will have follow-up communications with building specific details of the transition plan.

The Board of School Trustees and I want all our families and employees to know that their safety is at the very forefront of our decision making. We will continue to make decisions in consultation with the St. Joseph County Department of Health.

Please stay safe and healthy.

Sincerely,
Dr. Jerry Thacker
Superintendent of Schools

It’s a good day to be a Guardsmen! Today we welcomed back students to in-person, hybrid learning.

Students whose last names begin with A-L were greeted by a dinosaur as they got off the bus. Each hallway was filled with numerous staff members wearing costumes, holding signs and yes, even walking on stilts.

Our very own Principal Milfort could even be found zipping down the hallways on a scooter.

We were so happy to see our students again, we can’t wait to see the rest!

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!

Click to read Principal Jean Milfort’s parent email and to fill out Grissom’s Second Semester Parent Questionnaire by Monday, Jan. 11, 2021.

The email below from P-H-M Superintendent Dr. Jerry Thacker was sent to parents on Thursday, January 7, 2021.

Back on November 18 when I notified P-H-M secondary families that St. Joseph County Department of Health (SJCDH) was recommending area school districts revert secondary students from hybrid to virtual, I explained that this would only be temporary to cover the time before, during and after Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s holidays. This was one of several recommendations that SJCDH made in mid-November in an effort to help lessen the impact of COVID community cases on our local health systems. 
 

I shared with you at that time that it was our goal to bring middle and high school students back to school on the hybrid model beginning Tuesday, January 19, pending SJCDH guidance. This week P-H-M Administration discussed secondary students’ return to school with the SJCDH and I am happy to report that they support the return of our middle and high school students to the hybrid model on Jan.19th.
 

We know that our students receive the most ideal instruction through face-to-face learning. It is in our students’ best interest for their academic success and social emotional well being to receive as much face-to-face instruction as COVID health safety precautions will allow. We are in a position to return to hybrid learning because of the following:
 

• The most common contributors to community spread are social gatherings in which COVID safety protocols are not observed.
• In recent local news reports, SJCDH states local hospitals are in a better position now than they were before Thanksgiving and that the post Thanksgiving surge was relatively modest. SJCDH is relatively hopeful that the post Christmas/New Year’s holiday surge will also be modest.
• P-H-M tracks the number of student and staff COVID cases and actively conducts contact tracing on all cases reported to us. We proactively ask students and staff identified as close contacts to quarantine. The cases reported to us are reflected on P-H-M’s COVID Dashboard; a link to the Dashboard is on the homepage of P-H-M’s district website. The Dashboard is updated daily except for weekends, holidays, and district breaks.
• Most secondary parents support their students returning to the Hybrid model for their students’ academic and social emotional well being.
• All P-H-M parents, at all grade levels, have the option to keep their students 100% virtual. 
• We expect a modest number of secondary families will choose to keep their students virtual, which will further reduce the number of students in the buildings and classrooms.

Secondary principals will be asking their parents to return a survey declaring whether their student will remain virtual or return on hybrid. If you are a parent of a secondary student, please look for that email from your building principal and return your responses as soon as possible. Click to read Principal Jean Milfort’s parent email and to fill out Grissom’s Second Semester Parent Questionnaire by Monday, Jan. 11, 2021.

All COVID safety protocols as laid out in the Staff Return to Learn, the District Overview Return to Learn, and building level Return to Learn plans remain in effect. Among our many protocols, masks will still be required along with social distancing of 6 feet or more whenever possible.

Regardless if your child is virtual, in-person or hybrid, please continue to monitor your child’s health every day using this ISDH screening tool. Please do not send your child(ren) to school if they experience any of the following symptoms: fever or chills, sore throat, uncontrollable or new cough or shortness of breath or difficulty breathing (especially new onset), diarrhea, nausea, vomiting or abdominal pain, headache (especially new onset of severe headache with fever, or new loss of taste or smell). 
 

Also, please do not send your student(s) to school if they have had close contact with a known positive case, including in your own household, or awaiting test results. When you have a positive case (tested or clinical) in your household, the positive case should self-isolate away from the rest of the family members and the family should remain in quarantine. 
 

We also ask all P-H-M staff members to self-monitor their health and practice these same safety prevention guidelines. We continue to record cases of students and staff who are virtual. Therefore, parents should still report to your school principal if your virtual student has tested positive, and staff should also report if they are aware of a virtual student who is positive.

For more information on COVID-19 & P-H-M’s safety mitigation protocols, please visit our Return to Learn page.
 

Stay healthy and well and thank you for your continued flexibility and partnership as we work to provide the best education possible to your students.
 

Sincerely,

Dr. Jerry Thacker

Superintendent of Schools

CLICK HERE to download and print the secondary hybrid model beginning 1/19/21.

The Indiana State Department of Health last updated the COVID-19 School Attendance Quick Reference Guide for parents and schools on December 4, 2020.

PLEASE NOTE: For families who are not able to isolate from everyone else at home, the start date of quarantine is determined by last date of exposure to a positive or untested person; this may be after the ill person completes their 10 days of isolation.

Click the image below to download and print.

This resource is also provided in the District Overview Return to Learn Fall 2020 document, under “Important Links at the end of the document. 

Wednesday, November 18, 2020

Dear P-H-M Secondary Families,

As reported by St. Joseph County Department of Health (SJCDH), the rates of positive COVID-19 cases in our community have been steadily on the rise for several weeks. The SJCDH is concerned that an increase of indoor family and social gatherings over the holiday period, starting with Thanksgiving running through New Year’s, will generate even more cases going through mid January. 

Therefore in a preemptive, proactive move, the Department of Health this afternoon recommended that all high  schools in St. Joseph County “pivot to virtual learning until after winter break. Depending on their circumstance, each district may choose to have middle schools go virtual as well.” Click to read the SJCDH news release. 

Because of the population size of P-H-M’s middle schools, the increase of cases also coming from this age group, and because these students are not cohorted due to course offerings and individual needs, we believe it is in our students and staff’s best interest to also have our three middle schools also revert back to 100% virtual learning, along with Penn High School.

For Penn-Harris-Madison School Corporation, this means all three middle schools (Discovery, Grissom and Schmucker) along with Penn High School will move to 100% virtual instruction starting next Monday, November 23 through Friday, January 15 (the end of the first semester).

Pending SJCDH guidance, we expect secondary students to return to hybrid instruction on Tuesday, January 19 (Monday, January 18, is a recess day for Martin Luther King Jr. Day). Please click here for a reminder on the hybrid weekly schedule model introduced at the beginning of the school year.

The only exception for secondary students who will not be going 100% virtual are certain Exceptional Education and Young Adult program students. These students will continue to come to their home school daily to receive their educational services. Busing and food service will be provided. The Exceptional Education Department will be in touch directly with these parents in the coming days with more details.

Penn High School students enrolled in classes through the Elkhart Area Career Center and Penn’s Building and Trades program will continue with those programs in-person. These students’ classes that normally take place in-person at Penn will be virtual. More details will be provided by Penn Principal Sean Galiher.

The virtual day for middle schools will start at 9:35, 12:30 lunch, and dismissal at 4:00 (office hours will be held in the mornings 9:05-9:30). The Penn High School virtual day will start at 8:55, 11:45 lunch, 3:17 (office hours will be held in the mornings 8:25-8:50). Building principals will be in touch with parents this week to provide more details about the school day schedule.

Secondary students who will be in-person through Friday should plan on taking home all personal items. For those students who are unable to do so, school principals will communicate arrangements for pick-up days and times.

While schools themselves are not superspreaders, people are becoming infected at/through social activities taking place outside of school, thus bringing the virus into the school setting. According to SJCDH, the best way to divert a surge in cases and reduce the spread among this population is to put safeguards in place for two incubation periods, which is 28 days; hence the timeframe of our virtual instruction period through the end of first semester.

The rise of community cases correlates with what we are seeing within P-H-M. An increase of cases mostly at our secondary schools and the residual impact of close contacts in quarantine has had a reverberating effect on staffing. Our middle and high school cases are double that of elementary cases. Click to see P-H-M’s cumulative total of cases since July; click to see our cases over the previous 10 days. Making a move to 100% virtual at the entire secondary level will help to alleviate some of the staffing challenges we are currently experiencing. This will free up some people in critical roles, such as substitute teachers and bus drivers, who can then help out at the elementary level.

The hybrid instruction model we’ve been using at the middle and high school has incorporated live virtual teaching for students who are home on their virtual days. Now that all secondary students will be home, students will receive live teaching every day for all class periods. Teachers will continue to use the virtual technology tools and methods they have been using since August when the school year started virtual. This has been very successful and provided students not only with quality education, but also invaluable social emotional learning opportunities.

This change to mandatory 100% virtual instruction only affects secondary students (grades 6-12). PreK and elementary students/families will remain as previously established. If your elementary student is in-person, they will remain in-person. If they are 100% virtual; they will remain so. If you have a desire to change your elementary student from in-person to 100% virtual for the second semester, we are asking that you indicate that on the survey that will be sent out to parents Monday, December 7th. We ask that elementary families wait until that time so that staffing changes can be made for the second semester beginning January 19th. 

If your middle or high school student tests positive for COVID during this time of virtual learning, we still ask for parents and guardians to please report these cases to us. We send these statistics to the Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH) which they publish weekly on the ISHDH COVID School Dashboard. No identifiable, personal information is shared with the state, just the number of cases. We are also reporting this data daily on the P-H-M COVID Dashboard. 

Please continue to use these valuable tools to monitor COVID symptoms and to follow isolation and quarantine protocols:

• ISDH Symptom Screening Tool 
• COVID-19 School Attendance Quick Reference Guide
• CDC: Duration of Isolation and Precautions for COVID-19 Positive Cases
• CDC: When to Quarantine, When to start and end quarantine, Timeline Scenarios

We have more information on COVID-19 and P-H-M safety mitigation protocols on our website at https://www.phmschools.org/returntolearn.

Principals will be sharing information in the coming days on Food Service distribution of meals for secondary students. This information will be posted on P-H-M and the schools’ websites, as well as also coming from your building principal.

Per the St. Joseph County Health Department’s recommendations released today, extracurricular and co curricular activities should be paused or go virtual as feasible. “In the event these activities cannot be paused or done remotely, limit spectators to parents/guardians/siblings until after winter break.” More details will be shared by the middle and high school principals over the coming days regarding extracurricular and co curricular activities.

The P-H-M Board of School Trustees and I realize this is yet another change for our families; it is not ideal and we know that this impacts our families and students in a number of different ways. However, the health and safety of staff and students is our greatest responsibility. We follow ISDH recommendations and the guidance of local health authorities who have oversight over the school district. The best place for our students is in our schools; short of being able to do that because of the pandemic, we will continue to provide stable, quality education and SEL support to our students by every means possible.

Any family or student who is in need of social emotional support, please reach out to your school principal, assistant principal, dean or guidance counselor. All secondary staff will continue to report to their buildings during this time period and will be available during the school day to assist with problems. For after hours help, a listing of community resources, ranging from suicide prevention and mental health resources to dealing with COVID anxiety and stress, are on our website at this link:  https://www.phmschools.org/parents/social-emotional-learning. 

As we approach Thanksgiving, I hope that families are able to celebrate in a safe and responsible manner. Whatever we do now over these next few weeks will determine our course over the next few months. We want everyone to be healthy and do their part to reduce community spread so that our students can have a normal end to the school year. Please let’s join together as the strong P-H-M Triangle of Success to make this happen.

Sincerely,
Dr. Jerry Thacker
Superintendent of Schools

Today the last group of our secondary students came back to school on the Hybrid model (students last name M-Z). The students are adapting well and everyone is happy to have them well. Check out how today went for Discovery and Grissom Middle School students …