Pennsbury On Point is a weekly newsletter designed to keep the Pennsbury community up-to-date on district news, events, and information. The newsletter will be emailed to families weekly and archived on the district's Public Relations webpage.

If you have any photos or story ideas you would like to see featured, please email the Public Relations Department at publicrelations@pennsburysd.org.

Last night, 741 students graduated from Pennsbury High School. Mother Nature provided the perfect backdrop for the Class of 2022! These amazing students will enter some of the finest colleges and universities in the world and follow their passion in technical schools, the military, and the workforce.

$5,183.743.00 in scholarship money has been awarded to the PHS Class of 2022.

Commencement speakers included TR Kannan, President of the Pennsbury School Board of Directors; Dr. Thomas Smith, Pennsbury Superintendent of Schools; Reginald Meadows, Pennsbury High School Campus Principal.

Student speakers included Alexis Harman, Pennsbury High School Class President; Alen Ibric, Krishna Thacker, and Adiyta Gaba.

Congratulations to all! Please visit our Facebook page for graduation photos.

We asked some of the members of the PHS Class of 2034 if they had any advice for the PHS Class of 2022! Check out the video below to see what they had to say!

The Best Prom in America was back in full force this year! On June 4, 2022, Pennsbury's seniors and their dates dressed up in their finest for Promi-Con, a playful twist on Comi-Con. This year's outstanding decorations payed homage to popular culture, movies, and television shows with dedicate fandoms. Attendees danced the night away and enjoyed a special guest appearance by DJ James Kennedy. Thanks to all of the students, faculty, parents, and community members who helped to make it a night the Class of 2022 will never forget! Check out our Facebook page for more photos.

Pennsbury High School's group action project called "The Many Faces of Pennsbury: Visualizing Individuality" and is currently featured on the artist JR's website. (See link above.) Project Coordinator and PHS Art Teacher Maggie Weber shared some impressive statistics about the project.

105 large scale portrait posters

80 plus students and staff volunteers

15 rollers and squeegees

13 hours physical labor

11 gallons of wheat paste

2 work days

6 ladders

1 bucket truck and awesome facilities crew :)

1 MILLION MEMORIES, PHOTOS AND SMILES!

Mrs. Weber added, "This was a project nine months in the making! Special shout out, Reggie Meadows, Ruth Ann Schultz, and the administration team, who supported this project immediately and let me run with it! And Mike Petzold, PSD Electrical Mechanic, who worked overtime helping with the bucket truck to make sure this got done safely and correctly.

PHS teachers and staff Lindsey Gebeau, Abby Cramer, Jana Vanbuskirk, Danielle Kilmer, Mike Daher, Curtis May, Suzie Cassidy and Kelsey Adair who got down and dirty on May 12. They helped manage the kids and post posters during the day and after school. Teachers and staff Dan Mahoney, Harry Stymiest, Danielle Lala, Abby Cramer, Jennifer Neill, and Ruth Ann Schultz came out to take photos and videos on Thursday. All three of my art classes, plus some former students, NHS students, art club students, and other volunteers in grades 9-12 helped out as well.

Dan, Harry and Amanda Durham helped with the portrait photos, Pennsbury Channel advertising, general organization, and senior student wrangling throughout the month of January! Toni Schwartz worked her magic on getting the artist team paid and of course George Steill, Keith Jones, and the amazing custodians and facilities crew who made this logistically possible!

I am sure I missed people -which is proof that it truly takes a community to create public art! WE TRULY TURNED THE SCHOOL INSIDE OUT! "

Five Pennsbury teams participated in the Odyssey of the Mind World Finals held at Iowa State University from May 26 through May 28. All five Pennsbury teams did fantastic. The two PHS teams finished 9th and 21st and the two William Penn teams finished 12th and 15th. The Quarry Hill Elementary team finished 1st and are WORLD CHAMPIONS!

The Quarry Hill Division 1 Team spent the last 8 months creating a biographical musical about the lesser-known historical figure, William Addis, the inventor of the toothbrush. All dialogue, songs, instruments, costumes, sets and props were created by the team. Not only did they have an outstanding musical solution, but they also had the highest score for their spontaneous competition, and this score was enough to pull ahead of Poland by 2.37 points to take 1st place. The team did an amazing job representing Quarry Hill, the State of Pennsylvania and the USA.

Congratulations to Brady Haft (4th), Ryan Kiley (5th), Cooper Prentice (3rd), Olivia Prentice (5th), Samantha Prentice (5th), Anna Van Varick (5th), Ana Wus (5th) and their coach, Shannon Prentice, for their hard work and dedication for the last 8 months and earning 1st place in regionals, 1st place in States, and 1st place in the World!

Having all five Pennsbury teams finish in the top 25 in the World was amazing and taking home a World Championship is absolutely unbelievable!

Odyssey of the Mind is a very involved enrichment program and is an absolutely amazing learning experience for the kids year after year. If parents and/or Pennsbury students would like to learn more about the long-term and spontaneous competitions, you can find more info here. If you would like to learn more about Pennsbury Odyssey of the Mind, you can find more information at pennsburyom.com.

Each year in Seminar, the 8th-grade students complete a project called iSearch, in which they choose a topic they feel passionate about, and through credible research and reporting they educate themselves and their classmates as to the impact of this issue as well as possible solutions. Once this has been completed they then determine a way in which they can use this topic to give back and help to make the world a better place. This year, in Mrs. Samples' 8th grade class at William Penn Middle School, some of the topics included vaccines, using video games to help increase student motivation, eco-friendly automobiles, diabetes, and the inclusion of the LGBTQIA+ community within the Boy Scouts of America.

One student in particular, Kodi Anbarasu focused on Fast Fashion, a clothing industry business model of replicating trends and high-fashion designs, and then mass-producing them at low cost, and bringing them to retail stores quickly while demand is highest, resulting in severe and detrimental effects on our world. As a way to give back, Kodi decided to write an article on this topic in the hopes that it could run in the newspaper and help to spread awareness, and she did just that! Her amazing article was picked up by The Yardley Voice, The Morrisville Times, and The Fairless Focus and will run the week of June 20, 2022.

Here is an excerpt from her article: “There are people as young as five that work in dirty, dust-filled factories putting together clothing as fast as they can. They do this every day for almost double the time you work for in a week. The situation gets so bad to the point where they have to leave their families with other relatives to care for them. One might question why these people work painstakingly long hours in dirty conditions? The answer is to fulfill the cheap clothing needs of the western world.” Thank you Kodi, for helping to make our world a better place through hard work, research, and education.

Penn Valley hosted its second annual Math Bee on June 6, 2022. One student was selected to represent each homeroom in kindergarten through fith grade. The whole school cheered on their classmates as their solved fact fluency and problem solving questions. All of participants did an amazing job! This year, the first place trophy went to kindergarten student Fassou Haba. Second and third place champions were Carter McGlynn and Aliyah Butler. Great job!

Students at Afton Elementary School tackled entrepreneurship this week at the school's Economic Fair. Project Coordinator Mark Guenther describes the event as an open-air flea market, action-packed event. Students create and develop their own businesses, with some selling food, or drinks, while others build games or provide a service to the other students at the school. Each group develops a business plan and sells its item or service for $1.00 or less. The rest of the student population mingles and shops to their heart's content.

"It is a very hands-on activity for the students with a limited amount of parent and teacher support. On the day of the event, everything was handled by the kids. They work together to solve problems and run a business with real money. The kids really rise to the occasion and love the interaction, money handling, game playing, and general fun time at school. It is amazing to see how industrious the students can be when given the chance," said Mr. Guenther.

The students raised $2,550 which will be used to help fund other projects at Afton. Check out a birds eye view of the event in the video below. Footage courtesy of Eagles Eye Cinema.

Safe2Say Something is a youth violence prevention program run by the PA Office of Attorney General. Report a confidential tip to help prevent violence and tragedies.

Click here to submit an anonymous tip.

Click here to visit the Pennsbury School District's E-Flyers Page. On this page, you will find flyers that represent current or ongoing announcements of interest to Pennsbury students and families. To obtain approval for a flyer to be posted on the E-Flyers Page, please email your request to Macy Cellitti at mcellitti@pennsburysd.org.

Did you miss an email from Dr. Smith? All emails Dr. Smith sends to the Pennsbury community can be found on the superintendent's website.

Registration is now open for the 2022-23 school year! Please click here to begin the registration process.

The Nutrition Group is now hiring! Positions include Food Service Workers, Cooks, and Kitchen Managers with rates from $13-$15/hr. The hours are Monday-Friday, school hours only. No nights, weekends, or holidays! Apply today by calling the Nutrition Group office at 215-949-6740 ext. 2, or click here and search for "Pennsbury"!

Dr. Thomas Smith, Superintendent of Schools

tsmith@pennsburysd.org

215-428-4111

Email: publicrelations@pennsburysd.org

Website: www.pennsburysd.org
Location: 134 Yardley Avenue, Fallsington, PA 19058
Phone: (215)-428-4100