Students at Inglewood Elementary School joined more than one million students across the country and around the world to help break down social and racial barriers by participating in Mix It Up at Lunch Day on Tuesday, October 23, 2018.

Mix It Up at Lunch Day is an international campaign that promotes students to identify, question and cross social boundaries. The event, launched by the Southern Poverty Law Center's Teaching Tolerance project in 2002, encourages students to sit with someone new in the cafeteria for one day. The goal is to incorporate the day into year-long efforts to promote a healthy school climate. Cafeterias are the focus of "Mix It Up" because that's where a school's social boundaries are most obvious. 

Last month, Dr. Dietrich visited North Wales Elementary School for the Superintendent's Student Council October meeting where he was joined by students in 5th and 6th grade. During this meeting, Dr. Dietrich was able to speak with students about curriculum, teacher support, student interaction, extracurricular activities and much more. The district thanks these stellar students for their feedback about what it's like to be a student at North Wales in the North Penn School District.

Knapp Elementary School surprised its students with a celebration on behalf of their recent outstanding efforts and progress in a newly developed initiative called Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS).

 

PBIS is a framework to promote behavior through a positive approach that was implemented at Knapp during the 2017-2018 school year. "We support a school community in which everyone demonstrates positive behavior and experiences learning success," said Michele Falco, Knapp sixth grade teacher.

 

Led by a core team of teachers, support staff, Knapp's school psychologist, counselor and principal, students are encouraged through PBIS to follow four "Be" statements in all parts of the school, including the bus. These "Be" statements are: Be Safe; Be Responsible; Be Respectful; and Be Resilient. Since the implementation of PBIS, Knapp has held monthly celebration assemblies including prize giveaways and classroom rewards as a result of students following the "Be" statements.

Three elementary schools in the NPSD proudly "walked the walk" on Wednesday, October 10 in celebration of International Walk to School Day.

Students, staff and families at General Nash, Hatfield and York Avenue elementary schools joined thousands of schools across 40 countries in walking and riding their bikes to school along a designated route. Local and state police departments as well as NPSD security also lent support in supervising the event.

International Walk to School Day events are designed to raise awareness of the need to create safer routes for walking and bicycling while emphasizing the importance of issues such as increasing physical activity among children, pedestrian safety, traffic congestion and concern for the environment. The event builds connections between families, schools and the broader community. 

NPHS Theatre and Thespian Troupe 5464 will present Will Shakespeare's greatest and most imaginative comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream  on November 15, 16 and 17 at 7:30 pm and Sunday, November 18 at 2:00 pm in the NPHS Auditorium. New this year, there will also be a Gold and Silver Card Matinee performance on November 14 at 1:00 pm.

Shakespeare was notorious for setting his plays in some faraway time, in this case classical Athens, and then filling the script with anachronisms that were more Elizabethan than Greek. Yet  Midsummer  has been making audiences laugh since Shakespeare's day. North Penn has taken Shakespeare's lead of playing with time and space by setting  Midsummer  in the world of the late Victorian Age known for the Industrial Revolution and steam engines. Even in the late 19 th  Century, artists and writers began imaging the future propelled by steam and technology. Their imaginings created a whole new genre of Science Fiction and art eventually known as "Steampunk." Popular still today, the look and concept of Steampunk has inspired the settings, costumes, music and feel of this production of  Midsummer .  Not to be outdone by Shakespeare, NPHS has thrown in their own anachronisms that add a lift and spirit to the show - and a whole lot of fun!