Penn Charter Magazine Spring 2013

The Magazine of William Penn Charter School

Spring 2013

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The STRATEGIC VISION for Penn Charter’s future is organized around six goals, each with a set of strategies.

Goal 1: Quakerism Goal 2: Content E ducate students for global competency through classroom experience, service, student exchanges and travel.

Goal 3: Teaching Goal 4: Time Goal 5: Space Goal 6: Financial Sustainability

Educating Students to Live Lives that Make a Difference A Strategic Vision for the Future of William Penn Charter School

Seven Penn Charter teachers traveled to China over spring break to explore that country and further our relationship with faculty and students at Yaohua School, Penn Charter’s 5,000-student “sister school” in Tianjin, China.

The visit is directly linked to Penn Charter’s Strategic Vision to advance our educational program to provide students with the knowledge and skills they need to thrive in a complex and changing world.

The PC team members were Lower School teachers Naveena Bembry and Maria-Odilia Romeu, Middle School teachers Cassandra Aldridge, Jim Fiorile and Jim Pilkington, Upper School teacher Ed Marks, and Lea Ekeberg, who came to Penn Charter in September and teaches Mandarin Chinese in both Middle and Upper Schools.

The Yaohua students and teachers marveled at Ekeberg’s fluent Chinese. And, the trip was a homecoming for Marks, who last spring spent his sabbatical at Yaohua as a foreign language teacher, instructing students in English and facilitating the firstever visit to China by Penn Charter exchange students.

“Because we already have established a firm relationship with Yaohua, we were instantly integrated into the community – no formalities,” Marks said of this year’s trip.

The Penn Charter teachers taught an English

class of typical size, about 50 students, and had several adventures, including joining their Yaohua counterparts at a local tea house and card parlor for three hours of The Great Leap Forward, a card game Marks likens to Chinese poker.

“This experience doesn’t come from exchanging e-mails,” Marks said. “In China, personal relationships – the Chinese call this guanxi – are very important. What better way to build guanxi than for these six teachers to spend time at the school, teach a lesson, sleep in the dorm?”

PC teachers and administrators are actively discussing programs that will build on the relationship with Yaohua to educate Penn Charter students for global competency. In addition to the student exchange program and Mandarin Chinese curriculum, those opportunities might include more PC students traveling to Tianjin to engage in community service in the summer; Yaohua students studying at PC during their summer break; and teacher exchanges.

From left: Lea Ekeberg, Cassandra Aldridge, Jim Pilkington, Jim Fiorile, Maria-Odilia Romeu, Naveena Bembry and Ed Marks helped solidify Penn Charter’s relationship with Yaohua, our sister school in China.

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Contents Spring 2013

Features

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15 Mars Madness

Lessons about Science, Space and Dreamers One day after release of the news that the NASA mission on Mars has uncovered evidence indicating that the Red Planet could sustain life, chief scientist John Grotzinger OPC ’75 fascinated a Penn Charter audience with his insider’s view of the mission, its methods and the future of Mars exploration.

22 M ission Driven

PC Mission Evolves with Strategic Vision Overseers approve new vision, mission and philosophy statement. Read how Penn Charter is working inside the traditional classroom and beyond its walls to engage our students in the aspects of the mission that relate to global connections, diversity and civic engagement.

The PC / St. James Connection............................................ 24 The Ever-Mindful Stephanie Judson........................... 26

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PC Advocates for Public School Partner....................30

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Mission Accomplished................................................................ 31

Journey to Ganeshpur................................................................. 32

A True Latin Lover.......................................................................... 33

Departments Opening Comments

From the Head of School....................................................................................... 2 Around Campus

Campus Currents...................................................................................................... 3 PC Profiles: Douglas S. Little, Kirsten Schrader, Fred Huntington.......................................................................................................9 Athletics.................................................................................................................... 18 Development News

Jumping to Support Financial Aid................................................................. 20 Alumni

Class Notes............................................................................................................... 35 On the Cover The Magazine of WilliaM penn CharTer SChool

Spring 2013

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The year 2013 brought another all-school musical, a vibrant production of Seussical.

Photography by Michael Branscom.

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Opening Comments

From the Head of School The Magazine of William Penn Charter School

I love spring at Penn Charter. Students know the routines and often are at the height of their learning.

Darryl J. Ford Head of School

Trees are budding and flowers are blooming around campus.

Anne Marble Caramanico Clerk, Overseers

At the school day’s end, our students become athletes, flooding our fields to play softball, baseball, tennis, track and field, and lacrosse, and fleeing to the river to row crew. The Lower School egg drop, the Middle School play and day of service, and Upper

Stephanie Judson Associate Head of School Elizabeth A. Glascott Assistant Head of School

John T. Rogers Hon. 1689 Chief Development Officer J. Peter Davis OPC ’74 Alumni Society President

School cum laude and awards ceremonies fill the calendar.

Activities abound as do many traditions such as the 12th grade rope pull during PC’s beloved

Magazine Staff

Color Day. While the camaraderie and community-building success of Color Day are always well-

Sharon Sexton Editor

established long before the day’s final event, I always hope that who will “win” Color Day will come down to the tug and pull of Yellow and Blue seniors.

Perhaps I like this event because I get to signal its start and its end as the ceremonial judge of the day. I know I like the tug and pull because it symbolically mirrors how I often feel in my role as head of school as I try to maintain the best of what is Penn Charter today while leading our school into a future articulated by our Strategic Vision. Often, it is my work to push faculty

Rebecca Luzi Assistant Editor Michael Branscom Feature Photography Proof Design Studios Design

other times, other forces pull us into those same uncharted but necessary places that extend our

William Penn Charter School 3000 West School House Lane Philadelphia, PA 19144

learning and understanding. Of course, while we navigate the push and pull, this tug and pull,

215.844.3460

many of the quintessential characteristics of Penn Charter — our commitment to excellence,

www.penncharter.com

and students, and ultimately Penn Charter, into places where we never may have ventured. At

service, seeing that of God in others, and enduring faculty-student relationships, among others — remain constant.

Perhaps, the senior rope pull is instructive for another reason. While the adults in the community watch, it is our students who do the pulling of the rope. Metaphorically, they are the ones who are tugging us to new ways of thinking, to new conceptions of understanding, and to new levels of excellence. It would be easy to continue teaching and learning just as they were 20

Penn Charter is the magazine of William Penn Charter School. It is published by the Marketing Communications Office and distributed to alumni, parents and friends of the school. In addition to providing alumni updates about classmates, reunions and events, the magazine focuses on the people, the programs and the ideas that energize our school community.

years ago and as they are today; however, our students are calling us to more. Like the tug and pull of the rope, these times of change can be a bit unsettling. However, knowing it is our students who are pulling us, I welcome being tugged!

P.S. – Bring on Color Day, and, by the way, GO YELLOW!

Follow Penn Charter at your favorite social media sites: Facebook Login and get updates.

Twitter Updates and announcements.

Darryl J. Ford Head of School

youtube Video and announcements.

Please Recycle this Magazine

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Campus Currents useful to educators and others, including policymakers. The institute describes its mission as serving “as a trusted source of gold-standard, reliable, unbiased information on what works in education.”

“I am honored to have been asked to join the National Board for Education Sciences,” Ford said, “and hope that my contributions might assist, in some small way, to improve the state of education in our country.”

Darryl J. Ford took an oath Jan. 30 as one of President Barack Obama’s newest appointees to the National Board for Education Sciences. Carol Steinbrook, a notary public and Penn Charter’s director of accounting and business services, administered the oath. Denise Haigler, Ford’s administrative assistant, and Stephanie Judson, associate head of school, served as witnesses.

A Presidential Appointment for Our Head

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ead of School Darryl J. Ford took an oath Jan. 30 as one of President Barack Obama’s newest appointees to the National Board for Education Sciences (NBES), an advisory board composed of prominent researchers, school administrators and business executives.

In announcing the appointment of Ford and four others to the 15-member board, Obama said, “I am pleased to announce that

these experienced and committed individuals have agreed to join this administration, and I look forward to working with them in the months and years ahead.”

The NBES is the governing body of the Institute of Education Sciences, which was established by Congress in 2002. The institute is responsible for providing thorough and objective evaluations of federal programs and sponsoring research relevant and

Ford, shown here conferring diplomas at Penn Charter’s June 2012 commencement, has been head of school at Penn Charter since 2007, after serving for 10 years as director of PC’s Middle School. From 1992 to 1997, he was headmaster and executive director of St. Gregory Episcopal School in Chicago, a low-tuition school for poor boys. He serves on the boards of Villanova University, Friends Council on Education, Steppingstone and Cliveden. He received his BA and BS from Villanova and his MA and PhD in educational administration, institutional, and policy studies from the University of Chicago.

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Campus Currents

Oh, the Ways You Can Learn!

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Why We Love Philly

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here’s so much to love about the City of Brotherly Love. Philadelphia magazine tried to reduce all the city’s wonderfulness to 76 reasons “Why We Love Philly.”

No. 1 was the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society (PSFS) 27-foot-tall sign, which shines in the city skyline above what is now the Loews Philadelphia Hotel at 12th and Market – which, we would like to note, was the location of William Penn Charter School before we sold the property to PSFS and moved to School House Lane.

Coming in at No. 62 was our very own football classic: the PC/GA football game! “In 1887, Germantown Academy beat Penn Charter, 20-6, in a relatively new sport called ‘football.’” Every November, the magazine recounted, “football players at Penn Charter and GA play ‘The Game,’ as hard as their forefathers did 125 years ago.

The helmets are no longer leather. The stadium is new. But the rooting, the suffering, the ferocity, and the battle for bragging rights in the longest uninterrupted high school football rivalry in the nation never, ever change.” We also would like to note that, despite that first loss, the tally of 126 PC/ GA football games is 82 for PC, 33 for GA, and 11 times a tie.

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Seussical, the All-School Musical

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eussical features the beloved characters and stories of Dr. Seuss and lots of opportunities for Penn Charter’s creative performers to shine.

And they did shine!

The 100-plus members of cast and crew mounted a colorful, boisterous and thoughtful production to three packed houses at the Kurtz Center. Grandparents loved it, and so did the youngest, wide-eyed students.

“Children enjoy it because they know Dr. Seuss,” said Michael Roche, PC theater teacher and director of the show. “Adults enjoy it because the story is touching and smart.”

Dr. Seuss illustrations copyright Corbis

Penn Charter’s 1887 football squad.

his year, the birthday of author Theodor Geisel – a.k.a.

Dr. Seuss – and National Read Across America Day coincided perfectly with Penn Charter’s production of Seussical.

“It’s a fabulous tie-in because Seussical was just last weekend,” said Helen Scott Prichett, Trask Library assistant librarian, referring to Penn Charter’s all-school musical. “The kids are into all things Seuss.”

Lower School students wore PJs to school – even the librarians dressed down and came to work in their slippers – to celebrate reading and Dr. Seuss’ birthday on March 2.

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Campus Currents

Physics is PHAT

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he Greek Gods, looking divine in bed-sheet togas, raced their chariot — a carefully engineered device powered by rubber bands — to first place in the PHAT Physics competition.

Thirty-one teams, comprised of 117 students, raced in the sixth annual competition, which took place in a festival-like atmosphere in the Old Gym. Bleachers for cheering students and parents surrounded the racing ramp in the middle of the gym, and video of the five-round, single-elimination competition was projected on a large screen in a corner of the gym.

“I was thrilled with the number of parents who attended this year!” physics teacher Lorre Gifford said. “And a highlight for me was watching and listening to the Lower School kids … chanting their support for the PowerPuff Girls and asking questions about what made the cars ‘go.’”

Originated at PC by Gifford six years ago, PHAT Physics is an annual Upper School science and engineering competition involving PC physics students, most of them juniors. In the weeks leading up to race day, students learn the principles and concepts critical to the design, construction and successful performance of a competition vehicle.

They work collaboratively in teams of three or four, applying their knowledge to create 30 cm-long vehicles with common materials such as coffee cans, rubber bands, dowels and mousetraps.

Dr. Seuss illustrations copyright Corbis

During the elimination tournament, two cars travel up opposite ends of a double-sided ramp – the car that crests the peak of the ramp, pushing or derailing the other car, advances to the next round.

Judges – Penn Charter teachers and parents with backgrounds in science – interview the teams in advance of the competition, questioning them about what they learned and the design of their vehicle.

The science is serious, but the PHAT Physics atmosphere is unlike a typical science fair. Students dress in costume according to their chosen theme – Santa’s Helpers, Dukes of Hazzard, Disney Princesses, the rock band Kiss – and the Old Gym pulsates with music and conversation. “The costumes make it a fun and festive event for everyone,” Gifford said.

The Greek Gods team of Josh Chubb, Jeffrey Woo, Nikhil Krishnan and Dean Roseman (shown at left) took home the trophy. Ninja Turtles placed second, and Three Little Pigs squealed all the way home in third place.

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Campus Currents

Students and Parents Focus on Math

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he Lower School switched this year to Math in Focus (MIF) – previously known as Singapore Math – and the change has engaged not just teachers and students in that division but parents as well.

Parents were invited to grade-level workshops (shown at right) to learn more about MIF and the resources they can tap to support their students.

Penn Charter recently used the Bridges and Everyday Math curricula but switched to MIF after a yearlong study of math curricula. Director of Lower School David Kern said PC educators recognized that MIF “is a clear and thoughtful blend of constructivist and more traditional math teaching. It offers solid classroom curriculum instruction, clear resources for those needing support, clear resources for those wanting enrichment, and resources for parents and home use as well.”

To prepare for the transition, Lower School classroom teachers participated in summer workshops led by MIF trainers, and four teachers and administrators attended a three-day MIF conference

in Chicago. Penn Charter has contracted with an MIF consultant for teacher support during this transition year. Beginning with the 201314 school year, veteran teacher Beckie Miller will leave her fourth grade teaching assignment to become the division’s new full-time math coordinator.

Athletic Honors Parents, coaches and friends gathered in the Kurtz Center twice this year to celebrate student achievement in athletics – first for the fall season and then the winter.

Congratulations to those Most Valuable Players, Most Improved Players and winners of the Coaches’ Award – and congratulations to every student athlete who represented Penn Charter in sports this year!

News coverage of award presentations is available at penncharter.com/news, along with lists of winners and links to our gallery of photos at flickr.com/penncharter/sets.

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In addition to the Penn Charter awards, the InterAc named 29 PC students to All-League teams, four members of the boys and girls cross country teams won All-State honors from the Pennsylvania Independent Schools Athletic Association (PAISAA), and three squash players were named to 1st Team All-MASA (Mid-Atlantic Squash Association).

More about PC athletics on page 18.

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Campus Currents

Today Is about Equality, Justice, Peace – and Service

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n campus and as far away as the Jersey Shore, more than 325 members of the Penn Charter community came out to volunteer on the Martin Luther King (MLK) Jr. Day of Service, making participation in this year’s MLK Day the highest ever.

Leading up to Jan. 21, the Penn Charter community collected 1,721 items, including new sports equipment, games, toys, learning supplies and books, for the new Police Athletic League (PAL) recreation center in North Philadelphia. Lower School volunteers spent MLK Day tallying and delivering the treasure.

In the basement of the Middle School, the youngest Penn Charter students and their parents sorted and boxed the items for the new Lighthouse PAL on W. Somerset Street.

Students in second and third grade painted canvas murals for the interior of the new PAL center, and a crew of fourth and fifth graders and their parents spent the day at the center, building and painting a new library.

Other projects occupied Middle and Upper

School students and parents, both on campus and off. Students staffed the four-day Matt Miller Memorial Basketball Tournament at PC. The boys’ basketball tourney attracted 30 teams and about 320 players in middle and elementary school; they came from as near as Mt. Airy and as far as Audubon, N.J. Groups of students braved the cold and worked to clean up the Manayunk Canal Tow

Path, the Allegheny West neighborhood, and Pelican Island, in New Jersey, which was damaged in Hurricane Sandy. Middle School students and teachers prepared and delivered food to St. Francis Inn in Kensington, and students, parents and faculty worked in the Visual Arts Digital Lab to create a social justice calendar.

Before the service work began, David Kern, director of Penn Charter’s Lower School, engaged students in a discussion about Martin Luther King Jr., his life and his message. Kern shaped the students’ insight into an inspirational message for the day.

“Today we are equality. Today, we are justice.

Today, we are peace,” he said. “Learn from this experience today, and keep learning.”

When the work was done, the community gathered in the dining hall to enjoy a delicious lunch, courtesy of Bubba’s Texas BBQ – and the telecast of the second inauguration of President Barack Obama.

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Campus Currents

this had on strangers and friends alike. He shared stories of other people’s judgment, or even disgust, and of their compassion.

He warned against making assumptions about people when, in fact, we may know nothing about them.

“How do we create a dialogue where people can say what is on their minds without offending others?”

Teaching Tolerance

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nce again this year, the Upper School suspended classes for Friends Multicultural Day, and students had the opportunity to lead and to experience workshops on a variety of topics connected to Penn Charter’s commitment to Quakerism and diversity.

“At its core, Friends Multicultural Day is about sharing, honoring and embracing a plurality of voices,” Director of Upper School Travis Larrabee explained to parents in a summary about the day. “This was one of [William] Penn’s goals when he chartered this school 324 years ago – to provide access to a wonderful education to a wide range of people, creating a plurality of voices and experiences

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from which all could benefit and grow.”

Students led more than 25 discussion- and activity-based workshops on stewardship, mindfulness, the African-American experience at PC, social justice, Islam, African dance, the military-industrial complex, poetry, the student-athlete experience, international sports and many others.

The day began with a presentation, sometimes humorous and sometimes heartbreaking, by guest speaker Marc Elliot, a young man with Tourette’s syndrome and a variety of intestinal maladies. Elliot told of uncontrollable tics caused by Tourette’s – teeth chomping, “barking,” and yelling racial slurs or curse words – and the effect

In the end, he left the students with an overwhelmingly positive message of tolerance, expressed in the simple words: “Live and let live.”

The day ended with rock-the-house student performances in the Kurtz Center. “What was so special about these performances was the range of students who took the risk to perform in front of their peers,” Larrabee said. “There were students who had never performed on our stage before and others who are ‘frequent flyers.’

Perhaps even better than the performances was the overwhelming goodwill, spirit and support of the students and faculty in the audience. It was Penn Charter at its best!”

Penn Charter plans for another Friends Multicultural Day next year – because this work is ongoing. “How do we create a dialogue where people can say what is on their minds without offending others?” Larrabee asked. “This is the challenge. This is the hard work, especially with adolescents. But we do not and will not shy away from it. As teachers, we recognize it, we own it, and we dive into the fray. In many ways, this is why we chose this profession, and why we choose to work at this school.”

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PC P RO F I LE S

Unexpected and Rewarding:

A New Bucket List for Douglas S. Little OPC ’63

by Jennifer Raphael

It was during Doug Little’s annual fly fishing trip to Montana, in the fall of 2007, when his life took a turn he didn’t expect. “My wife, Nan, said she was having a hard time unhooking fish.

A few months later, a neurologist friend came by the house, asked Nan to walk across the room and, before she could turn around, said, ‘You have Parkinson’s,’” Little remembered.

“Unfortunately, the instant diagnosis was correct.” Little and his wife took time to digest this news, which they knew would change their lives. They did not foresee how much it would retool their “bucket list.”

“Later that year, we learned of a study showing that fast-paced cycling, at a rate of 80 to 90 RPM, could reduce, sometimes significantly, the symptoms of Parkinson’s,” Little said. “Nan contacted the Cleveland Clinic neuroscientist who did the research. He responded by inviting us to join a Pedaling for Parkinson’s (www. pedalingforparkinsons.org) cycling team on the 2009 bike ride across Iowa known as RAGBRAI.”

Their training began with a vengeance.

Within several weeks, many of Nan’s symptoms retreated. Little describes the weeklong ride as a real adventure. They rode 450 miles, including 4.5 miles uphill, with daily stops at Mr. Pork Chop and the Beekman’s Homemade Ice Cream stand.

“We enjoyed the event so much that we returned for the 2010 RAGBRAI, dipping our back wheel in the Missouri and the front in the Mississippi!”

Both years, they raised funds to assist caregivers of those with Parkinson’s.

By then, fast-paced cycling had become Nan’s therapy and medicine. They were thrilled that the cycling was keeping her Parkinson’s at bay and allowing her to actively engage and combat her illness rather than the more typical mode of passively following a doctor’s orders. They soon took it in a second direction, developing individual Pedaling for Parkinson’s programs at facilities such as YMCAs to give patients the opportunity for fast-paced cycling on stationary cycles. “My role has been to negotiate the program agreements on behalf of the neuroscientist who discovered the cycling benefit and created Pedaling for Parkinson’s,” said Little. “And we hope to expand cycling programs for Parkinson’s patients at several YMCAs this year.”

But the Littles didn’t stop there. The cycling led to a connection with a group, including individuals with multiple sclerosis or Parkinson’s, embarking on an inspirational climb of Mt. Kilimanjaro in 2011. Little joined as a support climber, despite having a gimpy knee from an injury in the 1961 PC/GA Day football game. Nan and many in the group reached the 19,341-foot summit. Unfortunately for Little, he caught a bad cold traveling to Tanzania and, with little sleep and too much congestion, turned shy of 18,000 feet. Although not summiting nagged at Little, the adventure was a big success for the group

and showed how people with neurodegenerative diseases could still lead active lives.

“My disappointing experience on Kilimanjaro left me wondering whether it was due to my cold or to the altitude. When I saw a flyer for a 2012 trek to the Annapurna Base Camp in the Himalayas led by one of the top mountain altitude sickness doctors, I signed us up,” he said. “We learned some high altitude medicine and Himalayan geology while hiking to the base of Annapurna I, the 10th highest peak in the world and the deadliest for climbers. The Himalayas are the most spectacular landscape I have yet witnessed.” They got through the climb with no altitude sickness.

Little’s post-retirement adventures – an attorney, he retired from Perkins Coie, an international firm specializing in business law and litigation – are impressive when you learn that he is not a natural athlete. Little came to Penn Charter in seventh grade, and credits PC for helping shape him both academically and physically. “PC strengthened my academic ability in math and science and really advanced me on reading and writing skills,” he said. “I also arrived as a very modest athlete. Thanks to a real physical education program and PC’s organized sports programs, I left as a modest athlete but with a love of physical challenges.

I was a more well-rounded person after Penn Charter than I was upon entering it, and I was interested in a much wider array of ideas, subjects and activities. PC improved my grasp but expanded my reach by even more.”

The Littles’ next physical challenge was a return to RAGBRAI in 2012. On the first four days the heat index topped 115 degrees. Nan struggled with heat stroke, but they finished strong. Their next trekking adventure will take them to Peru for a multi-day hike to Machu Picchu via the Inca Trail.

Their kids call them geriactives.

“The RAGBRAI trips and the mountain treks were not on our bucket list five years ago. Of course, had she any choice, Nan would not have Parkinson’s disease,” he said. “While its appearance has redirected our lives in multiple ways, many of the new directions have been unexpectedly rewarding.” PC

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PC P RO F I LE S Lessons In and Out of the Saddle for Kirsten Schrader OPC ’09 Kirsten Schrader has been obsessed with horses ever since she can remember. “A lot of people call it a disease. I can say I have it,” she said. A rider since she was eight years old, by the time she was 12, Schrader found a way to pay for her lessons by working in a barn not far from her home. But once she began her sophomore year at Penn Charter, academics and athletics became too rigorous and her equestrian life had to take a backseat.

That all changed once she was accepted to Earlham College. “I knew they had this exciting riding program,” she said. “As long as you work a shift at the barn you can ride for free.” Schrader was, as they say, back in the saddle. During her freshman year at Earlham, she bought her very first horse, Trigger. “It’s probably not the best idea to immediately get to a new school and buy a horse, but it was a great experience and I would do it again in a heartbeat,” she said. Boarding and caring for Trigger at Earlham would be a fraction of the cost of keeping him outside of Philadelphia.

“He was a bit of a bully, but he taught me a lot about being responsible for my actions. I had to manage how to work with him, budget to pay for his board and keep my grades up. I have always thanked PC for helping me to learn how to problem solve quickly and figure things out.”

Schrader managed all of her responsibilities with grace and diligence, dedicating herself to Earlham’s unique riding program. “It’s very special because it is student-run. It’s the only one like it in the country. We do everything on our own,” she said. Participants work either the 6-8 a.m. shift or the 4-6 p.m. shift in the barn. The co-op provides riding instruction for all levels, and Schrader also works as an instructor, which comes with its own special privilege. “If you are an instructor or a boarder,

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once you reach your sophomore year you get a key and you can come in anytime at all. You can come in at midnight and ride.”

There is also an optional equestrian team that competes on weekends at Indiana University, Purdue and Saint-Mary-of-the-Woods.

Schrader is admired at Earlham for the leadership she has shown at the barn; Penn Charter heard about her work there when PC’s Director of College Counseling Daniel F. Evans visited last fall during a tour of several Indiana colleges and universities: Earlham, Butler, Indiana University and Purdue. “At one point during the visit to Earlham,” he said, “I had the option to learn about the college’s study abroad opportunities, research programs for students, or their unique barn cooperative and Equestrian Center. When I saw that it was Kirsten who would be giving the tour of the barn, I knew I wanted to pick that option.”

For her part, Schrader loves the sense of community she feels with the riding program.

“It’s like a big, dysfunctional family,” she said. “When I was frustrated with my new

experiences with Trigger, people wanted to help me with him. I would have been lost if the group hadn’t been supportive.”

Two years ago, Schrader grew out of Trigger, but it wasn’t long before she found her new horse, Romeo. “I would not have been able to have a horse like Romeo if I hadn’t had Trigger first,” she said. “Trigger taught me a lot, but it got to the point where we weren’t that compatible.”

Schrader is a senior now, studying psychology and looking toward her future.

“With my horse, again, the real life comes first.

The plan is to either sell Romeo or lease him out to someone who will be showing him. I can’t guarantee that I will be able to take care of myself and my horse,” she said. With or without Romeo, Schrader is trotting into her future with a level head filled with valuable lessons.

“The program has taught me a lot about being independent and being responsible,” she said. “I have enjoyed it more than anything else in my life.” PC

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PC P RO F I LE S

Advice from Teacher Fred: “Pass It On”

by Elizabeth Spagnoletti OPC ’08

“You have to be interested yourself as a teacher, help kids along and ask questions that lead them to make a discovery.

That’s the heart of it.”

September 1972: A young, newlywed teacher walks to Penn Charter’s campus from his apartment in Germantown. He greets his students (all male), teaches his classes, advises his clubs, then walks home. Eight years pass. The teacher trades in the hike for what becomes his iconic bicycle: 33 years later, he can still be seen pedaling from his Mt. Airy

home to campus – partly as exercise, partly as political statement.

It’s been 41 years since Fred Huntington – better known as Teacher Fred – attended his first Commencement, for the Class of 1973.

He will march with faculty for the last time this June, for the graduation of the Class of 2013.

Teacher Fred is retiring. Reflecting on this

venerable teacher, Nathan J. Blum OPC ’80 reveals what is at the essence of Huntington’s teaching, describing Huntington as the type of teacher who “enjoyed being with you – in the classroom, in fun activities – he just wanted to spend time with you.”

After four decades, Huntington deserves a chance to reflect on this venerable institution and how much (or little) Penn Charter has truly changed.

“There has been a momentous shift at almost every level,” Huntington said, citing heightened expectations, increased enrollment and coeducation as primary examples.

“Having girls around has humanized the male culture,” Huntington said. While he remains skeptical that Penn Charter was, as he has heard others claim, “rougher-edged”

Fred Huntington, a.k.a. Teacher Fred, will retire after four decades of talking about literature, listening to the language and nurturing curiosity.

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PC P RO F I LE S when it was all male, he does believe that since Penn Charter became fully coed in 1980, the school is a more pleasant place to be and to teach. He believes girls have pushed the academic standard of excellence with their interest in scholarship and “willingness to enter into the school as an academic place.”

New technology might make another teacher’s list of important changes, but not Huntington’s. He can remember a time when he felt at the forefront of what was happening technologically, and though he sees its positive effects, he believes PC’s English Department is not overly technological.

“Gradually, I’ve found the essence of what happens in an English classroom is not aided by technology,” he said. “The heart of it is to talk about literature, to listen to the language, and to read the language aloud.”

Though more recent graduates of Penn Charter remember Huntington as faculty advisor of The Mirror, Penn Charter’s studentrun newspaper, some of the “old guard” may remember Teacher Fred for his leadership in the Outdoor Skills Club. Huntington recalled, with great fondness, their rock-climbing trips – “two times a week, sometimes on weekends” – and winter camping trips. “When we were climbing,” he said, “we were all in it together.”

Blum, now a doctor at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, remembers when he and seven other students drove out to the Wind River Range in Wyoming, led by an intrepid Huntington and Don Campbell, another PC teacher. They spent three summer weeks in this idyllic location far from Philadelphia, climbing and hiking on adventures Blum remembers as “fantastic.”

Campbell also recalls those trips and one moment in particular when he stood on a bank with Huntington and Blum, watching in disbelief and fascination, while the remaining students fashioned a raft out of logs and climbing gear and bravely paddled their way across a seemingly impenetrable lake. The Outdoor Skills Club, Campbell said, gave the boys “opportunities to be wild, to test themselves, to get really scared.”

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As much as Teacher Fred enjoyed those days, he has remained open to new experiences and adventures. In March 2012, Huntington chaperoned a group of PC students on a trip to Penn Charter’s sister school in Tianjin, China, where social studies teacher Ed Marks was in residence on sabbatical. The eight PC students were a wonderful and diverse group, Huntington said, including an American girl who is a native speaker of Chinese; two African-American students; one student who is half Cuban, half

Israeli; and a one-year exchange student from Palestine.

“It was a real mix of folk. When we’d leave restaurants, partly because of the mixture of colors and nationalities we had in our group and partly because we were in Tianjin, which is not a very sophisticated city, everything in the restaurant would stop. People would just stare at us as we walked out. So, that was kind of fun,” Huntington recalled.

Penn Charter’s growing diversity is a change Huntington applauds: “It’s a wonderful thing to see.”

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PC P RO F I LE S Mirror, Mirror “The purpose of a mirror is to reflect,” wrote the editors in the January 2013 issue of The Mirror, “an action that is taken very seriously here at Penn Charter. We reflect in Meeting for Worship, advisory, even during classes.

Reflection seems to always be the first step in any process that is undertaken at school.”

As fearless a leader as he was for the Outdoor Skills Club, Huntington has led The Mirror just as fearlessly for the past 20 years as faculty advisor.

He brought to the task some experience as “cub reporter” for the Troy Record, the local paper of his hometown, Troy, N.Y. “I would dash around and cover business meetings and stuff like that,” he said of his first experiences in journalism. “So, I always had an interest in the process of what a newspaper tries to do.”

What does Huntington believe The Mirror tries to do? “I’d like it to serve the purpose of laying out issues we tend not to talk about,” he explained, “to give voices to people who don’t get their voices heard.”

He staunchly believes that same reflective process should also happen inside the classroom.

“Education is about self-discovery,” Huntington said, adding that he wants students to try to understand themselves through the characters they encounter in literature and their discussions about those characters. “That person makes a horrible mistake, and you reflect on that; you don’t immediately distance yourself,” he said. “That’s what it’s about: Through another character, you’re able to talk about things that are important.”

A Quaker Education A graduate of Kenyon College, Huntington became a teacher for several reasons. The first, he noted, was because his father was a teacher. While his father may have primed Huntington for his professional career, the idea of becoming a teacher did not take a real hold until he was drafted into the U.S. Army. Stationed at Fort Gordon in Augusta, Ga., Huntington worked in the Signal Corps and was made an instructor in cryptology. He discovered he had a penchant for teaching, and

when the military gave him the opportunity for early leave if he went into education – either as a teacher or a student – he took it.

Huntington taught at Blair Academy, in New Jersey, for three years before coming to Penn Charter. Save for a year abroad at Leighton Park School, a Friends school in Reading, England, Penn Charter has been Huntington’s second home ever since.

have 50, 60 kids in a class all the time. There’s almost no time for any kind of student-teacher response; it’s all from the teacher to the student. So, it was very different.”

Through his four-decade perspective, Huntington has seen much change – but observed one facet of Penn Charter that has remained steadfast: the student-teacher relationships. “Kids and faculty get on really

“You have to have an open-minded, questioning attitude about what life has to offer. And you have to be willing to explore other things. It’s an attitude of mind that you train yourself into doing so that you can teach yourself whatever it is you need to learn.”

As an educator, Huntington feels his focus is to nurture curiosity within his students. He understands an educator as one who is not so concerned about the particular subject matter he or she teaches as long as the students see each class as an attempt to investigate something.

He cites his Advanced English class this year as an example of genuinely curious students who “bought into the complexity of Hamlet” and were willing to take the material seriously.

Huntington believes in the seriousness and sanctity of the liberal arts and a classical education, and he defines education as openmindedness. “You have to have an open-minded, questioning attitude about what life has to offer.

And you have to be willing to explore other things. It’s an attitude of mind that you train yourself into doing so that you can teach yourself whatever it is you need to learn. If you’re willing to do that, it’s not this material or that material or anything; it’s an openness to new experiences.”

Methods of fostering that mindset of curiosity have not significantly changed for Huntington. “You have to be interested yourself as a teacher – help kids along and ask questions that lead them to make a discovery,” he said. “That’s the heart of it.”

In Tianjin, Huntington was fascinated to witness students’ classroom experiences: “They’re very traditional, obviously, and they’ll

well,” he said. “There’s a kind of understanding; they share a sense of purpose … There’s a kind of mutual respect that we’ve agreed that what’s happened here has bearing and is worth continuing. That’s the thing I think is really good and has remained true.”

Huntington’s former students are evidence that Huntington himself has contributed to this tradition. Blum recalls Huntington as the kind of teacher who wanted to engage you inside and outside the classroom. Rachel Dowling OPC ’06, former Mirror editor-in-chief, remembers Huntington’s willingness to share The Mirror office – which doubles as Huntington’s personal office – with her and her co-editor, Gus Sacks OPC ’06. “He let us paint the walls and turn the place into a Mirror home, to escape the crowded PC halls,” Dowling said.

As he readies himself for his next adventure, Huntington challenges those now at Penn Charter and those who have graduated from its halls to “pass it on.” He takes this phrase from The History Boys, a play he teaches in his beloved Contemporary Drama elective. “The most important thing is to pass it on – not only the love of literature and the love of asking questions but pass on the culture and the enthusiasm for asking questions and so on,” he concluded. “I think that’s the only thing worth saying.” PC

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M a d n e s s Lessons about Science, Space and Dreamers

by Sharon Sexton

One day after release of the news that the NASA mission on Mars has uncovered evidence indicating that the Red Planet could sustain life, chief scientist John Grotzinger fascinated a Penn Charter audience with his insider’s view of the mission, its methods and the future of Mars exploration.

John Grotzinger OPC ’75 returned to PC on March 13 as the keynote speaker for the Alumni Society Downtown Reception. The annual event is traditionally in Center City, but it moved “uptown” this year so that students could attend and learn from the presentation by a world-renowned planetary geologist and space explorer. More than 100 students were in the audience, some of them sitting in the front row scribbling notes, and others remaining afterward to pepper Grotzinger with questions.

Alumni from 1974, 1975 and 1976, especially, turned out to support their friend,

whom many remember as “Grotz,” a cerebral and brilliant young man excited by fast cars, the outdoors and the unknown.

Geoffrey Shields OPC ’75 lived in Abington, and Grotzinger in neighboring Huntingdon Valley, and recalled many a school day racing each other, and classmates, to Penn Charter via shortcuts and back roads. When Grotz could get the keys, the two liked to go for a ride in Grotzinger’s father’s prized AustinHealey, a black sports car with a small turbo switch on the dashboard. With Grotzinger behind the wheel, “that little switch got a lot of use,” Shields said.

“He was excited about things that posed elements of uncertainty,” Shields recalled.

“When we fished we found uncharted waters in which to fish, when we skied we found unmarked trails.”

“Curiosity is such a perfect word to be associated with Grotz.”

Curiosity is the name of the Plutoniumpowered, six-wheeled vehicle that Grotzinger and his team launched from Cape Canaveral in November 2011 and landed Aug. 5, 2012, on the surface of Mars. Grotzinger describes the rover as “perhaps the most technologically advanced vehicle in all of recorded history.”

The rover was built to travel 180 million miles, land safely, and roam the surface of the Red Planet, drilling for samples of dirt and rock, and then analyzing them in an onboard laboratory that rivals the capacity of most Earth-bound research labs.

The essential questions for Grotzinger and his team on NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory space probe are these: Could conditions on Mars have been favorable for life – albeit

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Mars Madness Lessons about Science, Space and Dreamers

microbial life? And, do the Martian rocks hold clues about possible past life?

Grotzinger was on the east coast the day before his visit to Penn Charter to participate in an international news conference to announce the mission’s latest answers to those questions and, that same night, present findings at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. At Penn Charter, he explained the geology of Mars, the technology of the mission, and Curiosity’s 10-year timeline in a clear, logical and sometimes humorous manner accessible to the youngest and least “techie” members of the audience.

“We were looking for a place where a microorganism could survive, not the sort of place you would want to live,” Grotzinger

Educating Students to Live Lives that Make a Difference, Penn Charter’s strategic vision for the future of the school, is informed, in part, by seven survival skills identified by Tony Wagner in his groundbreaking book, The Global Achievement Gap.

said of the Mars mission. “As we announced yesterday, a microbe could have made a pretty good living there.”

He said plans for the next rover, scheduled for launch in 2020, envision that the successor to Curiosity will not only land on Mars but launch off the surface of the planet and return to Earth. The goal would be to bring back samples that could be analyzed for fossils and other signs that life existed on ancient Mars. “It is very difficult to look for life itself,” he said, adding as he gazed out at students taking notes, “if we don’t make it, maybe some of you guys in the front row will.”

Asked by a member of the PC audience how he thought history would view his contribution to space exploration, Grotzinger modestly deflected the question, saying, “I’m just hoping I can get home to my family sometime.”

A professor of geology in the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences at the California Institute of Technology, Grotzinger lives in California with his wife and two daughters. As the mission has evolved over a decade from planning, to building, to launching, his family and the families of other Curiosity team members have become friends. “When you respect each other, good things happen,” he said simply.

In the months since the launch, the team’s collaboration became even more intense. Team

members lived together, working 16-hour days and sleeping in rooms with blackened windows so they could remain awake long into the Martian night to plan Curiosity’s work for the following day. When the sun comes up on Mars, they remotely execute the plan from 180 million miles away and photograph the view through the rover’s many lenses.

The time adjustment is made more challenging by the fact that a day on Mars is 24 hours and 39 minutes long. “We began trying to eat 39 minutes later each day, trying to go to bed 39 minutes later. But it was impossible,” Grotzinger laughed. Seven months after the Mars landing, the team was still working long days and sleeping in rooms

Read about the successful exploration of Mars and compare how many of Wagner’s seven survival skills were key to the Mars mission: • Critical thinking and problem solving • Collaboration across networks • Agility and adaptability • Initiative and entrepreneurship • Effective oral and written communication • Accessing and analyzing information • Curiosity and imagination

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At the podium in the Ball Theater, the world-renowned scientist gave a shout-out to the students in the front row scribbling notes, and he stayed after his hour-long presentation to engage in conversation with students excited by science and technology. “Dr. Grotzinger’s presentation was amazing,” said senior Erin Lo, (above right) “and it was inspiring to hear that this was the work of an OPC.”

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Penn Charter prepared with launch-like anticipation for the March 13 event – and had some fun with Red Planet cake pops and other Marsthemed food and decorations.

John Grotzinger OPC ’75 (right). Almost 400 students, parents, faculty, staff and alumni attended Grotzinger’s keynote about NASA’s mission on Mars.

with blackened windows, but they have scaled back to give themselves the day off on Sunday.

In a videotaped interview before his presentation, PC senior Erin Lo, a passionate science student and leader of the school’s Science Peer Tutor program, asked Grotzinger a question that was on many people’s minds: Did Penn Charter influence his career path?

“Penn Charter had a lot of influence on my interest in the sciences,” Grotzinger said. “A couple of teachers, Rich Pepino and Reid Bush, taught me chemistry and

biology, and I loved those courses. Those were the days before AP courses, and we had more specialized courses: I had a class in ornithology and another one in biochemistry.

It was a great experience.”

Head of School Darryl J. Ford, in his welcome to Grotzinger and the more than 400 people gathered for the presentation, said he found the core principles of Penn Charter’s new strategic vision – excellence, innovation and collaboration – embedded in Grotzinger’s work. He added: “The key to learning today and learning in the future is

curiosity. I wonder, what was Dr. Grotzinger like as a student? And which of our current students might dream in ways that would send them on a journey to Mars.”

In his interview with Lo, Grotzinger also used the metaphor of a dream. “Everybody has their own personal journey and chance to discover what they want to do,” he said when Lo asked him for his advice to students interested in science. “Pursue the things you are really interested in, maybe not so much trying to guess at where you need to be. Just follow your dreams.” PC

In a heated tent outfitted with a starry-night canopy of lights, alumni got together to connect with old friends and make some new connections.

Former science teacher Reid Bush taught Grotzinger ornithology.

Notice that, in the party photos, John Grotzinger OPC ’75 is wearing a dark blue tie with a light blue stripe. When James Garvey OPC ’75 noted that he was wearing Chestnut Hill Academy

Parents Brian Murphy and Dennis Murray with Head of School Darryl J. Ford.

colors, Grotzinger laughed at the oversight and swapped the neckwear for a Penn Charter tie that Director of Alumni Relations Ted Decker OPC ’78 keeps handy in his office.

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P e n n C h a rt e r

Catie Skinner Catie Skinner, far left at the start of the PC/GA Day cross country race, which she won, setting a new course record of 19.27 seconds. Skinner, who will run for Middlebury College next year, finished her PC career as 2012 Pennsylvania Independent Schools Champion.

Fastest Man in the Pool Senior Jamal Willis finished his Penn Charter career with a burst of speed and an All-American designation. Willis won two golds and a bronze in the Inter-Ac Championships – setting a pool record of 20.83 seconds in the 50m freestyle – and dominated that event at Easterns.

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College-Bound Athletes Gummere Library provided a fitting background this year as student athletes signed letters of intent to play their sport in college.

In the presence of their parents, friends, teachers and coaches, seven Penn Charter seniors signed letters of intent in November – and, in February, three more students put pen to paper to make it official.

“This is an important day, an important occasion, to share,” said John Thiel, director of athletics and athletic planning. “It is a proud moment for you, for your parents, and for Penn Charter.”

126th PC/GA Day The weather was beautiful, the crowd enthusiastic, the athletes awesome.

Daryl Worley, football, West Virginia University; Anna Wills, field hockey, Bucknell University; and Michael McGlinchey, football, University of Notre Dame.

And the outcome was outstanding: Penn Charter achieved wins in golf, boys soccer, girls tennis, and boys water polo – plus an OT tie in girls soccer. That left Penn Charter and Germantown Academy tied, 4.5, going into the 126th PC/GA Day football game, the oldest continuous scholastic football rivalry in the country.

Penn Charter won the game 35-7 and took home the Geis Trophy as well as the Competition Cup for overall performance in the 126th PC/GA Day. Boys water polo finished the season undefeated and celebrated its second consecutive Inter-Ac Championship that day, and girls soccer played what one coach called their best game ever – and then went on to finish the season in second place in the state championship.

Go Charter!

Left to right: Kelly Kubach, lacrosse, University of Michigan; Meredith Wurtz, swimming, Marist College; Jamal Willis, swimming, Lehigh University; Charles Giunta, lacrosse, St. Joseph’s University.

Left to right: Ray Vandegrift, lacrosse, St. Joseph’s University; Eric Berger, lacrosse, Monmouth University; and Kevin Murphy, lacrosse, Monmouth University.

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Development News

Jumping to Support

financial aid “The tradition of financial aid at Penn Charter has its roots

in William Penn’s vision

for the school. Specifically, Penn stipulated that those he charged with the oversight of the school would help pay for students whose families could not afford a Penn Charter education. Three centuries later, students, teachers, parents and alumni agree that our socioeconomically diverse student body is central to the school’s unique character and is a source of our strength. I am excited that, working together, we can make PC even stronger.”

– Head of School Darryl J. Ford

P

ennsylvania’s new Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit (OSTC) – and the alumni and parents who participated in the program – provided Penn Charter’s mission-driven financial aid program with $479,000 in new revenue this school year.

The new program functions much like the decade-old Pennsylvania Educational

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Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) program: The OSTC and EITC programs enable a Pennsylvania business to apply to both programs and direct up to $400,000 from each to financial aid at Penn Charter. Tax credits are given for 75 percent of a oneyear gift and 90 percent of gifts given in two consecutive years.

The OSTC and EITC programs, combined, were responsible for $848,055 in new revenue for Penn Charter this year.

The Commonwealth, searching for ways to provide Pennsylvania parents with education choices for their children, designed the new OSTC program to provide financial aid for children residing within the attendance boundaries of low-achieving public schools as defined by the Pennsylvania Department of Education. To be eligible, a child’s family income cannot exceed $60,000 annually, plus $10,000 per dependent.

Penn Charter was in a unique position to benefit from the new program. PC allotted more than $5 million in needbased financial aid for the 2012-13 school year, much of it to more than 100 students who then became eligible for the OSTC program because of their family income and neighborhood public school assignment – in most cases a Philadelphia public school.

“Socioeconomic diversity is at the core of Penn Charter, not only benefiting the students who receive financial aid but enriching the experience of every student in the community,” Head of School Darryl J. Ford wrote in a letter to parents when the OSTC program was announced last fall. “Clearly, OSTC monies will help us extend our financial aid offerings

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Development News

• Title Insurance Company Shares Tax • Insurance Premiums Tax • Mutual Thrift Institution Tax •P ersonal Income Tax of S-Corp shareholders, or partnership partners.

William A. Graham IV OPC ‘58 (top, in the Graham Athletics Center), and Shanin Specter OPC ‘75 and former parent Thomas Kline (below, at the 2008 dedication of the Kline & Specter Squash Center) “exemplify the intense loyalty that benefits our school,” said Head of School Darryl J. Ford. “In both cases, these gentlemen saw an opportunity and jumped on it for Penn Charter.”

If you or someone you know is affiliated with a business that might be eligible to participate, contact or direct your friend to Major Gifts Officer Kim Grant at kbgrant@penncharter. com or 215-844-3460 ext. 276. The state’s website at www.newpa.com provides the full business guidelines as well as the online application link, and www.penncharter.com/ taxes provides more details. PC

Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) Participants, 2012-13 Computertalk Associates, Inc. Cordray Corporation CulinArt Foamex Innovation, Inc. Grundy Insurance Jacobs Management Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP Metropolitan Reporting Bureau Milestone Partners Management Co., L.P. Murray, Devine & Co., Inc. Neff Pharmacies Philadelphia Insurance Companies Philip Rosenau Co., Inc. Republic Bank Shearon Environmental Design Company The Graham Company

deeper and wider, while allowing us to remain nimble with our operating budget.”

One of the first to act on the OSTC opportunity was current parent and graduate Shanin Specter OPC ’75. Specter and his law partner Thomas Kline, a former PC parent, directed $222,222 in states taxes from their legal firm Kline & Specter to Penn Charter for financial aid.

That gift equaled Penn Charter’s biggestever EITC gift, which was made by William A. Graham IV OPC ’58 in 2006 when he directed $222,222 in state taxes from his Philadelphia-based insurance firm, The Graham Co. This year, Graham participated

in EITC – and he plans an OSTC gift, too.

“Both of these gifts exemplify the intense loyalty that benefits our school,” said Ford.

“In both cases, these gentlemen saw an opportunity and jumped on it for Penn Charter.”

The Commonwealth developed the two tax credit programs to promote education choices for Pennsylvania parents. To qualify for participation in these state tax programs, businesses must be subject to any one of these Pennsylvania taxes: • Corporate Net Income Tax • Capital Stock Franchise Tax • Bank & Trust Company Shares Tax

Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit (OSTC) Participants, 2012-13 Comcast Conestoga Bank Hodges Orthodontics INTECH Construction, Inc. Jacobs Management Kline & Specter M&T Bank Maguire Foundation MissionStaff, LLC Philadelphia Insurance Companies Public Financial Management The Philadelphia Trust Company

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Mission Driven PC Mission Evolves with Strategic Vision

I

n January, Overseers finalized a new vision, mission and philosophy for Penn Charter, recasting those important statements to reflect the ideas and initiatives outlined in the school’s strategic vision for the future. The mission and statement of philosophy were last updated in 1992. “I do believe that the vision, mission and philosophy statements collectively represent both the Penn Charter we know today and the Penn Charter that will evolve as our strategic vision unfolds,” Head of School Darryl J. Ford said in an announcement to the PC community. “I am excited about the future.” Overseers, administrators, faculty and staff began rethinking and rewriting the vision, mission and philosophy statements in 2011 as the school worked through a strategic planning process and developed a strategic vision to guide the future. Learn more about that forward-thinking strategic vision at www.penncharter.com/future.

In the following pages, this publication highlights just a few of the ways in which Penn Charter is working inside the traditional classroom and beyond its walls to engage our students in the aspects of the mission that relate to global connections, diversity and civic engagement.

Vision Educating students to live lives that make a difference.

Mission

Quaker principles and practice continue to guide William Penn Charter School, a Friends school founded in 1689. Within a school community that honors difference, we seek that of God in each person.

We value scholarship and inquiry. With excellence as our standard, we challenge students in a vigorous program of academics, arts and athletics. Through global connections, civic engagement and a focus on environmental sustainability, we inspire students to be thinkers, collaborators, innovators and leaders. We educate students to live lives that make a difference.

Philosophy

William Penn Charter School is a Friends school established in 1689 by members of the Religious Society of Friends in response to a charge

by William Penn. Guided by Quaker testimonies, Penn Charter is a coeducational, pre-kindergarten through grade 12, college preparatory school committed to enlivening the spirit, training the mind, cultivating the aesthetic, and developing the body.

A school community that honors difference, Penn Charter seeks to be a place where diversity is understood, represented and valued. Our

curriculum embraces a plurality of cultures and celebrates an array of voices, instilling in us a deeper understanding and empathy for individuals in this community and the world.

We value that of God in each student and foster excellence in academics, arts and athletics. Our educational program exposes students to a breadth of content and ideas as well as opportunities for deep exploration in the pursuit of personal passion.

Guided by research and best practices, faculty collaborate across divisions and disciplines to design and deliver engaging and relevant learning experiences. We provide students with the knowledge and skills they need to thrive in a complex and changing world.

We believe that people have the capacity for growth, and we are committed to the patient pursuit and continuous revelation of truth. Accordingly, we make decisions in a searching manner and are strengthened as a school, as a community, and as individuals when we engage in discussion and share in the decision-making process.

Weekly Meeting for Worship is central to the life of the school and roots us in the Quaker belief that there is that of God in everyone.

This shared belief in the unique worth of each person commits us to treating one another with love and respect.

We embrace the deeply held concerns of Friends for justice, compassion, simplicity, integrity and the peaceful resolution of conflict. As students progress through Penn Charter, we instill in them social responsibility to others and to the world by providing opportunities for service. We educate students to live lives that make a difference.

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Mission Driven

The PC / St. James Connection Penn Charter is engaged in a partnership to sustain a high-quality, low-cost school in nearby Allegheny West.

by Rebecca Luzi

J

im Ballengee can recall meeting with Rev. Sean Mullen, now board president of St. James School, in Darryl Ford’s office five years ago. The idea for a new middle school to fill an educational void in troubled Allegheny West was finally taking shape, and Mullen, rector of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Center City, was rounding up supporters to create a low-cost, faith-based, quality education for low-income children.

“It’s really audacious to think you can start a Middle School in Philadelphia,” said Ballengee, Penn Charter’s director of service learning. Ballengee likes audacity. He and

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PC’s Head of School Darryl J. Ford went all in. Ballengee accepted an invitation to join the board of directors. Ford, who had been working with a small group thinking about a neighborhood school after the closure of St. Barnabas School on Germantown Avenue, became an early member of the St. James advisory board.

“I couldn’t believe that the head of one of the most prestigious schools in Philadelphia would gather with a motley crew to open this school,” said St. James’ Executive Director David Kasievich.

Kasievich is something of a chief cook

and bottle washer at St. James. He recruits students, raises money, builds relationships with organizations and schools, and resolves student disputes. He was director of development at a charter school when he heard about Mullen’s mission. Mullen asked Kasievich to join the advisory board; later he was named executive director. Kasievich raised $220,000 and volunteered his services for the first six months, before there were funds to pay him.

He and St. James’ principal, Laura Hoffman-Dimery, spent the last two summers biking the neighborhood looking for fifth graders to enroll. “There’s something about biking through Philadelphia,” Kasievich said. “It’s a way to connect with people. We approached kids, introduced ourselves by our positions … and asked to be introduced to their family. How often do families meet a principal biking through their neighborhood?”

Family after family invited them in, eager to share stories of their children’s schools.

“Overcrowded classrooms, teachers that don’t care, fights, bullying – we heard firsthand,” Kasievich said.

“We selected students who were in the most need of a quality education.” To attend St. James, students must qualify for free or reduced lunches, live in the neighborhood and have an adult mentor – someone who will make sure the student will be supported at home.

St. James begins each day with breakfast at 7:45 a.m. and ends about 5:30 p.m. with time for homework and a cold supper. “We have only four years with our students,” Kasievich said. “We need to prepare them for great high schools and colleges – we need every minute.”

St. James students have more art and music in their day than any public school in the city, Ballengee said, complete with field trips to art museums like the Barnes Foundation.

“They’re almost replicating, in many ways, what an independent school has to offer.”

Families pay tuition of $25 a month per child. The true cost to educate each student is $22,000 a year. Fund-raising is crucial. “Every year we have to go raise $400,000 to build another classroom and support operations and scholarships,” Ballengee said.

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Ballengee uses the word “we” because he and Ford are on St. James’ boards, but also because Penn Charter is especially invested in St. James’ success. (“We’ve been right there from the beginning.”) He believes strongly in the public purpose movement – going beyond your boundaries, out into the community, to stand for something. When Penn Charter students visit St. James and the surrounding neighborhood, which is so close yet so fraught with poverty, it inspires students and teachers to get involved.

An English class visits to explore issues of identity. A 10th grade advisory spends

the Upper School Day of Service making ratatouille for students with vegetables from the St. James garden. Middle School students, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, organize the St. James library. Second grade students pair up with St. James fifth graders, who read Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Roald Dahl books to their younger counterparts.

“We turned the usual service model on its head, and their kids were educating ours,” Ballengee said of that collaboration.

“We’re always looking for ways to get involved – without interrupting their day.

Tutoring is pretty critical to their mission.”

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Mission Driven

From Lower through Upper School, Penn Charter students have partnered with St. James. On the facing page, St. James fifth grade students paired with PC second graders to read books aloud. “We turned the usual service model on its head, and their kids were educating ours,” said Jim Ballengee, director of service learning. Bottom: During the Upper School Day of Service, sophomores made ratatouille for St. James students in the school’s kitchen. Top: David Kasievich, executive director, bikes the neighborhood in the summer, recruiting the next crop of St. James students.

Individual students earn service learning credits by tutoring on their own time, and one senior has built a Senior Comprehensive Project (SCP) around it.

Gummere Library donated reference materials and books last year. And Judith Hill, director of libraries, met with HoffmanDimery and teachers to suggest online resources for student research and how to help students evaluate a site’s credibility.

Debbie White, chair of the physical education department, is working closely with St. James School to promote cooperation and lifetime fitness. “I’m using my resources, education, experience to give the teachers a box of tools – games, ideas, ways of doing things with the kids, in or out of PE,” she said. “We’re developing the concept of teamwork and fitness for fun.”

Every other Thursday, St. James students come to PC to use the facilities for sports and activities like lacrosse, basketball, playground games, soccer, track. Assisted by another senior working on her SCP, White teaches the children to coordinate their own games, and she works on curriculum and lesson plans with the teachers.

“I just see this as a great opportunity for me and the kids,” White said. “The kids are tough, but they’re willing. It’s a win-win for me.”

The workout is followed by pizza. The Thursday evenings are optional, but most students don’t miss them. The comfort level that his students feel at Penn Charter, Kasievich said, will make it easier for them to transition to high school when the time comes.

“The whole relationship [with Penn Charter] has brought us a lot of credibility with funders, with donors,” Kasievich said. He also values the schools’ “ecumenical partnership,” finding common ground between St. James’ morning prayers and Penn Charter’s silent worship in the manner of Friends.

“I can’t imagine this school without Penn Charter,” Kasievich said. “…Before we partnered with Penn Charter, our students had no awareness of any school beyond this neighborhood. Just huge cement buildings without inspiration. …What they have experienced with Penn Charter is this breadth of educating the whole child.” PC

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Mission Driven

The Ever Mindful

Stephanie Judson

by Connie Langland

B

urrow into the curriculum vitae of Stephanie Judson, Penn Charter’s associate head of school, and discover a life that arcs across more than four decades of activism, Quaker witness, dedication to education – and adventure.

At Penn Charter, Judson has shied from the spotlight.

“She really does like to work behind the scenes,” said her husband, Cleveland “Sandy” Dodge Rea Jr. Still, working quietly and effectively, she has helped shape the quality of the faculty, the curriculm, and the quality of Quaker life on campus.

“Stephanie has done tremendous things for Penn Charter,” said Earl J. Ball III, longtime head of school, now at the University of Pennsylvania where he is co-director of a graduate program in school leadership. “She brought with her a wealth of knowledge about Quaker education. She is incredibly wise about schools and about people, and she has a moral sense that is so valuable.”

Ball hired Judson in the summer of 2001, having worked with her in the 1990s when she was at Friends Select School and active in Quaker education in the city. Judson was delighted at the job offer: “I really wanted to work for Earl Ball,” she said.

That September, she introduced herself to students with these words: “Marhaba,” the Arabic greeting meaning “Hello.” Little did anyone know, she’s an accomplished linguist who speaks, she says, “very good French, conversational Italian and navigable Arabic.”

“I am a big Stephanie fan,” said Anne Caramanico, current clerk of Penn Charter Overseers. “She adds this very calming, thoughtful Quaker element to the school. I would say she is the person who has her hand on the tiller of the spiritual life of the school – others certainly do, too, but she is the one with her hand on the tiller.”

Junior Isabella “Issa” Djerassi said she holds a vivid memory of Judson quietly playing the piano as students file into meeting, then returning quietly and slowly back to her seat. “She is so calm, so peaceful … so chill,” Issa said.

“She’s a very humble and caring person,” said junior DreShaun Jarmon. “It’s really nice to have her here.”

J

udson recalls wanting to be a school administrator ever since high school – a curious ambition for one so young. She graduated from

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Wellesley College and earned an MS in teaching from the University of Chicago. It was in Chicago where she began attending the 57th Street Meeting of Friends. “Quakerism stuck,” she recalled.

In those days, her life veered toward activism: She trained to be a draft counselor to young men opposed to serving in the Vietnam War. She protested the war in Washington and at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. She apprenticed with a school experimenting with a collaborative, student-centered open-classroom model – a trend that seemed radical at the time. She lived for a time with a Quaker family in an adobe house in Albuquerque, N.M. She wrote, produced and tested an economics and social studies curriculum for grades 4 to 6 as part of the Elementary School Economics Project at the University of Chicago.

Her next move was to Philadelphia, where she joined a vibrant – at times, intense – network of Quaker activists who set up communal houses in West Philadelphia and tackled social issues of the day, including the antinuclear power movement. Judson focused on children and, in 1977, published A Manual on Nonviolence and Children, a work that has been translated into numerous languages. Her husband, then a teacher, now a psychologist, said he knew of her publication – in fact, used it in his classroom – before the two ever met.

That year, she started at Friends Select, designing and teaching a 10th grade religious thought course (including, interestingly, a section on sexuality and values clarification) and designing a senior-year internship. By 1979, she was where she aimed to be: in administration.

Two of her students at Friends Select are now colleagues at Penn Charter: Head of School Darryl J. Ford and Lee Payton, social studies chair.

“She was quiet, soft spoken, but, at the same time, demanding and insistent that you bring your full self to whatever you’re working on,” Payton recalled. “What she was teaching us, I think, was not just Quakerism per se but how people turn their values into action.”

Ford notes Judson’s empathy for others but cautions not to mistake this for weakness. “As an administrator,” he said, “she is tough as nails – especially when it comes to personnel issues and expectations for faculty to be excellent in their craft and excellent community members.”

Judson recalled how young Ford had a curious nickname that now seems prescient: Principal. Then, there was the Meeting for Worship the morning after Ford had performed spectacularly on the basketball court.

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Mission Driven

Two young men stood up in unison – an unusual occurrence – and said, in unison and rhyme, “Thank the Lord for Darryl Ford.”

In that period, she worked to create service projects and to send students to neighborhoods outside their comfort zone; Judson also created curricular connections that gave students school-day access to many institutions along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, including the Academy of Natural Sciences and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. At the time, the school, situated in the heart of the city, “was pretty isolated,” Judson recalled. “The location was pretty wonderful, but they weren’t seeing it as an asset.”

Judson’s commitment, introspective nature and activism gained her a reputation. “I became known as the Quaker at Friends Select. People would come to me and ask if this behavior or that activity was ‘Quaker,’” she recalled. She served as interim head of school during 1994-95, and as chair of the Religious Thought Department and city outreach director from 1995 to 2000.

Her next jump was a big one: a sabbatical year at American University of Beirut, Lebanon, where she was a development consultant and Rea, her husband, served in the university’s counseling office. A friend was provost at the time, and Rea’s family has connections to that institution stretching back six generations.

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he couple lives on five acres on the east bank of the Delaware River in Riverton, N.J., across from Philadelphia. They have two daughters, Julia and Elizabeth, now grown, who served, for years, as Judson’s “fashion police.” Judson has a flair for scarves that she has acquired in local markets in places such as Cambodia, but she can be absent-minded: She once wore one black and one brown shoe to work, something Beth Glascott, not Judson, noticed during a meeting. Glascott succeeded Judson as assistant head of school in 2011.

Judson and Rea’s commitment to the Quaker faith has greatly influenced their lives. They reacted strongly, for example, in the wake of the terrorist bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983.

With Rea’s family’s ties to Beirut, the couple sought to reach out, to do something, to mend U.S. relations with the people of the region.

But they had an infant. “We asked, What can we do? But you can’t go to Beirut with a little baby,” Rea recalled. They compromised, taking a year off from their jobs to teach at Ramallah Friends School on the West Bank, about six miles north of Jerusalem, 100 miles south of Beirut. Julia went along; the parents juggled baby duties and teaching. One parent would push the stroller to school in time to teach, the other, just out of class, would push it home.

With such a background, Judson was the obvious choice to be the point person in Penn Charter’s exchange program with Ramallah Friends School, funded by the Hauptfuher family, Robert OPC ’49, George Jr. OPC ’44, and his sons, Chip OPC ’70 and Barnes OPC ’72. The exchange brings a student from the school in Palestine to Penn Charter for one academic year. Judson made her sixth scouting trip to Ramallah, to interview student candidates, in March 2013. Year after year, she has been a shoulder for the exchange student to lean on while at Penn Charter.

Judson has traveled widely since childhood. Her father was a geologist

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(and, eventually, the department chair at Princeton University). At age 11, Judson accompanied him one summer on a dig in southwestern France and later she worked on a fourth-century excavation near Rome.

She traveled as a consultant to Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan in 1992 and Tasmania, Australia, in 1998.

Last November, she joined Caramanico to visit a school funded by the Caramanico family in rural Cambodia.

“If you don’t know Stephanie very well, she seems a little bit on the quiet side, but, let me tell you, she has a great belly laugh,” Caramanico said. As the trip wound down, Caramanico, her sister and Judson went on a birding expedition deep into the jungle, near the border with Vietnam. Caramanico recalled the lodge as being “less than a half star” – mold on the walls, no running water, 100degree heat. “It was so awful, it was hilarious, and we started to laugh, and laugh louder.”

“She adds this very calming,

thoughtful Quaker element to the school.”

Students may not know the belly laugh or catch her speaking French, but they do recall playing musical chairs, with Judson playing her accordion, as something of a tradition at the end of the Quakerism course. “She whipped out her accordion and played songs for us – it was a fun way to connect and get us up and moving, and she was grinning, with a smile so big,” said junior Leigh Steinberg.

Leigh, DreShaun and Issa all praised her teaching and her calm demeanor. Said Leigh: “Ms. Judson helps instill Quaker values in students even though she doesn’t have so much contact. … The ideas of simplicity, community, service, especially community – it’s something the school prides itself on.”

C

aramanico has a vivid image of the first time she ever encountered Judson. She had raced to campus the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, upon hearing the awful news out of New York and Washington. She ran into the school, searching for her son, then in the seventh grade.

“They were all filing into meeting. And I asked … Where are you going? To meeting?” she recalled. As the thought sunk in, Caramanico, a Quaker, recalled thinking how “that makes all kinds of sense. This calls for a gathering and introspection and calmness. That grabbed me. I found out, years later, that it was Darryl and Stephanie who had the idea to do this. That’s something that sets the school apart and puts it on this plane in terms of being mindful and having a presence.”

Judson credited Ford, then Middle School director, with having the presence of mind to propose reading the peace testimony at that Meeting.

At Penn Charter, as at Friends Select, Judson’s Quaker sensibilities have made her a leader in all things Quaker.

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Mission Driven

Judson shared mementos and video from her trip to Cambodia with Alice Bateman’s seventh grade geography class, and she slipped into Khmer. “Soos’dai, soos’dai,” she enunciated, urging the class to try out “hello” in the Cambodian dialect.

When she accepted the post at Penn Charter, she recalled, members of her meeting, Central Philadelphia, worried how she would fare.

“Someone told me, ‘I’m going to pray for you. You’re going to be in much more danger at Penn Charter than in Beirut.’ It had a reputation of being a jock school. Some older Quakers were surprised to learn there were girls here. Plus, the school is not connected with a meeting,” she recalled. “Some thought I had come to Quaker-ize the school.” But Judson told Ball she did not want to become the resident Quaker right away in her new school. “Earl Ball took this role over for one year,” she noted. “I focused on all true administrative tasks of an assistant head.”

Judson’s observation, once she arrived, has been that Penn Charter was unduly apologetic about not being Quaker enough. In 2007, Ball decided the school should conduct a Quaker self-study, and Judson coclerked the committee with Payton, her former student. “When you pay attention to something, things shift, and people started thinking about this as a Quaker school. It’s the process that’s important,” she said.

Ball said Penn Charter’s commitment to its Quaker roots has grown over the decade. “There’s more overt talking about Quaker values, and I think Stephanie has contributed greatly to that.” Evidence abounds of Quaker activism, including numerous community service activities.

Said Judson: “Any good independent school is going to have a service program. Ours is particularly robust in that we have long-term relationships rather than once-and-done, and that is distinctive. That comes out of Quaker practice: You look for the Light of God in each person and establish relations rather than practice a kind of noblesse oblige.”

Especially heartening, she said, is the school’s commitment to Quakerism in the new Strategic Vision. Goal 1 is this:

Deepen our identity and actions as a Friends school – and our students’ understanding of Quaker values – to prepare our graduates to live lives that make a difference.

One strategy (among four) attached to Goal 1 is this: To “model and teach integrity, truth-telling, conflict resolution and ethical choices.”

Judson stepped down as assistant head in the summer of 2011, taking the title of associate head and scaling back on responsibilities and cutting back on her workweek. She gave up teaching 10th grade religion this past year. She continues to work with Glascott on recruiting and hiring, and she co-chairs the school’s Quakerism Committee and the Diversity Committee, and oversees faculty professional development.

There is much work to occupy both of them as the administration and faculty work together to implement the far-reaching Strategic Vision and the innovations it calls for in teaching and learning.

On the walls of her office are two pieces of work that touch her heart and speak volumes about her ideals. One is a powerful Faith Ringgold print depicting Martin Luther King Jr. in that infamous Birmingham, Ala., jail cell. It was a gift from her husband, which he presented to her at an event celebrating the moves by Judson, Glascott and others at Penn Charter in late summer 2011. King is a hero of Judson’s. The other, commissioned by Ford and presented to her that same night, is a stunning calligraphy by visual arts teacher Randy Granger of a quote taken from King’s 1963 Letter from Birmingham Jail, that reads, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Reflecting on Sept. 11, Caramanico praised the quick thinking and purposeful response of Judson, Ford and the entire staff: “You don’t continue on in your day, pretending nothing has happened, and hope for the best. That’s what stood out for me – this mindfulness, presence of mind. Quakers call it right action, how you respond to what is going on around you.”

That description aptly applies as well to Judson’s entire distinguished career: By her actions and choices, large and small, Judson has responded to the world around her and built a professional life defined by “right action.” PC

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Mission Driven

PC Advocates for Public School Partner

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n March, the Philadelphia School Reform Commission (SRC) spared four public schools that had been scheduled for closure, including Bayard Taylor Elementary School in Hunting Park, with which Penn Charter has a long-standing service partnership.

PC Director of Service Learning Jim Ballengee gave testimony on behalf of Taylor School, as did six other Taylor supporters.

Taylor is a K-5 school serving about 625 students, many of them Latino.

“I represent William Penn Charter School, founded in 1689 as a means of providing

education as a civic responsibility to all students of Philadelphia before there were even public and private schools in the city,” Ballengee told the commission. “In this way, William Penn hoped to integrate a host of different ethnic and religious groups into a pluralistic society characterized by responsible citizenship and brotherly love.”

Taylor School has been an integral part of Penn Charter’s service learning program for the past 18 years. Students in Upper School Spanish classes work with Taylor students on writing and reading original stories. They visit on Days of Service, 10th graders work at Taylor during their Quakerism classes, and students at the two schools visit each other’s classes and share resources. “ … We are invested in Taylor’s success, just as they are invested in ours,” Ballengee said.

Taylor is at the center not only of a vibrant service learning partnership with Penn

Penn Charter has enjoyed a service partnership with Bayard Taylor School for 18 years. Many Taylor families are Spanish speakers, and students in PC Spanish classes visit to work with students on writing and reading original stories.

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Charter, Ballengee explained, but it is at the heart of a new group called the Allegheny West Consortium focused on creating public-private partnerships and “developing all of our youth to ensure that they have productive and purposeful lives.

“Taylor is a critical partner in ensuring the value of this partnership, which may serve as a model for future collaboration between all schools in the city. Why not have all schools work together to bring opportunity and resources to Philadelphia students?”

Making the case for the value that Penn Charter students derive from the partnership, Ballengee read from a piece that his daughter Lindsay wrote for the Philadelphia Inquirer about her senior project at Taylor School. “…

The lessons that I learn each day, whether in discussions with the children I am reading with or in observing the interaction between Mrs. Jones and her students, will be applicable throughout my lifetime. What if everybody in the city felt the same way and put their good intentions into action? Maybe then we could all stop bemoaning the state of education and join a partnership that helps all children achieve.”

When the SRC announced its decision – by a 5-0 vote – to keep Taylor open and in its current location, Taylor supporters were thrilled. But the SRC did vote to close 23 other public schools. “The elation over Taylor being taken off the chopping block was tempered by the sadness in the room over the fate of so many other schools,” Ballengee said. PC

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Mission Driven

Mission Accomplished Paul Blackwood and Naeem Moody flew to Jamaica: two men on a mission. and asked Blackwood and Head of School Darryl J. Ford if Penn Charter could find a way to help empower the students at Holy Trinity.

“Empowering students is what we do,” Blackwood said. “So, let us take it there.”

Penn Charter has a four-year cycle for technology equipment; some equipment lasts longer, but most needs to be replaced or refurbished in four. So, for the past two years, Blackwood, Moody and Michael Moulton, director of educational technology, have been saving used equipment for shipment to Holy Trinity. Previously, PC has partnered with other local groups to responsibly recycle used equipment.

“We really want to use technology to drive improvement in literacy, and we also want to be able to assist our teachers to engage in using technology,” Brissett-Bolt said in an interview with JIS. Blackwood was excited that he and Moody could not just deliver and set up the technology but engage in a thoughtful conversation with teachers there.

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hey landed on a Thursday and worked straight through until Tuesday, installing 25 desktop computers, 20 laptops and two Internet servers at Holy Trinity High School, located in the capitol of Kingston. They also set up email accounts for the faculty and trained teachers on the new equipment.

And they took a break for a ribbon-cutting ceremony and a television interview with the minister of education for Jamaica and the Jamaican Information Service (JIS), which noted that Holy Trinity is now “on the way to improved academic results, with the assistance of technology.”

Blackwood and Moody, respectively Penn Charter’s manager of technology and network services, and desktop support specialist, were two men on a mission.

“Key for me was that we were doing something for kids who otherwise would not have the opportunity to have access,” Blackwood said. “They are in a failing, under-funded school in a violent area of Kingston. They are from extremely poor backgrounds.” Holy Trinity is a coed Catholic school with about 1,600 middle and high school students.

Blackwood was born in Jamaica, and the need at Holy Trinity came to his attention because the school principal, Margaret Brissett-Bolt, is his mother. When she transferred to Holy Trinity from another, betterresourced school, she recognized the magnitude of the work she faced

Naeem Moody (left) and Paul Blackwood (above) spent five days in Jamaica installing recycled Penn Charter computers in an under-funded school.

“We developed a partnership without boundaries,” he said. “We delivered them access to technology, and we were able to sit with the faculty and talk with them and share with them some of what is happening here at Penn Charter.

“They know what is happening out in the world, and they know they have limited resources. But they are on a mission: They want to empower their students, they want them to think big.” PC

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Mission Driven

journey to

ganeshpur A PC third grade teacher travels to Nepal to help build a school.

by Teodora Nedialkova

Teodora Nedialkova, shown here in front of the existing school, was excited that a full 50 percent of the students in the new school will be girls.

I

n February, as part of my yoga teacher-training, I traveled to Nepal along with 11 other yoga instructors to help lay the foundation of a school in the remote village of Ganeshpur, in Northwestern Nepal. We teamed up with buildOn, a nonprofit service organization that builds schools for children in developing nations, including Nepal, Mali and Nicaragua, and agreed to raise $30,000 for the school building and to travel to Ganeshpur to help begin construction. A portion of the money I raised came from a carnival fund-raiser that seventh grade student Matthew Kestenbaum and I organized together. Penn Charter arranged for my release time, and many PC families attended the event last fall and contributed to this project.

Home to several hundred people, the village of Ganeshpur is nestled among towering trees. It is not on most maps, and no actual roads lead there. Families live in simple adobe homes built by the village men.

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There is no running water in the village.

Most households have one or two cows or goats and a few chickens, and women grow vegetables and herbs in their small gardens.

The majority of villagers belong to the Tharu ethnic group. Tharu people were bonded laborers until 2000, when the government of Nepal outlawed the practice of bonded labor. Today, although they have freedom, the community struggles with staggering poverty and few employment opportunities. Most adults were never formally educated; realizing that their children need to break out of the cycle of poverty, the village population petitioned buildOn to choose Ganeshpur as the site of its next school building project.

There are more than 150 children in Ganeshpur. The existing school is a simple structure with three small rooms. Children gather each morning and sit on the floor.

During the rainy season, water gets through holes in the roof and walls, and the dirt floors turn to mud. Because space is limited, children over the age of eight must walk for miles to a larger school in a neighboring village.

We began work on our second day there.

Hoes and shovels in hand, we worked side-by-

side with the village community. We had very little actual experience in digging a foundation but plenty of enthusiasm and energy to make up for our lack of skills. Although we did not speak the same language, working together was easy. We made jokes, shared work gloves, poured water for each other, and gestured when we needed to share tools. We were successful in digging the hole for the foundation of the building. The rest of the work will be completed by the village community.

The cost of the construction materials and any skilled labor will be covered with the money we raised. A full 50 percent of the students will be girls, which is often not the case in Nepal; education for girls is a crucial component to ending poverty, disease and domestic abuse.

At night, we spent time with our host families. My host family hosted two of us. They gave us a small section of their two-room house and gave up their two simple wooden beds.

Our hosts slept on a padding of straw on the floor. For dinner, they prepared for us their traditional food, consisting of rice, lentils and vegetables. “Dhanyabad,” we repeated, and smiled, overwhelmed by their generosity and hospitality. It means “thank you” in Tharu.

Our week together flew by. As we left the village, we received marigold garlands as a gesture of gratitude. Hands at our hearts, we bowed our heads to our new friends and uttered the only other word we knew in their language: “Namaste.” It means “I bow to the light in you.” PC

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combines science and service

by Jennifer Raphael

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n a small, rural community in El Salvador called Las Delicias, in a place that could not be more different from her home, Bridget McDugall OPC ’07 fell in love with pupusas, salsa dancing and the chance to contribute to an impoverished but vibrant community. “I loved the Latin American culture. The people are unbelievably friendly. They are so welcoming,” she explained. “Even though they have so little, you would never know it. Their focus was on you.”

McDugall came to experience this hospitable community through the Foundation for International Medical Relief of Children (FIMRC) while she was studying at the University of Pennsylvania.

“I wanted to apply to the Peace Corps, and I thought it would be worthwhile to go on a service trip abroad, to get a feel for living outside the country,” she recalled. After she completed her junior year at Penn, she traveled to El Salvador for one week with an organization called Project FIAT. Based in Philadelphia, this organization sends volunteer groups to El Salvador to assist with a variety of service projects. “During my stay, in addition to visiting an orphanage and assisting with the construction of a day care center, I spent one

morning at Las Delicias. My group worked in partnership with FIMRC and the community health promoter, Morena, to distribute flu vaccines to the population,” she said.

Her experience in El Salvador was enough to solidify her decision to explore the Peace Corps. Once accepted, however, McDugall received disappointing news: Her departure would have to be delayed one year.

McDugall remembered her day with FIMRC and applied for the group’s extended-stay Ambassador Program. She left in September 2011 and stayed for three months, helping to develop a sustainable way to record medical information. “Las Delicias is 45 minutes outside of the capital city, on a mountainside,” she said. “They don’t have any Internet connection. They couldn’t utilize an electronic medical system like we are used to seeing. I developed an Excel spreadsheet that included formulas that automatically calculated and graphed data they needed.”

McDugall spent a considerable amount of her time doing emergency relief due to the number of tropical storms that ravaged the region in 2011. “I spent a lot of time with the community and went on house visits with the health manager, and consoled families who suffered losses,” she said. It was through these efforts that McDugall met Vanessa Espinosa, a teenage girl involved in FIMRC’s Mentoring Program. She had just finished the eighth grade but couldn’t afford the tuition to explore the next step of her education, a nursing track through high school.

“I could see how promising a student and individual she was. She was the captain of the teen group. She had the most passion for the community. She wanted to bring her knowledge back to Las Delicias and help with their health needs,” McDugall said. Touched

by Vanessa’s passion, McDugall decided to

Today, McDugall is working for the Adult Congenital Heart Association in Mt. Airy, and she is in the process of applying to nursing programs. She would love to take her medical expertise back to Latin America and continue to provide medical care.

“My first memory of really coming to know myself, and recognizing my love for science and using it to help others, came with service learning classes that I took,” she said. “The PC community helps instill a passion for service and an awareness of global issues. PC opened my mind to so many other perspectives and cultures and helped me recognize inequities worldwide.” PC

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Mission Driven

A True Latin Lover

sponsor Vanessa. “In our minds, the tuition is so cheap. It made sense for me to try and help her.”

McDugall donated $500 of her own money toward Vanessa’s tuition, and for the remaining $1,100, she then turned to a community that had done so much for her in the past – Penn Charter. “Mr. [David] Brightbill was my Spanish teacher, and he instilled a passion for Spanish language and culture,” McDugall said.

Last year, the Penn Charter Spanish Club helped arrange a Dress-Down Day fundraiser: everyone who contributed $5 to Vanessa’s cause could ease up on the dress code that day. The event was a huge success.

“We funded her entire high school career.

She just began her second year,” McDugall said. McDugall plans to continue to sponsor Vanessa through college, and needs to raise $2,000. She will pay some of the cost out of her own pocket and hopes to partner again with Penn Charter.

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Annual Fund 2012-2013

}

Sterling H.

Johnson OPC ’78 Member of Diversity Committee and Alumni Society Board I work for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In 2010, I provided engineer support in Afghanistan for security compounds, schools, roads, hospitals – infrastructure. Penn Charter gave me an appreciation for the global community, and we’re all part of the same community. We’re connected across the globe.

The best lessons I learned were on the playing field: hard work makes a difference, and it takes a whole team to move the group forward. I learned that it was possible to come into something, not be particularly talented, and make something of it. I stay in touch with some classmates on a regular basis; we all ran track with Dr. [Stephen] Bonnie. We go to the Penn Relays to root PC on; we make sure we’re there at 12:00 for the boys 4 x 400 relay.

As a graduate, you realize that you stand on the shoulders of others. I think supporting the Annual Fund is important in terms of tuition and financial aid, but also the bricks and mortar: the Kurtz Center, the new Lower School that we need, upgrades to the athletics fields and the science labs. It helps make the whole experience that much better. You raise the level of excellence across the board, from academics to athletics to arts. Giving is best when you feel attached to the gift. Because of my experience, I tend to donate to scholarship and to the general fund for the school to use as it sees best, for the benefit of Penn Charter.

Visit www.penncharter.com/give to make your gift online.

reinventing Classic Other schools may have some of Penn Charter’s individual attributes, but the way in which these distinguishing characteristics connect and enhance one another sets our school apart.

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spring 2013

• A History of Access

• Timeless Skill Set

• All Three A’s - Academics, Arts, Athletics

• Synergy of People, Spaces, Resources

• Quaker Moral Compass

• Visionary Leadership

10/14/13 12:55 PM

Alumni

Class Notes Penn Charter magazine wants to hear from you, and your classmates do, too! Submit your news and photos to jcubbin@penncharter.com. Digital photos should be 300 dpi JPEGs.

1689 Class Agent Jane F. Evans jevans@penncharter.com

A Look Back at

1938

Theodore E.B. Wood OPC ’48 See death notices.

Avery R. Harrington OPC ’48 is enjoying the small college town of Brunswick (home to Bowdoin College) in Maine. “Activities in this retirement community keep us more than busy,” he reports.

A Look Back at

Sandra W. Carl Hon. 1689 See death notices.

1948

Frederick F. Kempner Hon. 1689 See death notices.

1944 W. Ernest Wells Hon. 1689 See death notices.

William W. Remmey OPC ’44 See death notices.

1949

1937 Class Agent Edmond H. (Ted) Heisler

1945 Class Agent H. Leonard Brown

1938 1946 Wallace L. Bostwick OPC ’38 See death notices.

Kevin D. Tolan OPC ’46 See death notices.

1939 Class Agent Robert C. McAdoo

1948

1940 Class Agent Robert J. Harbison III rharbo@aol.com

Walter H. Waechter Jr. OPC ’48 See death notices.

Class Agent Bruce R. Barstow brbarstow@aol.com

Bruce Barstow writes, “I receive requests for a recap of who among the graduates are still around, who are not and those who are ‘missing’ as far as records are concerned.

Here’s the latest.

Living: Walt Bailey, Bruce Barstow, Louis Beck, Peter Benoliel, Walt Blizard, Richard Brobyn, Tom Crompton, Tom Force, Howard Hanson, Bob Hauptfuhrer, Bruce Hirshorn, George Fuller, Drew Graham, Byron King, Al Martucci, Dick Masterson, Peter Meehan, Mark Myers, Dick Neff, Jack Ogelsby, Bill Parker, Tom Perot, Harry Richter, Carl Rumpp, Paul Schmidt, Bob Smith, Ed Snape, Tim Thomas, Glenn Van Hest, Bill Welch, Jack Winterle.

Deceased: Jack Bennett, Art Bourne, Dick Brehm, Jack Brock, Russel Brownback, Bob

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Alumni

Class Notes Clements, Charlie De Soi, Jean-Loup Dherse, Joe Golden, Tom Goldsmith, Dave Greene, Ted Greensmith, Jack Heffner, Joe Jones, Al Hibbert, Bob Holmberg, George Koehler, Paul McGowan, Jim McMullen, Bill Ryan, Jack Park, Graham Patterson, Bill Rebmann, Carl Schwabenland, Jack Scott, Joe Seyfert, Jim Shacklett, John Norton Smith, Phil Tocantins, Donald Walker.

Missing: Charles Fisher, Dick Hazard, Scotty Turner.

Let me know if you recognize any errors in the lists! Thanks to Bill Welch for his helping with it! Of the living, I never hear from about 10 guys in the class, seldom hear from six or seven, while the rest, approximately 13, are pretty good communicators. I would love to convert the non-communicators to actives and am hoping some want to help out.”

1950 Class Agent Christopher W. Parker cwp420@aol.com

David G. Winterle OPC ’50 See death notices.

1951 Class Agent David N. Weinman ombudinc@aol.com

Westminster Canterbury by the Bay, where they have lived for the past seven years.

This is a part of the annual Mardi Gras parade, a fun event for all the residents and staff. The honor is awarded to residents who have contributed time, talent and effort to assist the staff and other residents.

1954 Class Agent Alfred F. Bracher III fbracher@aol.com

1955 Class Agent Charles (Chuck) Clayton Jr. cclayt@comcast.net

1952 Class Agents George C. (Skip) Corson Jr. gccesq@aol.com F. Bruce Waechter fbw413@aol.com

C. Richard Cryer writes, “Since my retirement from Gartner Group in Stamford, Conn., I have been attending classes such as Bronze Casting at the State College of New York in Purchase. In the summer, the family goes up to our vacation home, right on the water in Orleans, Mass. On my mother’s side, I publish the Longenecker Family Newsletter, in its 12th year, and various inserts such as the Brethren Encyclopdia; Roster of Langneggers from Langnau, Switzerland, 1590-1954; History of the Longenecker Family; etc. My oldest daughter, Suzanne, is an actress in Los Angeles, and my other daughter, Shelly, based in Old Greenwich, Conn., is married to Michael Stern, conductor of the Kansas City Symphony.”

1956 Class Agent Bernard E. Berlinger Jr. bberlinger@asidrives.com

1957 Class Agents G. Allan Dash allandash3@comcast.net James V. Masella Jr. vesperent@aol.com James G. Masland Jr. jgmasland@yahoo.com

A Look Back at

1958

Howard T. Hallowell III OPC ’52 See death notices.

Robert D. Barnes OPC ’51 See death notices.

George C. (Chuck) Henrich and his wife, Helen, were recently named king and queen of the retirement complex,

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1953 Class Agent William H. Bux mbuxc@aol.com

1958 Class Agents John E. F. Corson jefcorson@aol.com

Hugo E. Engelhardt OPC ’53 See death notices.

Robert D. Morrow Jr. djm112@aol.com

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Alumni

Class Notes 1963 Class Agents Robert E. Brickely bob@bds-1.com Stanley L. Buck OPC ’58 See death notices.

Richard J. Gilkeson gilkeson1@msn.com Douglas S. Little doug.little@comcast.net

1959 Class Agent Rush B. Smith smithrushb@aol.com

1964 Class Agents John T. Long Jr. longacres1@yahoo.com

Kenneth L. Kershbaum OPC ’59 See death notices.

John S. Morrow jsmopc64@hargray.com

1965 Kenneth S. Krieger OPC ’59 See death notices.

1960 Class Agent James M. Arrison III arrison@attglobal.net

Douglas McDowell OPC ’60 See death notices.

1961 Class Agents Richard P. Hamilton Jr. rick1480@aol.com J. Freedley Hunsicker Jr. hunsicjf@dbr.com

1962 Class Agents Louis F. Burke lburke@lfblaw.com Kevin McKinney pmckin5750@rogers.com Ronald O. Prickitt ron@netilla.com

Class Agent Jonathon P. (Buck) DeLong b.delong@charter.net

Jonathan L. Fiechter writes, “I turned 65 in November, and the International Monetary Fund, my current employer, follows the wonderful European tradition of mandatory retirement at 65. While I likely would not have left so early without a bit of a shove, I am getting into the idea of a more flexible schedule under my control. Much of the past several years has been spent on airplanes (I was averaging 120 days a year out of the country, mostly in Asia, with some Old Europe thrown in) and believe I am living proof that jetlag is, in fact, cumulative. In fact, for the first time since my freshman year in college, I may start exercising.

I have not yet decided what to do once I leave here other than, if at all possible, avoid full-time employment and international travel where the time in the plane exceeds the time on the ground. I am being encouraged by retired friends to take up golf – not so likely – and to travel – also unlikely, at least for a while. After 40-plus years of 50-hour workweeks and minimal vacations, I will likely want to do something beyond organizing my wife’s day and watching CNBC. Some of you may have seen an article in the Wall Street Journal about a Morgan Stanley banker who was throwing in the

towel, buying a motorcycle and planning a road trip to Latin America. That has some appeal. Wish all of you good health.”

Robert L. Thayer Jr. writes, “I fled the East Coast in 1970 and never returned, settling ultimately in Davis, Calif., where I have been a professor of landscape architecture until recently retiring. I started a program in landscape architecture at University of California, Davis (1973), teaching there until 2002 and in a revolving chair position at Berkeley (2005-2009). John Hutch and I have been good friends since PC, seeing a fair amount of each other. We frequently reminisce fondly about the PC days, often with the exaggerated humor one might expect of a couple of old farts! Our wives don’t really understand what we’re talking about! I doubt that I will get back to many reunions – too far. But if my classmates are ever out this way, we’ve got a nice guest room.”

1966 Class Agent Martin J. (Marty) Harrity mharrity@aol.com

John M. (Mich) Wilson Jr. OPC ’66 See death notices.

1967 Class Agent Harry S. Cherken Jr. harry.cherken@dbr.com

John A. (Jack) Muldoon OPC ’67 See death notices.

1968 Class Agents Bruce C. Gill bcoopergil@aol.com Richard E. Stanley dickandlea@aol.com

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Alumni

Class Notes A Look Back at

1973

1968

Class Agent Robert J. Marquess rjmproteus@aol.com

Frederick H. Bartlett III writes, “Our first grandchild, Violet Rose, was born to our son, Lincoln R. OPC ’05 and his wife, Jaime, on Lincoln’s birthday, Dec. 13, 2012.”

(See births.)

1974 Skipper R. Davis Irvin (right) with crew R. Keith Helmetag and Edward H. Bissell (left), all OPC ’71, with two of six sails that charted Rewa through Panama’s San Blas Islands.

Class Agent Bruce K. Balderston bruce.balderston@pncbank.com

Frederick W. Dohrmann III reports that he is anxious to get his 32nd season of girls softball under way at Widener University. He was also recruited to throw batting practice in the Phillies batting cages to prepare the “Phantasy” team for Phillies Phantasy Camp in Clearwater, Fla.

Timothy J. O’Rourke is living in Kentucky, has been married for 27 years, and in September sent his two younger twins off to Loyola University New Orleans. His oldest twins are off on their own.

Stephen G. Rhoads has been appointed to the Board of Trustees of the Mill at Anselma Preservation and Educational Trust, Inc. He is a lawyer at Gawthrop Greenwood in West Chester.

1972

1969 Class Agent Thomas C. Robinson Jr. thomascrobinson@comcast.net

Class Agent J. Peter Davis davisphily@comcast.net

Douglas W. McFarland OPC ’69 See death notices.

1970 Class Agents Charles L. Mitchell dhammalawyer@yahoo.com Robert N. Reeves Jr. robreeves@eareeves.com

1971 Class Agents Marc A. Golden harvardceo@aol.com William J. Harbison Jr. OPC ’74 with his family in Normandy, France. From left: Katharine, Margaret (19), Will, Elizabeth (21), and son Will (24).

Frederick H. Landell rlandell@ltk.com

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Alumni

Class Notes 1980 Class Agents John B. Caras john.caras@cingular.com Charles J. (Chip) Goodman chip_goodman@cable.comcast.com

1981 Class Agent Andrew J. Kramer akramer@kanepugh.com Peter O’Rourke OPC ’74 reports, “I just got re-married after 18 years as a bachelor; my wife’s name is Hang, and she is a nurse at Kaiser Permanente Sacramento Medical Center. I am a very lucky guy. My daughter is far outpacing me, working on her PhD in biology in Saudi Arabia. She has her scuba license, got her private plane license and has seen a good bit of the world.” Pictured: Peter, with wife Hang and daughter Aubrie.

1978

1975 Class Agents Robert L. Nydick robert.nydick@villanova.edu

Class Agents Sterling H. Johnson III ag96cu4@aol.com

James S. Still jstill3boys@gmail.com

Paul C. Mancini paul@mancini.com

Class Agent James L. Walker Jr. jimwalks@yahoo.com

1983

David H. Neff dn@neffassociates.com

1977 Class Agent Reid S. Perper rsperper@yahoo.com

A Look Back at

1982

1978

David B. Wohl writes, “I’m ramping up to music direct The Color Purple (in Denver), shortly, and my daughter and I are doing well.”

1979 Class Agent John D. Lemonick jlemonick@donnellyandassociates.com

Kirk R. Mancer was presented with the prestigious Jamie Wallace Award during the annual meeting of the Chamber of Commerce Association of Alabama (CCAA) held in Birmingham in December 2012. The award is presented to Chamber professionals who have displayed outstanding attributes in their daily vocation. It is the highest award presented

by CCAA.

David J. Loren writes, “After roaming between both coasts, I have finally found my home in the Pacific Northwest. Our family of five – Shira, 12; Isaac, 10; Aviva, 6; and Julie, my ever-so patient spouse – loves to hike, explore and travel. Last year I took a leave of absence from my career as a neonatologist at Seattle Children’s Hospital and the University of Washington, and we took the kids out of school and traveled eastward around the globe. Thailand, Vietnam, Peru, Israel, it was all a dream come true. I often think of my roots at PC.” Loren and his family are pictured at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

1984 Class Agent Robert T. Myers rob.myers@barclayswealth.com

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Alumni

Class Notes 1985

1988

Class Agents Matthew M. Killinger killingm@uphs.upenn.edu

Class Agents H. Bruce Hanson hbhanson@duanemorris.com

Thomas D. Kramer Tom.Kramer@am.jll.com

Gregory D. Palkon greg@palkonlaw.com

Class Agent P. Timothy Phelps chambertim@hotmail.com

1987 Class Agents David Felderman felderman.david@gmail.com David B. Gleit leyladavid@yahoo.com Adam M. Koppel akoppel@baincapital.com

David B. Gleit writes, “Things here are well, thankfully. My wife, Leyla, and I are busy with the young family: Noah, 11; Sidney, 9; and Maia, 5. I switched to the mining industry recently. My work now gets me into the mountains more frequently, which I enjoy, despite the high altitude (usually over 14,000 feet). Please send my regards to the old guard.”

1988

Neil Boyden Tanner was named one of eight USA Eisenhower Fellows for 2013, spending April in Singapore and July in China looking at ways the Philadelphia region can improve foreign direct investment based on the successes of those countries.

1990 Class Agent James D. Phillips jphillips@penncharter.com

1991 Class Agents Daniel S. Donaghy dsdonaghy@hotmail.com Leo J. Wyszynski ljwyszynski@aol.com

1992 Class Agents Anna V. Davis vanleer@hotmail.com

1993 Class Agent Victor S. (Tory) Olshansky victor.olshansky@gmail.com

1994 Class Agent Jennifer R. Gallagher gallagherj@unionleague.org

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Brian K. Walls writes, “I just published my first exercise book, Exercise for the Athlete Within, which can be found on Amazon.

In addition to the book, I have created a DVD and numerous workshops to improve balance and decrease the incidence of falls in the aging population.”

Class Agent Kenneth (Casey) Murray playnikez@yahoo.com

Keith M. Nigro kmn5774@yahoo.com

40

Class Agent Stephanie Teaford Walters walters-stephanie@aramark.com

1989

1986

A Look Back at

1995

•

1996 Class Agents Alyson M. Goodner alygoods@yahoo.com Michael Sala sala_lm@yahoo.com p.S.

Meg Donohue has written a new novel, All the All the Summer Girls, to Summer be published by Girls a novel William Morrow MeG Donohue (HarperCollins) in May 2013. Donahue writes, “I think it will be of special interest to the PC community as it involves a group of girls who went to a Quaker high school in Philadelphia.” Read more at www.megdonohue.com.

“Beach book extraordinaire! Donohue’s three protagonists are irresistibly sympathetic as they try to unbury their true selves from the ruinous secrets of their shared past.”

—E l i n H i l D E r B r a n D , New York Times bestselling author of A Beautiful Day

Bestselling Author of How to Eat a Cupcake

1997 Class Agents Brendan Moore brendanmoore78@yahoo.com Allison MacCullough O’Neill allisononeill88@gmail.com

1998 Class Agents Jeff Bender jb2424@gmail.com Patrick A. Sasse psasse@hotmail.com

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Alumni

Class Notes A Look Back at

1998

2001 Class Agents William A. McKinney williammckinney@gmail.com

We chatted for a while about our love of Penn Charter. I promised him I would send in this picture – OPC ’71 and OPC ’03 nerding it up in Rhode Island!”

Jessica A. Stein stein.jessica@gmail.com

2004

Avi S. Golen and Jonathan Wybar were named Young Entrepreneurs of the Year by the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce in November 2012. Golen and Wybar are co-founders of Revolution Recovery, a recycling business serving both commercial and residential markets that keeps materials out of landfills while providing sustainable services at a cost less than traditional landfill disposal.

1999 Class Agents Mark D. Hecker mhecker616@gmail.com Margaux Pelegrin margaux.pelegrin@gmail.com

Dana A. (Greenspon) Bate published her debut novel, The Girls’ Guide to Love and Supper Clubs, in February. The book earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly, which called it “an engaging debut ... smart and compelling.” She has sold foreign rights to the book in Germany, Italy, Brazil, Indonesia and the U.K. After living in Washington, D.C., for nearly eight years, she recently returned to the Philadelphia area, where she is working on her second novel.

Jennifer H. (Rosen) Diamond said, “My husband, Robert, and I got married during Hurricane Irene in August 2011, which was very fitting because I am such a drama queen – of course there would be a hurricane! Now I am finishing up filming season three of a web series called Submissions Only, getting ready to tour Australia in June with Kristin Chenoweth, and then I head out to The Muny in St. Louis, Mo., to do Les Miserables. It’s all been very exciting, and I am thrilled to be working with Kristin Chenoweth – still pinching myself!”

Erin E. Hozack erin.hozack@gmail.com Jerome B. Wright jwright08@gmail.com

2005 Class Agents Christopher W. Garrison cwg008@bucknell.edu Jessica Kalick jessiekalick@gmail.com

2002 Class Agent Katherine A. Butler butlerka@gmail.com

2003 Class Agents Jessica A. Kolansky jekolansky@comcast.net Anthony E. McDevitt mcdevitt44@gmail.com Jennifer N. Cooperman jcoop9185@gmail.com

Maureen Ryan mmr54@georgetown.edu

Evan Footer writes, “I spent 13 years at Penn Charter and took away many invaluable lessons, both in and out of the classroom. Good luck to all in the years to come!”

2006 Class Agents Joey Fugelo insaniac83@aol.com Sarah Roberts sar777@aol.com Katherine Siegmann ksiegmann@gmail.com Jeffrey Torchon jazzjeff88@gmail.com

2007 Class Agents Ricky Baska Lynn richardbaskalynne@gmail.com

2000 Class Agent Adam K. Sperling adsperling@gmail.com

Class Agents Katherine A. Entwisle kentwisl@gmail.com

Natalie L. Hogan wrote, “I met Robert Picardo today at Rhode Island Comic Con.

Audra Hugo audro.hugo@gmail.com

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Alumni

Class Notes Class of 2007 5th Reunion

Anne McKenna anniemck515@comcast.net Eric Muller ebm28@drexel.edu

Julia Garden writes, “I’m sorry I missed the reunion!”

2008 Class Agents Katie Corelli kcorelli@stanford.edu Ryan Goldman ryg@sas.upenn.edu Kyle Maurer kmaurer3@jhu.edu Sierra Tishgart s-tishgart@u.northwestern.edu

The Class of 2007 met on Saturday, Nov. 24, at Jack’s Firehouse in Fairmount for its fifth reunion.

Forty-nine OPCs attended, and the class raised more than $1,600 for the Andrew Peff Memorial Fund. The evening ended with a moment of silence in remembrance of their beloved classmate.

Jeremy L. Maurer is pursuing a degree in veterinary medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Kyle A. Maurer is a financial analyst with J.P. Morgan in New York City.

Rosa Samuels writes, “I graduated from Temple University in May 2012 with a mathematics degree and a pre-medical track. I am currently enrolled at Drexel University’s post-baccalaureate program in their Medical Science Preparatory

A Look Back at

2008

Teacher Bruce MacCullough joined the Class of 2007 to catch up with former students and meet some he never taught. Before the night was over, MacCullough and his BC Calculus class gathered for their own mini-reunion.

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Alumni

Class Notes program, where I am taking graduate classes, an MCAT course, and advanced undergraduate classes so that I can apply to medical school soon. So, hopefully within a year from now I will be applying to medical school!”

Edward Malandro edmalandro93@gmail.com Cathryn C. Peirce cpeirce@sas.upenn.edu

Class Agents Alexandra M. Glassman amg296@cornell.edu

Aaron Z. Cohen to Liana Yoo, on Sept. 29, 2012.

2001

MARRIAGES 2009

1997

Jennifer H. Rosen to Robert Diamond, on Aug. 27, 2011. (See photo.)

1996 Kelly A. White to Nathan Fuller, on Sept. 1, 2012. (See photo.)

Curtiss R. Jones Jr. crj213@lehigh.edu Laura A. Kurash chargefan5@comcast.net Sam H. Lerner sam.lerner@richmond.edu

2010 Class Agents Megan C. Delaney megan.c.delaney@gmail.com Cormac J. Ferrick mac.ferrick@gmail.com Casey T. Maher ctm214@lehigh.edu Kellie C. Ragg kragg@princeton.edu

Pictured, left to right: Irene McHenry, Randy W. Granger Hon. 1689, Selena Rezvani, Geoffrey Rezvani OPC ’95, Kelly A. (White) Fuller OPC ’96, Nathan Fuller, Stephanie Petro-McClellan OPC ’96 and Jay McClellan. In addition, the bride and groom were joined by the bride’s father, overseer F. John White OPC ’65, and his wife, Beth; her brother Richard W. Smith OPC ’90 and his family, and her sister Maggy M. White OPC ’99. The bride reports that mustaches were worn by many and a good time was had by all!

2011 Class Agents Demetra B. Angelakis dangelak@bowdoin.edu Adam J. Garnick ajg9692@gmail.com Casandra P. Gigliotti cassieg@bu.edu Grant A. Guyer guyerg@dickinson.edu

2012 Class Agents Sarah L. Butler slbutler94@gmail.com Ben P. Krieger benpkrieger@gmail.com

Jennifer H. Rosen OPC ’01 married Robert Diamond, BroadwayWorld.com’s CEO/editor-in-chief, in New York City.

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Alumni

Class Notes BIRTHS 1993 Lillian Joy Shin, to Philip and Anne (Dodson) Chen, on Oct. 11, 2012. (See photo, pictured with big sister, Carolyn.)

2005

1952 1953

Violet Rose, to Jaime and Lincoln R. r. Bartlett, on Dec. 13, 2012. (See photo.)

Howard Hugo E. Engelhardt, T. Hallowell on III,Dec. on Feb. 1, 2012.

26, 2013.

1958 1953 Stanley Buck, on Feb. 5, 2013.

Hugo E.L. Engelhardt, on Dec. 1, 2012.

1959 1958

Kenneth Kershbaum, March 19, 2013.

Stanley L.L.Buck, on Feb. on 5, 2013.

Kenneth S. Krieger, on Oct. 17, 2012.

1959 1960 Kenneth L. Kershbaum, on March 19, 2013.

Douglas 2012.

KennethMcDowell, S. Krieger, on on Oct. Oct. 24, 17, 2012.

1966 1960

John M. (Mich) Wilson Jr., on24,Oct. 7, 2012.

Douglas McDowell, on Oct. 2012.

1967 1966

John A. (Jack) Muldoon, on Aug. 9, 2012.

John M. (Mich) Wilson Jr., on Oct. 7, 2012.

1996

1969 1967

Dorothy (Dorie), to Jessica and David Hayne, on Jan. 15, 2013.

Douglas W. McFarland, on Nov. 6, 2012.

John A. (Jack) Muldoon, on Aug. 9, 2012.

Owen Parker, to Joshua W. and Alison R. r. (pearlstein) (Pearlstein) Goldblum, goldblum, on Dec. 26, 2012.

1997 Gretchen Elise, to Kristen and Bradley C. Weinberger, on April 17, 2012.

1969

DEATHS Hon. 1689 Sandra W. Carl, on Nov. 20, 2012.

DEATHS

1998 James, to Thomas and Lauren Weinberger Conlon, on July 8, 2012.

Frederick F. Kempner, on Jan. 7, 2013.

Hon. 1689

W. Ernest Wells, on Jan. 1, 2013.

Sandra W. Carl, on Nov. 20, 2012.

Frederick 1938 F. Kempner, on Jan. 7, 2013.

1999 Keane Christopher, to Chris and Jennifer (Albright) Myers, on Feb. 26, 2013.

Leo Hugh, to Scott Carey and Meghan Baran, on Nov. 2, 2012.

Benjamin Friia, to Kevin and Margaux (Genovese) Pelegrin, (genovese) pelegrin, on March 3, 2013.

(See photo.)

Parent PAREnT Publicists!

PuBlIcISTS! If you are the parent of a

Douglas W. McFarland, on Nov. 6, 2012.

W. ErnestL.Wells, on Jan. 2013.

Wallace Bostwick, on 1, Nov. 17, 2012.

1938 1944 Wallace L. 2012.

William W.Bostwick, Remmey, on Nov. Jan. 1,17,2013.

1944 1946 William Remmey, on12, Jan. 1, 2013.

Kevin D.W. Tolan, on Jan. 2013.

1946 1948 Kevin D.Henry Tolan,Waechter on Jan. 12, Walter Jr.,2013. on Dec. 8, 2012.

Theodore E.B. Wood, on Nov. 13, 2012.

1948 Walter Henry Waechter Jr., on Dec. 8, 2012.

1950 Theodore E.B. Wood, 2012.

David G. Winterle, on on Feb.Nov. 18, 13, 2013.

1950 1951

If you are the parent of a student who graduated from Penn Charter student who graduated between 2002 and 2012 – from Penn Charter we would like to know between 2002 and 2012 where your children are!

– we would like to know Penn Charter magazine would where your children are! be enhanced by Class Notes from young OPCs, but young graduates – Penn Charter MAgAzine WouLD even before the social media Be enHAnCeD by Class Notes from revolution – don’t send Class Notes. young OPCs, but young graduates – even before the social media revolution – don’t send Class Notes.a You can contribute by sending note about your sons and daughters.

If they are in graduate school, what are they If theyby aresending working,a You CAnstudying?

ContriBute whatabout are they doing? note your sons Recent and daughters. and/or births?

Emailwhat your Ifmarriages they are in graduate school, notes to alumni@penncharter.com. are they studying? If they are working, what are they doing? Recent marriages and/or births? Email your Watch for your notes in notes to alumni@penncharter.com.

the next issue.

David G.D.Winterle, onFeb. Feb.20, 18,2013.

2013.

Robert Barnes, on

1951 1952 Robert D.T.Barnes, on III, Feb.on20, 2013.

Howard Hallowell Feb. 26, 2013.

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Watch for your notes in the next issue.

spring 2013

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Class of ’63

Class of ’88

Visit www.penncharter.com/reunionweekend for photos and highlights of Alumni Weekend 2013.

Class of ’63

Alumni, if you aren’t receiving the OPC Spirit, Penn Charter’s monthly alumni newsletter, you don’t know what you’re missing! Send an e-mail to alumni@penncharter.com, and we’ll hook you up.

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Nonprofit Org. U.S. Postage

PAID Philadelphia, PA Permit No. 6118 3000 West School House Lane Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19144

Save the Date May 3

Nov. 8

Alumni Weekend Class Reunions: ’43, ’48, ’53, ’58, ’63, ’68, ’73, ’78, ’83, ’88, ’93, ’98, ’03

Athletic Honor Society

May 24 Color Day, 1 p.m.

June 8

Nov. 9 127th PC/GA Day @ PC Class of 1968 45th Reunion

Nov. 30 Class of 2008 5th Reunion

Commencement, 10 a.m.

Flying high: Girls diving competition in the Graham Athletics Center.

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