Penn Charter Magazine Fall 2018 by William Penn Charter School

THE MAGAZINE OF WILLIAM PENN CHARTER SCHOOL

FALL 2018

STRATEGIC VISION

Gains Bandwidth TRAVIS LARRABEE, recently Upper School director and before that dean of students, began this school year as Penn Charter’s new, and first, Director of Strategic Initiatives. In this role Larrabee is charged with working to further the Strategic Vision approved by Overseers in 2013. “Our Strategic Vision is bold, and it continues to serve as the beacon for the school,” Larrabee said. “The overarching goal of my position is to keep pursuing the mission of the school with this vision as its guide.” Larrabee will be working pre-K to 12 to support new and existing programs. He also will identify ways that Penn Charter can be “programmatically nimble” so that we can provide students with opportunities that meet their educational needs and simultaneously allow them to pursue their passions. “This does not equate to a unique curriculum for each student or to over-specialization,” Larrabee said, “but rather to achieve greater flexibility, allowing students to chart their own educational path through high school.”

Head of School Darryl J. Ford and Larrabee have identified five specific areas of focus for Strategic Vision work in the next few years: ONLINE/BLENDED LEARNING Identify the ways in which blended learning — online digital media with traditional classroom instruction — does and does not support student learning. Investigate partnerships with organizations that provide online curriculum and instruction. Penn Charter’s schedule and staffing budgets have limits, and partnering with a quality organization that provides synchronous and asynchronous online instruction could be valuable.

UNIVERSITY PARTNERSHIPS Among others, PC currently partners with Jefferson University for professional development and University of Pennsylvania for student internships. In what ways can we expand partnerships with colleges and universities for the benefit of our students and faculty?

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

FACULTY PROFESSIONAL GROWTH

GOAL 1: QUAKERISM GOAL 2: PROGRAM GOAL 3: TEACHING GOAL 4: TIME GOAL 5: SPACE GOAL 6: FINANCIAL SUSTAINABILITY

UPPER SCHOOL CERTIFICATE PROGRAM

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

Support the implementation of our new teacher supervision and evaluation system in all three divisions.

Support new certificate programs in Global Studies and Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability, and lead conversations about additional certificate programs.

GLOBAL EDUCATION Inventory and assess what we already do, and explore new and sustainable connections that serve our global purpose and Penn Charter’s mission. “I am excited and energized to begin this next chapter of my work for the school and its students, faculty and families,” Larrabee said.

Contents FALL 2018

FEATURES

We Will Do This

Overseers accelerate plans and fundraising for a campus transformation and announce a timeline for construction.

18 Fourth Grade Runs the World

Collaborating in the World Peace Game, students problem solve famine, environmental crisis and threats of war.

24 Reinventing Service

Our commitment to service originated with William Penn, and it evolves with the Center for Public Purpose.

32 Travel Teaches Teachers

Three teachers hone their craft with professional development in Japan, Uganda and Hollywood.

DEPARTMENTS OPENING COMMENTS

From the Head of School.................................................................................... 2 AROUND CAMPUS

Campus Currents................................................................................................... 3 Commencement 2018..........................................................................................6 ALUMNI

PC Profiles Jamie Lozoff OPC ’11.........................................................................................8 Mike McGlinchey OPC ’13........................................................................... 10 OPC Weekend 2018............................................................................................38 Then & Now...........................................................................................................42 Class Notes.............................................................................................................43

34 ON THE COVER THE MAGAZINE OF WILLIAM PENN CHARTER SCHOOL

FALL 2018

Penn Charter’s theme for the 20182019 academic year is continuing revelation. Central to Quakerism, continuing revelation is the belief that truth continues to be revealed to each of us and to the world, and continues to unfold.

FALL 2018 •

OPENING COMMENTS

From the Head of School

THE MAGAZINE OF WILLIAM PENN CHARTER SCHOOL

Darryl J. Ford Head of School Elizabeth A. Glascott Hon. 1689 Assistant Head of School Jeffrey A. Reinhold Clerk, Overseers John T. Rogers Hon. 1689 Chief Development Officer Rob Frieman OPC ’87 Alumni Society President

MAGAZINE STAFF Sharon Sexton Editor Rebecca Luzi Associate Editor Julia Judson-Rea Assistant Editor Michael Branscom Feature Photography Proof Design Studios Design

EACH AND EVERY DAY when I walk about Penn Charter’s campus, I experience tangible reminders of the significant growth of our school. Of course, seeing the baseball facility construction on the Strawbridge Campus and reviewing the developing architectural plans for the new Athletics and Wellness Center and lower school are evidence of one kind of growth. My visits to classrooms and our network of labs allow me to witness an abundance of other examples that are critical to our mission of teaching and learning. Our teachers’ domestic and global travel expands the knowledge and skills they bring to the classroom. Students’ deep exploration of curricular passions, active peacemaking, and social justice and equity confirm the growth we are experiencing as a result of our Strategic Vision. All of this is buoyed and crowned by the How Far? capital campaign and unprecedented support of OPCs, parents, grandparents and friends who continue to generously invest in Penn Charter today and in Penn Charter’s future. It is my hope that in some small way the stories in this issue of Penn Charter will enable you to experience the growth that I see daily at our school. It is my hope, too, that these stories will inspire alumni to visit your school to see how new opportunities and learning for students continue to be revealed each and every day. I invite you to witness our growth—right here in these words or in person. It is remarkable.

William Penn Charter School 3000 West School House Lane Philadelphia, PA 19144 215.844.3460

www.penncharter.com 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.

Follow Penn Charter at your favorite social media sites: FACEBOOK facebook.com/penncharter TWITTER @PennCharter YOUTUBE youtube.com/pennchartertube INSTAGRAM @PennCharter FLICKR flickr.com/penncharter/sets

arryl J. Ford D Head of School

PLEASE RECYCLE THIS MAGAZINE

•

FALL 2018

CAMPUS CURRENTS

A Field of Our Dreams Penn Charter celebrated the construction of the new baseball complex with a ceremonial groundbreaking attended by a dozen distinguished alumni: an owner of the Philadelphia Phillies, a 2018 graduate who is now a professional baseball player, a former MLB player and general manager, and alumni whose gifts to the How Far? capital campaign are shaping the school’s future. The new facility is the linchpin of a master plan that calls for construction of a new Athletics and Wellness Center and a new lower school. Images and details begin on page 12.

PHILADELPHIA PHOTO OP The striking architectural features and industrial vistas of Philadelphia’s new Rail Park provided photography students with ample possibilities for practicing skills and techniques they are learning in Photography, an Upper School elective. Students in both sections of Photography traveled to the elevated walking trail in Philadelphia’s Callowhill neighborhood in October and set to work with their cameras.

After a short bus ride, the group continued its photo shoot at Logan Square’s iconic fountain and then walked to the Free Library of Philadelphia. In the library’s Print and Picture Collection, students were given a private viewing of original work by some of the master photographers they had studied in class, including Ansel Adams, Gordon Parks and Imogen Cunningham. They saw an example of an early photographic print known as a daguerreotype and tried using a 19th-century optical device called a stereoscope.

“This was an opportunity for students to troubleshoot on-site, in a place that’s foreign to them ... and figure out how to compose a shot,” said Joy Lai, photography teacher and chair of Penn Charter’s Visual Arts and Design Department; Lai, who joined the Penn Charter faculty this summer, also teaches Design Studio and Graphic Novel. Lai created a hand-drawn booklet to accompany her photography students on the trip, with a list of assignments for them to complete using different camera settings and design elements. The guidebook also featured a map of the park and surrounding neighborhood, and information about its history and future as a public works project.

PC photography students toured a quarter-mile section of Philadelphia’s new Rail Park, an elevated walking trail and public park built along a stretch of unused railroad line. If all goes as planned, the trail will one day be part of a more extensive three-mile park extending across 10 neighborhoods.

FALL 2018 •

CAMPUS CURRENTS

How Green Is Your Grass? Senior Hadley Ball won an essay contest and its $10,000 scholarship prize for a provocative examination of the environmental impact that Americans’ fixation on green, weed-free lawns has on the water supply. “Not only do lawns cover more acreage than any one crop, they receive 20 to 300 percent more pesticide applications per acre than agriculture,” Hadley wrote in her essay. The Pamela and Ajay Raju Foundation and the Philadelphia Zoo partnered in the contest, which invited high school students in the tri-state area to write an essay identifying a specific challenge facing water in our region— and with a specific focus on amphibians. Hadley’s essay pointed out that scientists use amphibians as indicators of water quality because their absorbent skin is extremely susceptible to toxins. Worldwide, more than 70 percent of all amphibian species are in decline due to disease, climate change, habitat loss and pollution. “This should be the time for humanity to own up to our flawed systems, and take responsibility for this man-made extinction,”

Hadley Ball with Pamela and Ajay Raju.

she wrote. A passionate environmentalist, Hadley is on track to receive Penn Charter’s new certificate in Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability when she graduates in June. The contest win also comes with a pledge of $5,000 from the Philadelphia Zoo to implement a winning solution. Hadley proposed outreach and education to lawn care

companies and community gardens about alternatives to herbicides and pesticides. Did you know that a bit of steam and boiling water delivered through a weed steamer device will scald a weed’s root system, causing it to wither up and die within 24 hours? Read Hadley’s essay online at ThePhiladelphiaCitizen.org.

PENNCHARTER.COM REFRESHED If you haven’t seen the new penncharter.com, visit today and enjoy the new look and new content. The redesigned website features PC students more than ever before: vivid video and photography highlight learning in and out of the classroom, the intensity of our athletes on the field and our performers on stage. And, on desktop or mobile, the campus looks as beautiful as you remember! The Living Our Mission section highlights how Penn Charter is advancing the goals of the Strategic Vision through the Center for Public Purpose, professional development in the Teaching & Learning Center, diversity and inclusion, environmental sustainability and an impressive Distinguished Speakers program.

•

FALL 2018

CAMPUS CURRENTS

AUDIENCE IN STITCHES For this year’s fall play, Upper School students staged two one-act comedies back-to-back. The production was directed by theater teacher Michael Roche and included several eighth grade actors in the cast. It’s Not You, It’s Me, by Don Zolidas, depicted hilariously awkward final moments of several ill-fated romances. The motley cast of characters included a Canadian secret agent, a bad-mannered clairvoyant and a young man who dreams of becoming a unicorn. In 13 Ways to Screw Up Your College Interview, by Ian McWethy, two admissions officers at a prestigious university were desperate to fill their final opening, but the applicant pool turned out to be less than stellar. The ensuing interviews served as a crash course in making a terrible first impression, and left Kurtz Center audience in stitches.

“ We Believe Peace Is Possible” Penn Charter’s Run for Peace, now in its 13th year, honors Kenny Caldwell OPC ’89 and Peter K. Ortale OPC ’83, two graduates who lost their lives in the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York. The event is meaningful and popular, attracting Caldwell and Ortale family members (shown below), friends and dozens of Penn Charter athletes.

This year’s remarks by Cathy Grimes, Peter Ortale’s sister, were especially eloquent. “We are here to honor Peter and Kenny. We are here to honor all who are impacted by violence. And we are here to promote the notion of peace. We are demonstrating that we believe peace is possible. The day before 9/11, we couldn’t have imagined 9/11. The day after 9/11, we couldn’t have imagined today. Seventeen years ago we didn’t know how to deal with our grief. And we would not be able to deal if we had to do it alone. Then you came along. Family, friends, Penn Charter. You carried us— and helped us to help others. To change people’s lives, to give a broader view of the world. Our healing has been moment to moment, then day by day, and now year by year. Thank you. Your act of kindness by being here today honors those we’ve lost and honors all of us. You will never know how much you have meant to us. The summer before 9/11, my brother sent each of us in our family a book called A Short Guide to a Happy Life. There is a quote that resonates with me: Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember—Love is not leisure. Love is work. But it’s worth it. Thank you for your love.”

FALL 2018 •

commencement 2018

With humor and nostalgia, student commencement speaker Ellen O’Malley recalled experiences that shaped individual students and strengthened the bonds of the Class of 2018.

“With athletic achievements at the professional level, countless prestigious academic honors, and even Jeremy Weiss’ incredible performance at Carnegie Hall, I can’t help but feel so grateful to be surrounded by such a gifted class. Remember this feeling of pride and sentimentality.” O’Malley entered Princeton University this fall.

Head of School Darryl J. Ford praised the academic, artistic and athletic achievements of the Class of 2018, and he praised their willingness to engage with the world and with each other.

“You have learned to speak your own truth, gained confidence and voice, respected one another even in the midst of disagreements, and experienced authentic joy—all while being active peacemakers and building community. You have been active peacemakers and built community. You have been active peacemakers and created community. You are PC community. And I hope that this Quaker community of Penn Charter has helped you to be in the midst of all things, and still find calm in your hearts.”

•

FALL 2018

Recalling the divisive presidential election and increased focus on race in America, student commencement speaker Anu Senthil said Penn Charter

“be exposed to opinions unlike your own. It is what makes Penn Charter great. We learn from one another, and we become better citizens of the world because of it. The Class of 2018 is not unique in the way that there is a multitude of opinions, but we are unique in our ability to still respect and appreciate one another despite it.” students can expect to

Anu Senthil is attending Case Western Reserve University.

Senior class president Jake Cutler presented the Senior Parent Gift to Penn Charter on behalf of the parents of the Class of 2018. Ninety percent of parents of seniors contributed, raising $176,421 to support professional development for Penn Charter teachers. Cutler is attending the University of Miami.

Reece Whitley won the Alumni Senior Award, presented to “a member or members of the senior class who, on qualifications of scholarship, character, leadership and athletic ability, exemplifies the best Penn Charter type.” Whitley is attending the University of California at Berkeley.

The Phi Beta Kappa Award, presented to the student outstanding in scholarship in the graduating class, was shared by Brian Isztwan and Anna Pogrebivsky, who completed their senior year with identical grade point averages. Isztwan is attending Harvard University and Pogrebivsky is enrolled at Georgetown University.

College Choices An end-of-year survey showed that 92 percent of students in the Class of 2018 are attending one of their top-choice colleges. More than half were admitted to a “most competitive college,” according to Barron’s Profiles of American Colleges.

Congratulations to the Class of 2018! Alvernia University Amherst College Babson College Barry University Boston University Brown University Bucknell University (2) Case Western Reserve University (2) Catholic University of America Clark Atlanta University Clemson University Colgate University College of the Holy Cross College of William and Mary Cornell University Dartmouth College Drew University

Drexel University (4) Duke University Duquesne University Elon University Emory University Fairfield University Fordham University (2) Franklin & Marshall College (5) Georgetown University Harvard University High Point University Hobart and William Smith Colleges Howard University (2) Ithaca College (2) La Salle University Lafayette College Lehigh University (2)

Loyola Marymount University McDaniel College Middlebury College Muhlenberg College New York University Occidental College Pennsylvania State University (3) Princeton University Quinnipiac University Rider University Saint Joseph’s University (2) Spelman College Syracuse University Temple University (2) Tufts University (2) University of Alabama (2) University of British Columbia

University of California, Berkeley University of Colorado Boulder University of Delaware University of Miami (2) University of Pennsylvania (11) University of Pittsburgh (5) University of Richmond University of Tampa University of Virginia University of Wisconsin, Madison Ursinus College (2) Vassar College Villanova University (2) Wake Forest University West Chester University (3) Widener University Yale University

FALL 2018 •

PC P RO F I LE S

The World through a Bee-Shaped Lens Jamie Lozoff OPC ’11 BY MARK F. BERNSTEIN OPC ’79

The first question everyone asks a beekeeper is, “Do you get stung a lot?” The answer, Jamie Lozoff OPC ’11 said with a sigh, is “Yeah, you do.” It’s an occupational hazard and usually the beekeeper’s fault for failing to wear a veil or protective gloves. But sometimes, the bees are to blame. “Some hives have gentle bees,” Lozoff explained by telephone from the village of Gyé-sur-Seine, about 200 kilometers southeast of Paris. “The ones I have, that’s not the case.” French bees, apparently, have an attitude. The honey bees found in the United States are mostly Italian honey bees (Apis mellifera linguistica), she explained. “They’re very chilled out.” In France, the more aggressive black honey bees predominate (Apis mellifera mellifera) and, with what might be interpreted as Gallic surliness, they are likely to attack anyone who ventures too close. Who knew? Lozoff knew because she has studied and worked with honey bees since taking a field research class with now-retired PC teacher Nora Comiskey when she was in 11th grade. The class visited a hive on the edge of campus tended by then-kindergarten teacher Joel Eckel and, as Lozoff recalled, “something special happened that day.” Holding the frames in which the beehives were built, Lozoff said she saw all the stages of life: the queen laying eggs, the larvae being born, the drones bringing back pollen to turn into honey. “It was sort of magic.” She and classmate Maxwell Bolno OPC ’11 started a beekeeping club, which in turn formed her Senior Comprehensive Project.

•

FALL 2018

Bitten by the beekeeping bug—perhaps “stung” is the better way to put it—Lozoff took a gap year after graduation and traveled to the south of France, which solidified two ambitions: that she wanted to pursue beekeeping as a career and that she wanted to

do it in France. Matriculating at Bard College, she chose to spend her first semester in Berlin, then transferred to the Sorbonne, where she majored in biology, specializing in the study of honey bees. She spent five years in Paris and joined L’Abeille de Grand Paris, the Parisian beekeepers’ association, when she saw some of its members tending hives in the Luxembourg Gardens. Working in restaurants to pay her bills, she noticed that many chefs did not know where to get locally sourced honey, so she started working with the hives in the garden of the Palais de Toyko and opened a small apiary about 45 minutes outside of Paris.

Resettled in France, beekeeper Jamie Lozoff OPC ’11 pursues her fascination with the intersections between insects, the environment, humans and agriculture.

PC P RO F I LE S Last year, Lozoff formed her own beekeeping business, Faire La Bees, its name a play on the phrase “faire la bise,” the traditional French double-cheek air kiss. (You can follow it on her Instagram page, www.instagram.com/fairelabees/). She also moved to Gyé-sur-Seine, located in the Champagne region, in search of space and forage for her bees that she couldn’t find in Paris. She now manages a restaurant, Le Garde Champêtre, housed in an old train station, and manages hives that serve both to pollinate vegetables for the restaurant’s garden and produce honey for the table.

Lozoff now runs her own beekeeping business, Faire La Bees, south of Paris, far from PC’s Strawbridge Campus, where she was first “stung” by the beekeeping bug.

Teaching apiculture classes to school children (above), Lozoff tries to raise awareness of the threats to honey bee populations worldwide.

Honey bee populations have declined around the world, but Lozoff stressed that the threat extends to all types of pollinating insects. “Large-scale agriculture doesn’t leave much room for nature to work in a balanced way,” she said. “It really doesn’t.” Lozoff tries

to raise awareness of these problems, and perhaps inspire others like herself, by teaching apiculture classes to school children. Somewhat like honey bees, honey beekeepers are a social group. Lozoff often invites friends to join her as she works, and enjoys taking novices because it forces her to slow down and explain each step. Last March, she and some Australian beekeeping friends visited Morocco to see one of the oldest apiaries in the world, located in the Atlas Mountains, traveling the so-called “La Route du Miel” or “Honey Highway.” Closer to home, Lozoff is working with local beekeepers who lack connections in

the major French cities and have more than six tons of organically grown honey they don’t know how to sell. “They are good people, great beekeepers, and they refuse to sell to major supermarket chains that are ultimately at the root of the world’s ecological problems,” she wrote in a followup email. Lozoff envisions developing a honey collective as a brand for “beekeepers who bee keep with heart!” “I’m really just moved to exploring the interactions between insects-environmenthumans-agriculture,” Lozoff wrote. “Learning about the world through a bee-shaped lens is a beautiful thing!” PC

FALL 2018 •

PC P RO F I LE S

Another OPC to Root For Mike McGlinchey OPC ’13 BY MARK F. BERNSTEIN OPC ’79

Mike McGlinchey OPC ’13 spent the fourth weekend of July the way all the best summer weekends are spent, on the beach in North Wildwood. There, surrounded by friends and family, including sister Mary Jane OPC ’17 and brothers Frank OPC ’15 and Matthew Class of 2020, the sprawling clan (cousin Matt Ryan OPC ’03 couldn’t make it) played in the surf and had fun. Everyone on the beach knows the family,

The Niners expect big things of McGlinchey. They drafted the Notre Dame standout with the ninth pick in the 2018 draft and rewarded him with a four-year, $18.3 million contract. So far, it is paying off. Through early October, he was the top-rated rookie offensive lineman, according to the website Pro Football Focus.

and the Eagles fans among them have made allowances for the red Atlanta Falcons jerseys the McGlincheys sometimes wear in support of Falcons’ quarterback Ryan. This weekend, though, there was another shade of red jersey, this one belonging to the San Francisco 49ers. Two days later, it was time for McGlinchey to fly out to California to begin his first NFL training camp, penciled in as the 49ers’ starting right tackle.

Though he has seen the NFL close-up, thanks to Ryan, McGlinchey was clear-eyed about how his first professional camp might differ from high school or college. “I think it’s gonna be a lot of football, maybe just a little bit more intense.”

Big Mike

Mike McGlinchey OPC ‘13 was spotted as an NFL lineman prospect when he was just 15. In his first NFL season, he is the top-rated rookie offensive lineman.

•

FALL 2018

The best nicknames are the ones that are most apt. McGlinchey has always been Big Mike. For a guy who is 6 feet 8 inches and 312 lbs., it fits. Big Mike is big. Really big—and always has been. He weighed 11 lbs. and was 23 inches long at birth and began playing flag football against fifth graders when he was only in kindergarten. By eighth grade, he was already 6 feet 5 inches. When McGlinchey was first approached about attending Penn Charter for ninth grade, it wasn’t clear whether he would focus on football or basketball. Indeed, he was in no hurry to specialize, even in football; eventually, he played every position except defensive back.

PC P RO F I LE S To his credit,” then-football coach Jeff Humble said, “he was such a team-oriented kid that he was always like, ‘OK, coach, whatever you need me to do.’” Opposing coaches didn’t know how to handle him. Humble relayed a story told to him by the Germantown Academy coach, whose team had lost to PC for four straight years. If we can keep McGlinchey from tackling our fullback and quarterback at the same time, the coach said, we can run the option on you guys all day. “Lo and behold,” Humble said, “Michael would tackle their fullback and their quarterback at the same time, and it totally destroyed their offensive game plan.” When football season was over, though, McGlinchey also played basketball and even tried lacrosse before track coach Stephen A. Bonnie OPC ’66 persuaded him to switch to track. As a senior, McGlinchey won the state championship in the shot put. Still, it was obvious where his athletic career would take him. When McGlinchey was only a ninth grader, Humble said, a coach from Boston College visited PC to scout another student. Catching a glimpse of McGlinchey at basketball practice, he stopped in his tracks. “That’s what an NFL lineman looks like when he’s 15,” the coach said. In the classroom, history teacher John Burkhart OPC ’72 recalled McGlinchey as a “meticulous writer, with good Catholic-school penmanship,” but also competitive to do his best. “He is the kind of guy, when it’s time to play and have some fun, he’s all in. But when it’s time to work, the switch goes on,” Burkhart said. For his Senior Comprehensive Project, McGlinchey decided to help teach that lesson to the fourth grade. Fourth grade teacher Beckie Miller Hon. 1689 said that the fourth graders that year were having trouble in recess, squabbling over whose turn it was or what games to play. McGlinchey volunteered to help them learn how to play better and still have fun. He

McGlinchey—affectionately known as “Big Mike” to his littlest fans—visited former teachers, signed some footballs and visited Penn Charter Summer Camps before flying off to California.

showed them how to organize their games and to make sure everyone got a chance. “The teachers were thrilled,” Miller said, “but that paled compared to the kids’ excitement, because he was Big Mike. He was literally twice their size.” When he returned to PC during college breaks, McGlinchey made a point of seeking out those kids. McGlinchey chose Notre Dame over Boston College, which Ryan and his uncle, John Loughery OPC ’78, had attended. He was a two-time captain for the Fighting Irish and a first-team All-American. Last April, McGlinchey passed up the chance to attend the NFL draft in person, choosing instead to celebrate at Giuseppe’s Restaurant in Richboro, surrounded by the people who knew him best. “You only get a very small number of tickets to the green room [at the draft], and my family is not small,” he reasoned. “So I was not going anywhere that I couldn’t celebrate with my whole family.”

After a quick stop at PC in July to see old teachers and sign a few footballs, McGlinchey flew off to start his new job. He used some of his signing bonus to buy a house in San Jose and had his other big purchase, a Chevy Suburban, shipped to California. Nothing too fancy. “I’m a pretty simple guy,” he explained. “I take care of what I need to take care of.” This season, Big Mike will stand out on his own. Family guy though he is, he is ready to do that. “It’s kind of been, ‘Mike McGlinchey, comma, Matt Ryan’s first cousin,’ ever since I was in high school,” he told a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer last March, adding, “I’m kind of thankful for that.” But from now on, playgrounds in Philadelphia will see a new shade of red amid that sea of Eagles green—and so will the beaches in South Jersey. “We now have two teams to root for,” McGlinchey said. “Unless I play the Birds, everybody in Wildwood is going to be rooting for me, too.” PC

FALL 2018 •

STRATEGIC VISION

GOALS 2 & 5

PROGRAM • SPACE WINTER 2018: History of Access

BY THE LIGHT OF OUR CHARTER

How far can we see?

Athletics and Wellness Academic Village Legacy Gifts

WE WILL DO THIS Penn Charter’s Overseers, for 329 years the governing body of this school, reached consensus in October on a plan to propel Penn Timeless: Inquiry and excellence. Charter forward with a campus transformation that will shape

the school for decades.

Architects are now finalizing plans for an Athletics and Wellness Center that will anchor a corridor of facilities and fields extending from the football scoreboard to the far edge of Strawbridge Campus.

campaign.penncharter.com 12

•

FALL 2018

The new lower school will be built on the site of the current Dooney Field House, creating an “academic village” that unites the three academic buildings.

Rather than build a new Athletics and Wellness Center in two phases, Overseers decided to save money and minimize disruption by building both phases of the facility at once, beginning construction in the summer of 2019. That decision advances the date when construction can begin on a new lower school, and it means Penn Charter will benefit from all of the features of the state-of-the-art athletics center sooner, rather than later. The Overseers’ Finance Committee recommended

Head of School Darryl J. Ford and the Development

the bold move based on several factors:

Office continue to solicit gifts for the other pillars of

FUNDRAISING SUCCESS.

The $75 million How Far? capital campaign has raised $68.1 million, and school leaders have confidence we will exceed the goal. Overseers themselves have donated or pledged $16 million to the How Far? campaign.

ENDOWMENT STRENGTH. Penn Charter’s endowment was worth $87 million in June 2018, and growing; this provides financial security as well as investment income and leverage for borrowing.

BEQUESTS. Penn Charter’s extraordinarily loyal and generous OPCs have pledged multi-million dollar commitments to the school that will become available over time.

the campaign — ongoing program innovation, faculty professional development and salary increases, and financial aid — but new gifts from alumni and parents who support athletics and wellness are now a priority. The significance of the Overseers’ decision in October is that they are confident Penn Charter has the resources, the momentum and the leadership to realize each aspect of our Strategic Vision and the campus transformation that will support it. As the board began its discussion on Oct. 1, Overseer Richard Balderston OPC ’69 expressed this moment in PC history simply: “It’s an exciting time. It’s Penn Charter’s time. We will do this.”

CHECK OUR PROGRESS: Visit campaign.penncharter.com to follow our progress and to hear from people supporting PC and the How Far? capital campaign.

FALL 2018 •

PUTTING SHOVELS IN THE GROUND Penn Charter’s campus transformation will

Examples of Penn Charter’s Strategic Vision

make it possible for the school to provide

success abound in our academic buildings and have for each of the last four years as the

a complete educational experience in East

curriculum changes to provide students with

Falls for the next 50 years and beyond.

knowledge and skills they need to thrive in the 21st century. The much-anticipated physical evidence of new construction that will transform Penn Charter’s campus and facilities to support the goals of that Strategic Vision appeared this August and, in a carefully plotted sequence of work, construction is expected to continue over five years. “There is such excitement on campus when construction begins,” Head of School Darryl J. Ford said. “I experienced this when we built the Richard B. Fisher Middle School, the Kline & Specter Squash Center, and the David L. Kurtz Center for the Performing Arts. Now, we are about to experience that same sense of excitement and

The new baseball facility on Strawbridge Campus will open this spring.

•

FALL 2018

growth. It is all about to happen!”

At their fall retreat, Overseers reached consensus on the funding and timeline for building projects —a comprehensive Master Plan—that will position Penn Charter to flourish on this 47-acre campus for decades to come. Those projects and their sequencing are as follows:

• Construction of a new baseball field began in August and completion is anticipated in spring 2019. • A new Athletics and Wellness Center, situated mostly on the site of the old baseball field, is scheduled to begin in summer 2019, following Commencement. Architects estimate construction will require 18 to 24 months, which takes the plan to winter or spring of 2021. • Groundbreaking for the new lower school in 2021, again following Commencement. A ribbon-cutting for the new, state-of-theart building could happen as soon as spring of 2023. “I am so excited about the spaces and the energy that will be created in these buildings,” Amy Gadsden, a parent and member of Overseers, recently told an audience of supporters to Penn Charter’s How Far? capital campaign. “Winston Churchill said, ‘We shape our buildings and, thereafter, they shape us.’ … with this campus transformation, Penn Charter will go from good to great and from great to excellent.” Architects and planners advised the school that the site of the current Dooney Field House was the best location for a new lower school. Locating the building there would create a vibrant “academic village,” strengthening relationships and collaboration, sparking ideas as students and faculty crisscross paths. The current Dooney site also offers enough space to build a new lower school with learning spaces inside and outdoors.

THE ATHLETICS AND WELLNESS CENTER WILL INCLUDE: • State-of-the-art training room, fitness center, wrestling room, locker rooms and meeting spaces. • Basketball courts not only for competition but team practice and physical education classes. • Safe, direct access to the track and Maguire Field, plus the front fields and Strawbridge Campus. • The new Athletics and Wellness Center will be a gathering space, a community hub and a place for all-school events.

FALL 2018 •

A domino effect cleared the way for a new Athletics and Wellness Center that is so much more than the field house:

PC ATHLETICS THRIVING

MIKE SIANI GRADUATES, GOES PRO

1) Old baseball field replaced by new facility across the street on Strawbridge Campus. 2) Athletics and Wellness Center on the site of the old baseball field. 3) New lower school on the Dooney site.

The Cincinnati Reds drafted Mike Siani on June 8, just one day before Siani processed with his Penn Charter classmates at Commencement for the Class of 2018.

The new center will fortify Penn Charter athletics and attract talent by providing athletes with state-of-theart training and competition facilities. And, Gadsden said, “It will focus not just on athletes but on the whole student and all students.” During the school day, before sports begin, the facility will get a full workout from physical education and health/wellness programs, both of which will have a home there. The expansion of facilities means that teams won’t lose practice time due to rain and it makes possible concurrent rather than consecutive practices— which means students can finish their day earlier and return home in time for family dinner. The timing for each construction project depends on the speed of the city’s zoning process and a less predictable variable: the weather. However, the school is ready.

PC baseball fans breaking ground: Rick Mellor OPC ’69, Ruben Amaro Jr. OPC ’83, Jane Evans Hon. 1689, David Montgomery OPC ’64, Jeff Reinhold P ’12, Duncan McFarland OPC ’61 and Darryl Ford P ’20.

This winter, as work concludes on the baseball field construction, architects are digging deeper into the plans for a new lower school. And the plans for the Athletics and Wellness Center that appear on these pages will be revised and tweaked between now and that fine summer day when Penn Charter puts another shovel in the ground to transform this campus.

•

FALL 2018

Siani, a dynamite defensive player, spent the next few weeks negotiating with the Reds and thinking about his future. The 18-year-old decided to have the Reds buy him out of his commitment to play for the University of Virginia and signed a $2 million deal to play for Major League Baseball. Siani quickly suited up with the Greeneville Reds, a minor league affiliate located in northern Tennessee. Siani caught, threw and ran to create a stellar high school resume. In his final season with Penn Charter, in 55 at bats, he compiled a .345 batting average, two home runs, 10 runs batted in, 20 runs scored, a .493 on-base percentage and a .509 slugging percentage. As a pitcher, he went 2-0 with a 3.94 ERA and nine strikeouts in just 5.1 innings. RedsMinorLeagues.com reported the deal to fans and said: “Siani is arguably the best defensive outfielder in the entire 2018 Major League Baseball draft. He’s got plus speed, plus range, and a plus arm. Put them together and it’s a dynamite package in center.”

THE REMARKABLE ’18

POP QUIZ!

In his Commencement address in June, Head

How many championships did Penn Charter athletes win between Sept. 1 and Oct. 31, 2018?

of School Darryl J. Ford praised the academic, arts and service accomplishments of the Class of 2018, and also summarized their remarkable four-year athletic achievements.

A. none B. 1 C. 2 D. 3 If you picked D, YOU ARE CORRECT. Before October was even over, girls cross country and soccer each won Inter-Academic League Championships—and girls cross country also scored the Pennsylvania Independent School Athletic Association title. For girls soccer (top), the championship under coach Darci Spencer was the fourth league title for PC’s girls soccer program since 2013. In the span of a week, girls cross country won the Inter-Ac and went on to dominate the Pennsylvania Association of Independent Schools Association championships, both at Belmont Plateau. The girls JV (shown here, bottom, with varsity) and Middle School teams also won the Inter-Ac, which promises more good times in the future.

“Athletically, you have won nine Inter-Ac championships in baseball, softball, boys soccer, girls soccer, girls tennis, boys track and field, and, most recently, girls swimming and diving, and an Easterns Swim Championship. You have won three state championships in softball; and football just had a 9-1 season, the first nine-win season since 1905. Twenty-eight of you will play a sport in college. Your individual achievements include All-American recognitions in soccer and golf; a basketball studentathlete who scored more than 1,200 points; accolades from U.S. Lacrosse recognizing service to team, school and community; a Sports Illustrated Kid of the Year; and, a recently-drafted baseball player.”

For game summaries and photos—plus PC/GA Day coverage—sign up for alerts from PC SportsZone. www.penncharter.com/sportszone

FALL 2018 •

STRATEGIC VISION

GOALS 1,2,3,4

QUAKERISM • PROGRAM • TEACHING • TIME • SPACE

Fourth Grade Runs the World,

ACHIEVES PEACE Students collaborate to resolve an oil embargo, a chemical spill, a famine and more. BY RAY BAILEY OPC ’09

A handwritten notice posted to the classroom door attempts to minimize disruptions of the mighty initiative underway inside. “World Peace Game in progress,” it reads. “According to official rules of play, visitors are welcome for up to ten minutes.” Don’t let the “game” in the title fool you. This is serious, important work. The World Peace Game is a geopolitical simulation and conflict resolution exercise staged last spring by Penn Charter’s fourth

•

FALL 2018

grade. Over the course of five school days, the Class of 2026 gathered in the Lower School IdeaLab for three-hour sessions as they attempted to save a fictional civilization from disaster. The objective is twofold: Resolve 25 interconnected crises before time runs out, and increase each fictional country’s assets from their beginning amounts. But executing that objective proves difficult in the complex, troubled world of the World Peace Game, where catastrophe looms on multiple fronts—environmental, political, military, economic. Over the course of the week, students, working as teams of nations and

international agencies, must design legislation, craft treaties and pool their resources and talents to ensure the survival of organized human life. John Hunter, a fourth grade teacher in Virginia, began developing the game in 1978 to engage his students with a more handson social studies curriculum. He refined it over the years and then made it available to other educators, who must first pass through his training program. The game has been played at schools all over the U.S. and internationally, by students in grades four through twelve. An award-winning documentary film called World Peace and Other Fourth Grade Achievements brought the game to greater prominence in 2010,

The gameboard was built in the Upper and Middle School IdeaLab using instructions provided by the World Peace Game. Some of the hundreds of small pieces, like the factories and boats that appear on the land and sea levels, were laser-cut in the IdeaLab from designs created by fourth grade teacher Maria-Odilia Romeu. Commonly available items like toy soldiers, beads and marker caps accounted for the rest.

and was followed by Hunter’s book of the same name and a TED Talk. When Hunter visited Penn Charter in 2014 as part of Penn Charter’s Distinguished Speaker Series, he gave a presentation to the fourth grade about his game. The fourth grade teachers took note of their students’ excitement and were intrigued by Hunter’s ideas. They worked with school leaders to bring the World Peace Game to PC. Teachers prepared during the 201617 school year to study the game in preparation for its inaugural run. MariaOdilia Romeu read Hunter’s book and attended one of his weeklong training sessions to become certified as a facilitator.

Sonia Duprez and Laura Valdmanis followed suit, completing their training in the spring and summer of 2017, respectively, using PC professional development funds. The teacher training included daily observations of a game in session, followed by seminar-style classes with Hunter, whom Valdmanis calls the game’s “guru.” One of the points Hunter stressed over and over, she said, was the importance of letting the kids take ownership and control over the game. “It’s a lot about the teacher letting go,” Valdmanis said. “We’re not solving it for [the kids]. If they’re interested and they can develop it, they’re going to get a lot more out of it.”

DAY ONE On Day One, the fourth grade gathers to review the game’s objectives and protocol, and to learn about each country’s unique inheritance of land, wealth, natural resources and conflicts. Students sit in a big circle around a fourtiered gameboard in the center of the room. Each layer of this towering, plexiglass-andPVC-pipe structure represents a layer of continued on next page

FALL 2018 •

FOURTH GRADE RUNS THE WORLD, ACHIEVES PEACE continued from page 19

the planet’s environment where conflicts play out. Hundreds of tiny game pieces are strewn across each one. Duprez, Romeu and Valdmanis take turns acting as facilitator over the course of the week, and all three bring a tasteful sense of gravitas to their role. They speak with formality and intensity, and dress more staidly than usual on game days to help get into character. They begin each session with a reading from The Art of War, the ancient Chinese military treatise (which Hunter recommends for its wisdom on “how to stay out of war”). Their performance proves crucial for creating a sense of immersion in the fictional world of the game.

PARENT TESTIMONIAL

by Lysa Puma P ’22, ’26

“Watching my Lev carefully and delicately consider his country’s resources and needs and negotiate with other countries blew my mind.

On Day One, Romeu holds the floor. “I’m sorry we have to play this game, but the adults have really messed up the world,” she says by way of opening. “Maybe you can help figure out how to fix it.”

was really fun,” says fourth grader Harper

She paces around the gameboard as she gets into the details of nations and resources, using a retractable metal pointer to indicate key areas on each of the board’s four levels— undersea, land and sea, air, and outer space.

role-reversal. Nathan—a.k.a. Mr. Legette,

Romeu’s audience fidgets and yawns. The kids are not yet rapt with attention as they will be in another few days. Immersion happens gradually. But this is by design. The World Peace Educator’s Guide outlines a seven-step progression in which students pass through stages of boredom and “overwhelming confusion” on their way to “mastery” and problem-solving prowess. That way, they experience a transformation of their expectations and an expanded sense of their capabilities over the course of the week. “In the beginning, the teachers were just saying the rules, but when we got started it

Roland after the game. On Thursday morning, PC parent Imana Legette reports being hurried out the door by her fourth-grade son in an unlikely secretary of state for the nation of Green Valley—was eager to get to school. He had important business to attend to.

DAY TWO Day Two begins with role selections. Valdmanis announces prime ministers and agency heads, then these leaders elect their peers to fill cabinet positions. A polite round of applause breaks out with each job acceptance.

“A 10-year-old’s ability to dig deep and analyze many world issues not only created a life skill but also showed how Penn Charter prepares our children to tackle complex situations. “I was painfully jealous, wishing I could have joined in the project.” The Top Secret Dossier contains all the documents students need to play the game: a vocabulary list, blank inventory sheets and budget records, templates for trade agreements and treaties, and the 13-page Crisis Report, which details the game’s core predicaments.

•

FALL 2018

FOURTH GRADE RUNS THE WORLD, ACHIEVES PEACE

Valdmanis gently enforces game etiquette during the proceedings, prompting her students to address each other by title and surname—Mr. Ward, Prime Minister Jacobs, Secretary Lin. The five organizations are the World Bank, World Court, United Nations, an international press corps and a group of arms dealers. The four nations are dubbed Green Valley, Springdale, Riverwash and Sandtile by their respective delegates. Everyone receives a folder labeled “Top Secret Dossier” that’s full of documents: a vocabulary list, templates for treaties and trade agreements, blank inventory sheets and budget records, and the all-important Crisis Report, with its brief, instructive summaries of the game’s 25 predicaments. After role selections, the group reviews each crisis together, working their way through the hefty 13-page report as Valdmanis reads aloud and points things out on the board. There’s an oil embargo, a border dispute, an incident of cyber hacking. There’s a chemical spill, a famine, a disagreement over undersea mining claims and a deadly drone attack from an unknown aggressor. The review goes on for some time. Around the circle of chairs, fourth grade eyes begin glazing over. Chins are propped up on palms. Valdmanis’ students are clearly still in the phase of boredom and “overwhelming confusion.” And rightly so. This would seem like overwhelming work for adults. So why heap it on fourth graders? Hunter believes the complexity and difficulty of his game ultimately drives more profound collaboration and more daring innovation. “What happens when individuals become aware of their own limitations?” he asks in his book. “One possible result is that they turn, with ever-growing enthusiasm, to the process of collaboration.” When they do, they realize that as a group they are “wiser,

Job appointments were greeted with enthusiasm during the role selection process on Day Two.

more creative, and more farseeing than any one person could ever be.”

DAY THREE

There’s also a practical aspect. Solving the real-life crises of our interconnected world will require collaboration and creativity in abundance. How better to prepare kids, who will one day inherit these crises, than with guided practice? The game provides an opportunity to develop valuable life skills—like flexibility, nuanced communication, empathy and responsible risk-taking—that sometimes go underdeveloped through traditional learning methods.

With all the preliminary information out of the way, gameplay begins in earnest on Day Three. The game alternates between two phases called negotiations and declarations, cycling through both a few times each day.

In the end, it doesn’t matter whether the solutions the students devise are 100 percent airtight, Valdmanis explained after the game. More important is the process by which they arrive at them and the skills they build along the way.

During negotiations, the kids confer freely with their teammates and with colleagues from other nations and agencies. They talk strategy, draft documents, negotiate treaties and consult the gameboard upclose. The room assumes the hustle and bustle of a trading floor. continued on next page

FALL 2018 •

continued from page 21

In contrast, declarations are a hushed, ceremonious affair. The fourth graders convene around the board and stand in turn, as teams, to issue edicts and submit documents for ratification. There’s a strict ritual to these meetings. As each team takes its turn, leaders stand first and announce themselves before inviting their colleagues to join them. The facilitator guides things along, and students keep track of the day’s updates in their Crisis Reports. While there are standing fines for talking out of turn or disrupting the proceedings, not a single one is issued. Early on Day Three, a declaration from Sandtile is challenged by Duprez. Though well-intentioned, the country’s pledge to “not drop any bombs” is insufficient as an official document, which requires careful language and fastidious detail. “Who does your country promise to not drop any bombs on, Prime Minister Garson?” “Everyone.” Duprez sends Sandtile back for a re-write; they’ll have a chance to submit a more fullyformed declaration next round. The first day of gameplay is not without success, though. The kids quickly learn from their missteps, and soon begin engineering viable solutions. Riverwash and Springdale develop a resettlement program, funded by the World Bank, that solves the refugee crisis unfolding on their shared border. Green Valley helps stem the spread of a deadly disease halfway across the world in Springdale by developing an antivirus from a plant that grows in abundance within their borders. The arms dealers begin allocating some of their vast material resources to projects in clean energy and infrastructure. You can sense the kids gradually transitioning into the phase John Hunter calls the “click,” as they begin to realize the power of their collective identity—and wield it in new and compelling ways.

•

FALL 2018

The press corps captured key moments in the declaration periods using point-and-shoot cameras and iPads, conducting interviews with politicians and agency leaders, and printing a daily newspaper.

FOURTH GRADE RUNS THE WORLD, ACHIEVES PEACE

DAY FOUR By Day Four, the group has gained some real momentum. Declarations are crafted with greater precision and confidence. Negotiation periods take on a greater sense of urgency. The kids have more fully inhabited their roles and embraced their responsibility.

Duprez cautions against premature celebration but issues no fines. Five days and 20-some crises later, her students have earned a bit of unrestrained celebration. Romeu later admits facilitating brought its own challenges for the adults. Besides the difficulty of keeping up with 25 complex, interconnected crises, she found the game’s tactic of “overwhelming [the kids] and then letting them tease it out” to be at odds with her most basic instincts as an elementary educator.

“Our first responsibility is to nurture and take care of these kids. So to sit back and thrust nuclear proliferation and conflicts about territorial waters and oil spills—to thrust all of that on them, you sort of feel guilty.” But the results speak for themselves. Against tremendous odds, the fourth grade achieves world peace. And with global warming, nuclear war and global financial meltdown successfully averted, the Class of 2026 was ready to take on its next challenge: fifth grade. PC

A whole new lingo circulates in the room. Words most nine- and 10-year-olds would greet with a raised eyebrow—audit, sanction, coup d’etat—have become part of the common parlance. It’s a fitting indication of how willing and eager PC’s fourth graders are to take on the World Peace Game’s challenges. And one thing’s for sure: this group doesn’t just talk the proverbial talk. That insurgency that’s been on everyone’s tongue all morning? Defused before lunch.

DAY 5 During the game’s final declaration period, excitement bubbles over, finally breaking the solemnity that has hung over these meetings all week. Three crises remain to be solved, and resolution of each one is met with whoops and cheers. At one point, a bona fide hip-hip-hooray erupts from Green Valley.

In the hustle and bustle of negotiation periods, the fourth graders brainstormed and debated their way toward proposals to present during the game’s formal declaration periods.

FALL 2018 •

STRATEGIC VISION

GOALS 1 & 2

QUAKERISM • PROGRAM

PUBLIC PUR PO SE

Reinventing Service BY JULIA JUDSON-REA

“True religion does not draw men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavors to mend it.” —William Penn The Center for Public Purpose was established in 2013, a formalization of decades of work and dedication by social studies teacher Jim Ballengee Hon. 1689 and colleagues to establish meaningful community partnerships and energize service learning, turning it from a “nice after-school activity” into a vigorous exercise in public purpose. Alyson Goodner and Sharon Ahram, respectively the new director and the assistant director of the Center for Public Purpose (CfPP) since 2016, have dug even deeper in the last two years to embed public purpose into the pre-K to 12 academic curriculum, develop community partnerships and boost student achievement. Today, the CfPP office still hums with activity and discussion, the thrum of energized students and adults. What is different is the expansion of ways students and adults

•

FALL 2018

can engage with the center—increasing participation among students, faculty and parents—and a renewed emphasis on the co-equal relationship between the school and partners. Quickly upon arrival, Goodner and Ahram worked with stakeholders to revise the center’s mission: The Center for Public Purpose engages Penn Charter students in community-based work by addressing some of the most pressing social issues in the greater Philadelphia area. The CfPP’s work aligns with Penn Charter’s Quaker values and curriculum and creates structures that inspire students to take ownership of their own learning experience. Through this process, students will gain the skills and competencies to live lives that make a difference. They also clarified the frame of mind, and heart, students should bring to public

purpose work. And they articulated the intellectual and emotional benefits students could derive from the engagement:

SKILLS AND COMPETENCIES Constructive Listening: Students listen to understand another’s experience and perspective rather than to simply respond. Intellectual Humility: Students are open to new ideas and are receptive to new sources of evidence. Lifelong Learning: Students seek formal and informal learning opportunities to ask questions, find answers and foster continuous development and revelation. Creative Problem Solving: Students see possibilities in problems and use their skills and resources to develop multiple solutions. Civic Responsibility: Students recognize their own abilities and believe they can have significant positive impact on the world. continued on page 26

FALL 2018 â&#x20AC;¢

They have established new partnerships, and strengthened longstanding partnerships. “Our relationships with new organizations are, mostly, side-by-side partnerships,” said Goodner. This emphasis means students and clients are on equal footing, with everyone involved contributing their perspective, abilities and experiences. Long-standing service traditions such as divisional days of service and bake sales for charity remain, and students across the divisions, and sometimes parents, engage across the city on those projects. “We still visit St. Francis Inn and serve meals,” Goodner said. “That’s deeply important work, and St. Francis has a need for that activity. The addition of new partnerships, where we are employing the side-by-side model, expands and diversifies our portfolio of service opportunities and further connects Penn Charter students to the community.” Today, the CfPP uses cocurricular work with faculty in all three divisions, extracurricular activities such as Days of Service and after-school service opportunities, and a community incubator to engage students, alumni, families and faculty in public purpose work.

EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES The heart of extracurricular programming continues to be the Upper School Service Council, which provides opportunities for students to collaborate with others to address social issues within the greater community. Andrea Guillen, a senior and a council co-clerk, said the council works to plan “discussions, activities and projects for the council that revolve around issues facing the Philadelphia community, the role of service at Penn Charter, and our place in the broader community.” In addition to their organizing function, council members engage in community service and volunteer projects around the city, encouraging their peers to do the same. “We try our best to make sure that the service we do is fun and motivating,” said co-clerk and senior Rachel Zipin. “This year we decided to make Service Council meetings more interactive by having one of our meetings focus on learning about a particular issue, and the second meeting be more focused on hands-on work.” As an example, Zipin cited devoting one October meeting to learning about and discussing food insecurity and the next meeting preparing sandwiches for a local nonprofit.

ALYSON GOODNER OPC ’96 Director Alyson Goodner OPC ’96 brings to her new position a background in social entrepreneurship and innovation in education that she honed at Princeton, Oxford and in her own startup. That expertise, combined with her knowledge of Penn Charter, expansive ideas, networking mindset and seemingly boundless energy, make her a natural fit as director of the Center for Public Purpose. Goodner meets regularly with Penn Charter community partners and with faculty to further the mission of the center and to strengthen opportunities for PC students. She thinks big, but also works at the ground level with faculty to develop curriculum in traditional subjects, and also empathy, responsibility, intellectual curiosity and problem solving skills in students. Goodner teaches sections of 10th grade Quakerism, and offers a summer course on Philanthropy.

•

FALL 2018

“I enjoy being a co-clerk because it allows me to combine my passion for serving others and improving Penn Charter’s contributions to the broader community, and it has allowed me to develop valuable leadership and organizational skills,” said Guillen. Cognizant of students’ full schedules, and in keeping with Penn Charter’s Strategic Vision goal to “reimagine the use of time,” the CfPP has found creative ways to engage everyone in service. Student-athletes often attend class, activities and athletic practice between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. daily. But, working with the CfPP, students and coaches have found ways to include service in practice, or maintain a relationship with a nonprofit organization throughout the season. [See Spring 2018 issue of Penn Charter magazine for stories on athletes and public purpose: “Athletes Driven to Service” about the Enable Basketball Tournament and “Passion Project: Sharing Love of Lacrosse” about PC girls lacrosse players introducing the sport to young girls in a nearby public school.]

COCURRICULAR WORK In the shifts Goodner and Ahram have made to the CfPP, most notably the duo is taking the ideas and principles of public purpose to where students and faculty are most—in the classroom. The goal is to have public purpose connections to every class, something still in progress. Goodner and Ahram have shared the mission as well as the skills and competencies in formal presentations at faculty meetings and in presentations in PC’s Teaching & Learning Center. “We want to meet teachers where they are in their interest in incorporating public purpose into their curriculum,” said Goodner. “Connections look different in each grade. What are your students interested in? What are they doing in class? How can we support learning?” Ahram continued.

When working with faculty on their course curriculum, Ahram and the teacher review multiple questions. “What resources can we offer the class? How can we connect with the community? How do we have learning happen outside the confines of the classroom? What are the resources that exist within Philadelphia and the nearby community that can be a place of learning and growth for our students?” Ahram said. When they work with faculty, Goodner said, “ the public purpose dimension is not in addition to what is being taught. We take what the teachers already are covering and approach the content through the lens of pressing issues in Philadelphia and the world.”

SHARON AHRAM Assistant Director Sharon Ahram also meets with Penn Charter community partners to create innovative partnerships, and with PC faculty to support classroom learning. She has extensive academic and professional experience in education, community-based learning, youth work, service learning and program management. Ahram is a sounding board for ideas, and, confident in students’ abilities to organize, manage and lead, she takes a collaborative approach in her support of student initiatives. In concert with student leaders, mainly the Service Council, Ahram is the maestro of organizing extracurricular service learning, and the major days of service such as the fall Louis T. Savino Upper School Day of Service and the upcoming Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service. Ahram is the 11th and 12th grade dean and coordinator of the Senior Comprehensive Project.

continued on page 28 Read about examples of cocurricular connections in the boxes throughout and about the Senior Comp on page 30.

COCURRICULAR CONNECTIONS

Third Grade Designs Hurricane-Resistant Housing

PUBLIC PUR PO SE

When Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico in September 2017, the class of 2027, then in third grade, came to school with questions about the disaster.

Once satisfied with their designs, students practiced their presentation skills and formally shared their thinking and results to a panel of faculty and Upper School students.

Their teachers encouraged the student-led discussions and desire to help, and called upon the CfPP to support the students in learning more about philanthropy, disaster aid and organizations doing good work to help in recovery after Maria. The class decided to direct the proceeds from its annual knitted-goods sale to four organizations engaged in recovery work. In the course of discussions, one student asked, “Why can’t we build hurricane-proof houses?” Enter Lower School technology coordinator Dan Stahl and IdeaLab coordinator Corey Kilbane. Working together, the classroom teachers, the CfPP and the IdeaLab coordinators considered what students already would be covering in math and other subjects and created a design challenge for the class. Andrew Evans OPC ’98, who designed houses postKatrina, talked with students via Skype about his designs, and the third graders set out to design and test houses made of simple materials that would stand up to high winds, high water and other hurricane conditions.

FALL 2018 •

COMMUNITY INCUBATOR In addition to students, the CfPP supports alumni, families and faculty in research, design and/or implementation of Penn Charter public purpose initiatives. This third area of CfPP work is broad. Penn Charter has continued its partnership in the Allegheny West Consortium, meeting with nearby public schools to share experiences and to do professional development together. The CfPP, in partnership with the PC Office of Diversity and Inclusion, has supported students returning from the AntiDefamation League and the People of Color conferences to share their revelations and their desire to learn how to facilitate difficult conversations. Responding to studentdriven interest in social entrepreneurship,

the CfPP advises QuakeMakers, an Upper School club that hosted a multi-school Shark Tank-style competition last year. [See Spring 2018 issue of Penn Charter magazine, “QuakeMakers Pitch Their Innovations”]

COCURRICULAR CONNECTIONS

Second and 10th Grade Build Peace Benches

PUBLIC PUR PO SE

Students in Monique Durso’s second grade class and Alyson Goodner’s 10th grade Quakerism class met weekly to discuss the history of Quakerism and what nonviolence means to Quakers. Their discussions focused on the query Head of School Darryl J. Ford posed when he announced the Peace Testimony as the theme for the 2017-2018 year. His query: “How can we be active peacemakers?” Many of the students attended kindergarten at PC and remembered the Peace Table, a hallowed place where children could meet to talk through disagreements. The memory inspired students to design outdoor Peace Benches. Their design placed the benches in a hexagon, connecting to the curriculum in two ways: the shape mirrored the honeycombs of the beehives second graders learn about from Joel Eckel, and the hexagon has the equal angles students in both divisions learn about in math class. The second and 10th graders manufactured the benches in the IdeaLab. The benches can be arranged as an outdoor classroom—or moved to suit individuals needing to work something out.

•

FALL 2018

Goodner and Ahram welcome all inquiries and are ready to offer their support, facilitate connections with local organizations, and especially to help connect to individuals with more expertise.

“The parent and OPC communities have experience and expertise to share with our students and larger Penn Charter community,” said Goodner. “We welcome anyone who wants to be involved to join us on campus or via conference calls to share their narratives and reflections on their work.”

working with the community to achieve impact. The best of teaching and learning is about helping students discover their passions. That integration, fast becoming the norm and less the exception at Penn Charter, is

REINVENTING CLASSIC

It originated with William Penn. The Center for Public Purpose is simply reinventing classic.

JIM BALLENGEE HON. 1689

An observer could look at many CfPP initiatives and projects and wonder: Is it an academic pursuit? Is it about community impact? Is it the expression of a student passion? It is all three. Service at Penn Charter is ingrained in academic pursuit. Service is about listening to the community and

why the CfPP has attracted the attention of peer schools eager to discover the passion behind public purpose at Penn Charter.

Jim Ballengee Hon. 1689, founder of the Center for Public Service, led service learning at Penn Charter for decades, innovating, partnering and elevating the program to national prominence. Ballengee retired from Penn Charter in 2016 but continues to volunteer with organizations in neighborhoods near PC. Ballengee often described Penn Charter as “a private school with a public purpose.”

COCURRICULAR CONNECTIONS

Upper School English: East Meets West through Community Dialogue

PUBLIC PUR PO SE

Sara Moses, in preparation for her new Upper School elective, East Meets West, brainstormed with Sharon Ahram about potential speakers and off-campus trips that would enhance the course.

With the goal of deepening their understanding of the course material and the world, students spent time unpacking the cultural dissonance and political tensions between East and West through the lens of contemporary literature and community dialogue. PC

Together, Ahram and Moses went less than a mile off campus, to one of the largest Islamic communities in Philadelphia. “We talk about global experiences, but students can go out the back door and learn,” said Ahram. Moses and Ahram met Quantella Azeez, owner of Modern Hijab dress shop, who helped set up a field trip for the students that included visits to the Germantown Masjid and school, a Muslim-owned barbershop and a halal food truck. They brought diverse speakers to the class, a professor emeritus of Arabic and comparative literature, and Akbar Houssain, a Penn Law student who immigrated to the United States from Saudi Arabia two days before 9/11. PC students also Skyped with students from Penn’s Muslim Student Association and Karim Zagha, a Ramallah Friends School graduate who spent his sophomore year at Penn Charter.

FALL 2018 •

SENIOR COMPREHENSIVE PROJECT PUBLIC PUR PO SE

Real-World Experience with a Public Purpose In many fine schools across the nation, students in 12th grade break from the classroom for a weeks-long experience in the real-world, pursuing a passion -- or a curiosity -- in settings like art museums, schools, law offices, advertising firms.

What now sets apart Penn Charter’s senior experience, called the Senior Comprehensive Project, is that each PC 12th grader must find a project that also has a public purpose. Last spring’s projects crossed the spectrum of professional fields, a testament to the diversity of students interests and passions. Three seniors shadowed David Jaspan OPC ’86, P ’20, a gynecologist with a holistic approach to women’s health; a group worked in the Phillies back office at the invitation of Matt Kessler OPC ’99 and learned ways to attract and celebrate diverse populations in Philadelphia; one student designed sustainable buildings with PC parent Zamir Garcia; yet another worked on issues of affordable housing and redevelopment in Germantown. The evolution of the Senior Comp is one example of the Center for Public Purpose (CfPP) effort to more deeply embed public purpose in the academic curriculum. Sharon Ahram, assistant director of the CfPP, who led the work, said the new Senior Comp is a curricular manifestation of Penn Charter’s Strategic Vision to “educate students to live lives that make a difference.” “Part of what it takes to live a life that makes a difference is to be able to communicate in different ways, in different settings, and to learn to navigate unfamiliar—and perhaps uncomfortable—situations,” Ahram said.

•

FALL 2018

Ahram felt the first year of the revamped Senior Comp was a success overall and also for individual students. “Kids went in thinking they might like one thing or found they didn’t have enough work, but they figured it out,” she said. “Success looked really different for different students.” Christmas Cotter worked at the Center for Creative Works in Wynnewood with Stephanie Petro OPC ’96, who is the nonprofit’s education and programming specialist. The organization is a unique work environment with a goal of developing creative work potential and cultural identity for people with intellectual disabilities. Cotter said she originally wanted to explore art therapy with a focus on wellness, and imagined she would set up a Senior Comp with a psychologist or psychiatrist. “But I visited and fell in love with Creative Works,” she said. Cotter spent the early days of her Senior Comp learning about the organization and then shadowed instructors. “Meeting the participants and talking with them about their art was the greatest,” she gushed. Caroline Chovanes worked in the Philadelphia Mayor’s Office of LGBT Affairs and had her hand in many different tasks, including a social media takeover and working on an event with the Independent Business Alliance, which is Greater Philadelphia’s LGBT Chamber of Commerce.

On a sunny day in May, the senior class gathered in worship on the very patio they would cross a few weeks later at Commencement. As a breeze blew through the trees, students shook hands in closure, as smiles and a buzz of voices reconnecting, sharing stories of their week, rose into the air.

Chovanes is active in the performing arts and and wasn’t sure she would like working in an office. “I was worried I would be bored sitting at a desk, but my projects kept me really engaged,” she said. She had the opportunity to meet people working on different mayoral projects, and she enjoyed the energy and discussions. Chovanes shared a desk with classmate Priya Ahmad, who worked in the Office of Youth Engagement and had been interning there prior to the start of her Senior Comp. Then Tom Freitag OPC ’16 arrived in their office as a new intern and Chovanes showed him the ropes. “It was like a passing of the baton,” she said. After his first placement fell through, Nasir Young worked at McKenzie Sports Physical Therapy and shadowed Craig Israelite, a top orthopedic surgeon. Young’s faculty advisor, PC athletic trainer Jessica Rawlings, commended Young for plugging away to find the right project after an initial placement with athletic trainers at Drexel University fell through. “We talked about how to take initiative in an office setting,” said Rawlings. “Once Nasir got into the swing of how the offices worked and moved, he had a great experience. He probably would have loved more time.” Chovanes also wished the Senior Comp lasted longer than four weeks. “You’re just getting in the groove,” she said of the four-week duration. “And then you have to leave!” All seniors are required to complete the 80-hour Senior Comp. Last year, students began work on their proposals in November, submitting formal proposals in February. This long process enables students to consider their interests and connect with potential host sites, often using Penn Charter’s network of parents and OPCs.

Ahram attributes the success of the Senior Comp last year, in part, to the support of the Penn Charter community. “There was a combination of parents sharing their contacts, and OPCs and OPC parents offering help,” Ahram said. “The value our community gives is endless, and the Penn Charter name carries weight across Philadelphia. That is priceless.” Student proposals are reviewed by teachers and honed into robust, real-world experiences for each student—experiences that connect to the academic curriculum, have a public purpose that addresses a local, national or global issue, and offer the opportunity to gain skills and competencies needed to live a life that makes a difference. During the four-week project, students return to campus every Friday to meet in small cohort groups—faculty-led discussion groups made up of peers doing projects in similar fields. Students sought their own readings to enhance their experience. “I read case studies and a PhD dissertation related to art therapy,” Cotter said. “It was good to come together to talk about our projects.” Philip Stevens, an Upper School English teacher who supported Ahram in the reenvisioning of the Senior Comp, was impressed that “students took charge of and navigated their own inquiry.” And, on the morning of Color Day, when the Senior Comp culminated with students presenting to small groups of advisors, parents and outside evaluators, Stevens was impressed again. “It was energizing to be in the room,” he recalled. “Students were sharing, asking questions of each other. There was obvious pride in what they had done and seen.” PC

FALL 2018 •

STRATEGIC VISION

GOALS 1,2,3

QUAKERISM • PROGRAM • TEACHING

Travel Teaches Teachers Empowering Girls in Uganda by Eve Schwartz OPC ’06

This year, I received a grant from the Penn Charter Science Advisory Board, a consortium of OPCs in science led by Steve Kron OPC ’79, to fund my three-week research trip to the Bududa Learning Center (BLC) in Uganda. The goals of my summer research were to discover why girls in rural Uganda leave education after completing primary school and to find ways to improve their chances of success after graduation. Girls living in Uganda face a number of challenges that can significantly impact their wellbeing, development and future. They are more likely than their male counterparts to drop out of school, marry early, have unplanned pregnancies and experience poverty. Girls attending school often face gender bias and discrimination in both the curriculum and from teachers, and schools often fail to provide them with a safe learning environment. Obstacles for girls are magnified within the country’s growing rural populations, such as those in the Bududa District of Uganda. Social scientists agree that adolescent girls hold the key to success in

•

FALL 2018

Middle School science teacher Eve Schwartz spent three weeks at the Bududa Learning Center in rural Uganda teaching health and reproductive rights, women’s empowerment and life skills.

the country’s race to prevent the population from tripling by 2050. The current population totals about 30 million people. The Bududa Vocational Academy (BVA) program outside of Mbale (about a fivehour drive from Kampala, the capital) served as an important connection during my trip. Founded in 2002, BVA provides microfinance loans, schooling to orphans, and vocational skills to its students, ages 5 to adult. Children of Bududa, a weekly Saturday program, provides orphans who have lost one or both family members to HIV/AIDS with the resources and skills necessary to improve their chances for success. David Kern, former director of Lower School at Penn Charter, and his wife, Karen Vaccaro, helped build the first BVA building in 2002. After leaving Penn Charter, David and Karen moved to Uganda for a year to volunteer as school administrators. While I was in Bududa, they served as my hosts.

The Foundation for the Bududa Learning Center, the nonprofit that assists with BVA funding, comes from a variety of Quaker sources, including the African Great Lakes Initiatives and Friends Peace Team. At Penn Charter, first graders learned about Africa with David, and Lower School students donated sneakers and clothing. In the spring, Middle School students gave a presentation about issues in rural Uganda and hosted a dress-down day that raised enough money to sponsor an orphan. At Bududa Learning Center, I taught programs about health and reproductive rights, women’s empowerment and life skills, and I provided students and teachers with curriculum resources for professional development. Every day I hiked two miles to BLC, on muddy paths that wound through mountainsides that were dotted with dozens of small earthen huts and small subsistence farms with cows and chickens. Almost every child and adult greeted me, mixing an English phrase that they all know with Lugisu, the local language: “Mzungu, how are you? Mulembe!” or “White girl, how are you? Hello!” For me, this represented the welcoming nature of Bududa.

and wellbeing. Karen, David and I also visited neighboring schools to develop our understanding of the myriad of challenges facing schools and students alike. I was most surprised to learn that each instructor teaches about 100 students in every class! Each Tuesday and Wednesday, before the afternoon downpours started, I partnered with Martha, the BLC social worker, and we journeyed up into the mountains to conduct site visits for the orphans of the Children of Bududa program. With Martha as my translator and guide, we evaluated caregivers on the cleanliness of their home and conducted surveys and interviews to gain information about the various types of obstacles that could limit a student’s ability to get to school. Typically, the caregivers are “aunties” or an elderly grandmother who is responsible for up to five young children. The BLC Foundation provides support to

the orphans and their caregivers through individual sponsorships. These donations provide a school scholarship for an orphan, and sometimes a source of income for a family. The goal is to reduce the number of challenges that students and families encounter every day, thereby improving their chances to graduate from secondary school. I am thankful to the Science Advisory Board for funding my research work at Bududa. I learned a tremendous amount about obstacles that women face in developing countries, and I plan to use this work to teach students about public health in seventh grade biology, health classes, and through work with the sixth grade food insecurity service project. Overall, this work and funding speak to Penn Charter’s commitment to embrace opportunities that push students and teachers alike to lead lives that make a difference. PC

Two days a week I taught English classes with teachers who were receptive to using games and inquiry-based activities in their lessons. During the afternoons, I conducted lessons on women’s empowerment and identity to students in the nursery school teacher training program. I adapted some of these lessons from Penn Charter’s Middle School advisory curriculum and others from Girl Up Initiative Uganda, a United Nations group that provides young women with education and economic empowerment to be leaders in their communities. A primary focus of my visit was on family planning efforts. On Wednesday evenings, a representative from TASO (The AIDS Support Organization) collaborated with BLC teachers who educated students about HIV contraction and sexual health

The Children of Bududa life skills class supports orphans who have lost family members to AIDS. Schwartz arrived with toothbrushes and toothpaste donated by her dentist.

FALL 2018 •

Travel Teaches Teachers

Charlie Brown Schools Hollywood by Charlie Brown Hon. 1689

Anyone who watches The Goldbergs, the popular ABC sitcom created by Adam Goldberg OPC ’94, knows that real people from Adam’s life become small characters in the show. Last February, I wrote to Adam asking when it was my turn. When would Charlie Brown, who taught Adam both math and English in PC’s Middle School, make it into an episode? What he wrote back was even better: His upcoming Goldbergs spinoff, Schooled, about teachers in the ’90s at the fictional William Penn Academy, would include a character based on me. Not only that, Adam wrote, but could I come out to California and help with the show? They needed a teacher in the writers’ room to keep it real.

At first, I didn’t even consider going. I’ve been a swim coach in the summer for years, and I love that job. Then my wife said, “Let me get this straight. You’re not going to Hollywood … to write a sitcom … with one of your favorite former students?” I packed my bags that night. Here’s an abbreviated version of the diary I kept for 15 days in August.

Day One:

Beanie Babies and Other ’90s Memories I got to Sony Pictures Studios, in Culver City, Calif., an hour early because I was nervous about getting lost. I sat outside the commissary, looking through old Penn Charter yearbooks to jog my memory about life in the ’90s. My first meeting in the writers’ room was amazing. Sixteen people sat around a big table as Adam and Marc Firek, head writer of the show, explained the concept and the characters involved. Each episode should show teachers doing what they do best: helping kids manage their way through the difficult world of high school. Every episode has to connect to the ’90s, so we were throwing out ’90s songs or movies or toys: Beanie Babies, the Macarena, Spice Girls, Titanic—anything that was big in the ’90s could be the kernel of a show. Charlie Brown Hon. 1689 gave a tour of the Middle School to former student Adam Goldberg OPC ’94 when he returned to campus last year. It was his eighth grade English teacher, Goldberg said, who first recognized his “spark.”

•

FALL 2018

The impressive talent in the room included a writer for King of Queens, an improv performer, a writer who reminds me of

Rose Marie from The Dick Van Dyke Show, and, of course, Adam. He has such a clear idea for his new show and how it should be written. He is still working on The Goldbergs, so he will have to trust the other writers in this room to create something that he might write himself. I can’t wait to see how that unfolds.

Day Four:

Should You Tip Your Jiffy Lube Guy? Every day starts the same: I go down to the swanky lobby of the Culver Hotel, where the Munchkins stayed during the filming of The Wizard of Oz, grab the paper and some breakfast, and I sit out in the garden doing the crossword puzzle. If only school could start at 10 a.m. I could do this every day! Then I walk the half a mile or so down the street to Sony Studios to go to “work.” Working means sitting in a room, brainstorming ideas for shows or how to make the situations funnier. The day is mostly laughing at side jokes or jokes about jokes. Friday was a crazy day because we worked so little. We got in at 10:00 and made small talk as we avoided reworking yesterday’s script. When anyone walked by the room, we would invite them in so we didn’t have to think about the jokes we are supposed to be writing. We managed to avoid working until about noon, then had the usual two-hour lunch break. When we got back at 2:00, we procrastinated some more. Long, bizarre conversations included “Should you tip your Jiffy Lube guy?” and “How much should you pay for a men’s haircut?” One writer is expecting a baby, and someone asked if he and his wife had chosen a name yet. Ten minutes of ridiculous baby names followed. When we finally stopped laughing, someone said, “That’s a good day’s work.” It was 2:30 and we hadn’t done a thing yet.

Charlie Brown’s teacher perspective and real-life stories helped “keep it real” in the writers’ room. From left: Schooled writers Vanessa Mancos, Breannah Gibson, Jimmy Mosqueda, Doni Muransky, John Pickhaver, Matt Edsall, Kerri Doherty, Charlie Brown, David Guarascio, Jonathan Howard, Vanessa McCarthy, Marc Firek, Michael Weithorn.

Then several of the writers went to a different room to tackle a rewrite of an earlier script. Marc tasked the remaining five of us to think about a teacher who had been pursuing her dream as a singer in a rock band. We needed to follow the line, “She started out doing small gigs, and then they got smaller.” We were supposed to imagine the worst possible gigs a singer could have. We spent an hour on that one small idea, and it was great. She’s the entertainment at a bookstore and people shush her; she sings at a county fair and cows moo her; she’s a singing telegram worker, etc. We thought up 10 or 12, knowing that they might use two or three or none. We were done at 3:30 and were sent home for the weekend. And yet, my brain was fried from overuse. Being a writer is exhausting.

time. Traveling is fun, but I miss Marie (my favorite traveling companion), and I’m a little intimidated by the prospect of 10 more days of this.

Instead of going straight home, I thought it would be a smart idea to walk several miles in the late afternoon sun in my jeans and sandals to a music store that would rent me a guitar. Not such a smart idea. But I got a guitar, and it helps me pass the

After the table read, we went back to the office to work on a Schooled episode called “She’s All That,” after a ’90s movie that Adam loves. At lunch, a few of the other writers and I walked around the lot where they shoot several shows, like Shark Tank and The Price

Day Seven: An A for CB

Today was the best day yet: a table read of the season opener of The Goldbergs. The cast read through the script in front of an audience of studio executives and other invited guests. The writing is hilarious, and the cast is fantastic. The whole room laughed at virtually every line. It was a thrill to sit right behind George Segal and see all these TV stars up close. It’s also amazing to see Adam in charge of it all.

FALL 2018 •

Travel Teaches Teachers Is Right. I now understand why they call it the industry—there are thousands of people needed to put on a show: construction workers, painters, set builders, forklift drivers. At one point, we turned the corner and saw an enormous billboard for Schooled. It’s really happening! We went back to work around 2:00, everyone pitching ideas for the show. It was a long afternoon, but a productive one. When it was time to leave, Andy, the writer of episode three, said, “Really good work today, everyone. You too, CB.” That just made my day.

Day Eleven:

Let’s Just Make It Funny Today we worked on episode two again, and once again it went in a new direction. A writer said, “I don’t know if this will unravel everything, but ...” And the writer of that episode said, “Don’t worry about unraveling; let’s just go with the best version of the story.” I love that. No one here is possessive about his or her own ideas. They just want the final product to be funny. Another thing I like is the way they pitch new ideas, and often someone else’s riff

Schooled, Goldberg’s new series about teachers at William Penn Academy in the 1990s, will premiere on ABC this winter.

on that idea is what works best. I rarely contribute, by the way, but the day before, I had an idea that they completely changed into something way better, but I felt like I got that ball rolling—even that is incredibly satisfying. At the end of the day, Marc told us we were going on a walk. We went to the soundstage where they are building the set.

Charlie Brown Hon. 1689 Endowed Scholarship Fund Adam Goldberg OPC ‘94 endowed a scholarship fund in honor of his teacher and mentor Charlie Brown Hon. 1689 in recognition for his dedication to teaching and the countless students he has inspired along the way. Just as Charlie Brown fueled a spark in Adam and encouraged him to follow his passions and turn it into a successful career, this scholarship fund will help support a self-motivated middle school student with a creative spirit. To learn more about establishing a scholarship fund, or about financial aid at Penn Charter, visit campaign.penncharter.com or contact the Development Office at 215-844-3460 ext. 110.

•

FALL 2018

We saw the hallway, the principal’s office, the music room (which looks exactly like Fitz’s old room 109). Then he said, “Let’s go see CB’s classroom.” Awesome.

Day Fifteen: My Last Day

It was my last day in the writer’s room, and I had learned a lot from my time in L.A. First of all, you don’t have to be loud and pushy to be heard. Also, you have to let go of your own ideas at times; something that tickles your funny bone doesn’t necessarily work for everyone else. I found it frustrating at times, but the writers valued the process of making an episode as much as they valued the product itself. There were some episodes that we completely finished, only to tear apart and restart the next day. Finally, I learned that good writers don’t care about personal credit; they just want a good story. I hope I can use these lessons at school this year. PC

Travel Teaches Teachers

UNWRAPPING A 20-YEAR GRANT by Naveena Bembry

I celebrated 20 years of teaching at Penn Charter by traveling with my daughter Gabi Bembry OPC ’14 across the globe to Japan to explore Quaker connections and the Peace Testimony. My trip began with a visit to the only Quaker school in Japan: Tokyo Friends School, a junior/senior high school for girls. As we visited classes, met with educators and toured the campus, we discussed our shared experiences being part of a Quaker school community. We were struck by the common threads stretching across the globe: portraits of William Penn and Benjamin West’s painting of Penn signing a treaty with the Lenni Lenape hang on the walls of both schools; Meeting for Worship gatherings; and the central role that Philadelphia Quakers had in creating both of our institutions. My pre-trip research revealed that the Tokyo Friends School was founded through collaborative efforts between the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and Inazo Nitobe, a scholar from Japan and a Quaker.

Gabi Bembry OPC ’14 and fifth grade teacher Naveena Bembry, with their dynamic guide at a tea farm in the hills outside Kyoto. An avid tea drinker, Bembry enjoyed learning about the different ways to grow, harvest, dry, roast and prepare tea.

I uncovered another fascinating Japan/Philadelphia Quaker connection when I learned that, after World War II, Elizabeth Gray Vining, a Quaker educator from Philadelphia, traveled to Japan at the request of Emperor Hirohito to serve as a tutor to his eldest son, Crown Prince Akihito. Vining published Windows for the Crown Prince, a book chronicling her experiences serving as the private tutor to the crown prince of Japan. She also was a children’s book author; her book Adam of the Road won the Newbery Award in 1943. After our time in Tokyo, we traveled via bullet train to Hiroshima to visit Peace Memorial Park, which memorializes the people killed and injured in the world’s first nuclear attack, on Aug. 6, 1945. As we walked around the base of the Genbaku Dome, the ruin of the former Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, we paused to bear witness to this remarkable symbol of resilience and hope. After the atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima, the Genbaku Dome was the only structure left standing in the hypocenter area. A short distance away was the Sadako statue, draped in the vibrant peace cranes that children around the world have made to remember Sadako Sasaki and the other children who lost their lives.

Naveena Bembry, center, visiting with teachers at Tokyo Friends School. Bembry received a 20-year grant, a PC professional development benefit, to help fund the trip.

The museum exhibits provided insight into the tragic events of World War II as well as the way the Japanese people embraced peace and worked passionately to rebuild Hiroshima, Nagasaki and their whole country in the aftermath of the war. The photos, artifacts and video testimonials of survivors gave life and deeper meaning to the pages of the history books I read in school that never seemed to capture the full magnitude of what happened during and after World War II. I look forward to finding ways to bring some of those powerful stories and voices into my classroom so that through authentic global connections we can deepen our understanding of history, conflicts and possibilities for a more peaceful world. PC

FALL 2018 •

OPC WEEKEND 2018 On a beautiful spring weekend, Penn Charter alumni, faculty, staff and friends enjoyed the OPC Weekend awards ceremony and reception, as the community honored Michael J. Ross OPC ’67 and Ilana H. Eisenstein OPC ’95 for their professional accomplishments, and Sandra B. Portnoy and William T. Quinn for their contributions to Penn Charter.

•

FALL 2018

ALUMNI

OPC WEEKEND 2018

Alumni Award of Merit Michael J. Ross OPC ’67 received the Alumni Award of Merit. His career spans 15 years in venture capital, following 21 years as a senior operating executive for leading biotechnology companies. Ross was the 10th employee at Genentech, where he worked for 13 years. He served as Genentech team leader for biotechnology such as Humulin® (human insulin— Lilly) and Roferon® (Interferon alpha—Roche).

Head of School Darryl J. Ford welcomed returning OPCs and provided a thumbs-up state-of-the-school report.

Newly installed Alumni Society President Rob Frieman OPC ’87, former president John Lemonick OPC ’79 and former director of alumni relations Ted Decker OPC ’78.

Ross was presented with the award by classmate Harry S. Cherken Jr. OPC ’67 on behalf of the Alumni Society. “Sitting in [the Meeting Room] as students,” Cherken recalled, “we would gaze at the list of alumni names on wall.” Citing Ross’s “distinct humility and overwhelming intelligence,” Cherkin said it came as no surprise to classmates that their friend would be chosen to receive the Penn Charter Alumni Award of Merit. “Thank you,” Ross said, “for the great preparation for the rest of my life: academic preparation, teaching the difference between right and wrong, teaching of the need to give back to society, and teaching the importance of taking risk. Taking the road less traveled, that’s me.”

Alumni Award of Merit recipient Michael Ross OPC ’67 with classmates Chris Allen, Harry Cherken, Michael Markovitz and Sandy McAdoo.

Mike Ross shared lunch and stories with the staff of The Mirror. Ross was editor of the student newspaper during his senior year at PC.

OPC ’08s Hannah Campbell, Derek Speranza and Katherine Damm.

FALL 2018 •

ALUMNI

OPC WEEKEND 2018

Honorary 1689 BILL QUINN Bill Quinn thanked the Alumni Society and Head of School Darryl J. Ford for the Honorary 1689 diploma. “My father always said to me if you love what you do, then it’s not really work, and I love being here at Penn Charter,” Quinn said. He praised the facilities staff: “This honor has my name attached to it, but without them I would not be here standing before you today.”

SANDY PORTNOY

OPC Vision Award Ilana H. Eisenstein was presented the inaugural OPC Vision Award by Matt Kessler OPC ’99. The new award is given to “a graduate of the William Penn Charter School whose exceptional accomplishments have brought distinction to their emerging career or calling.” Eisenstein, an attorney, worked for the U.S. Department of Justice for 12 years—eight years as a federal prosecutor and four years for the Solicitor General’s office, where she represented the United States government in the U.S. Supreme Court. Today she is a partner at the global law firm DLA Piper.

Assistant Head of School Beth Glascott introduced the presentation of the Honorary 1689 diploma to Sandy Portnoy, whom she praised as an early adopter of technology in her science classes. “Equally as important,” Glascott said, “Sandy was one of the teachers who supported the success of young women in and out of the classroom in those early days of coeducation.”

As she accepted the award, Eisenstein gave credit to her teachers, “They saw treasure in each of us,” she said. “They adopted the Quaker belief that everyone has Light within. ...Thank you for finding the treasure in each of us, and thank you for this wonderful award.”

Beth Glascott, Sandy Portnoy and Darryl J. Ford.

Ilana Eisenstein’s family, including daughter Sonia Scott, attended the awards ceremony.

•

FALL 2018

Portnoy said she was humbled by the honor and proud to join the ranks of the other members of the Class of 1689. “At Penn Charter I have found a way to grow professionally, meet new and interesting people, and feel supported in good times and bad,” Portnoy said of her 28 years at PC. “I have had the opportunity to try new endeavors, develop courses and hopefully endow students with a love of learning and science.”

The Class of 1968 celebrated its 50th Reunion.

At the OPCs of Color Brunch, alumni and students had the opportunity to share their experiences at Penn Charter and beyond.

Michael Iademarco OPC ’78, John Somers OPC ’78, Jane Evans Hon. 1689 and Victor Olshansky OPC ’93.

T.J. Ferrick OPC ’06, Jessica Kolansky OPC ’03 and outgoing Alumni Society President Brian Cash OPC ’00.

Ross Hibbert OPC ’58, Bob Morrow OPC ’58, Jeff Harbison OPC ’71 and Jef Corson OPC ’58.

More photos at www.flickr.com/penncharter/sets Head of School Darryl J. Ford with Kyrie Georgiou, Matt Byrne and Jim Grace, all OPC ’09.

FALL 2018 •

William Penn Charter School

Then & Now

1980

Charlie Kaesshaefer OPC ’71 (front row, third from right), began as a junior counselor at PC’s brand-new Day Camp in 1968. By 1980, he was training new counselors, including Debbie Fitzgerald, his future wife (seated next to him).

2018 42

Day Camp celebrated its 50th anniversary last summer. Kaesshaefer, longtime Summer Camps director (seated, center, with his counselors) hasn’t missed a summer. •

FALL 2018

ALUMNI

Class Notes

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

1689 Robert A. Gordon writes, “Fairly recent doings: began taking violin lessons again (after 50 years or so); hitting the gym (or vice-versa) twice a week; participating in demonstrations (as time permits); tutoring someone in English (Heaven help him); recently returned from a road trip through the Gaspé Peninsula in Québec (abstained from eating poutine); usher at several theaters (all within walking distance); and returned from a short trip to the Netherlands (avoided falling into a canal).” Ralph Gunther writes, “It was a pleasure to receive [the spring 2018 issue of the Penn

Charter magazine]. I loved the picture of Christopher D. Ball OPC ’89 on page 35. My first book, Giants in their Field, was dedicated to him and his brother, Garret C. Ball OPC ’94, and to Penn Charter, and is available in academic libraries across the USA, South America, Europe and Asia. It was awesome to encounter so many photos of Penn Charter, and of people who were important to me; people who helped me to become what I became. It is said that the past belongs to those who shaped it, but that the future is ours to make. I’ll be 93 on my next birthday, and my thinking continues to be reflective. Here, then, goes a huge aloha to Penn Charter, and a big mahalo to wonderful memories!”

Class of 1948 70TH REUNION

1949 Jay E. Helme writes, “Bonnie and I still live in Cape Coral, Fla., with a vacation trip annually to Newport, R.I. Our home, which we had built in 2001, is on a canal that was badly damaged in Hurricane Irma in September 2017, but is now being repaired. Our seawall and our section of Cape Coral, as well as other adjacent areas on the southwest coast, were badly hit. Our four children and their families all live in the North, two in Newport, one in West Chester, Pa., and one in Southampton, N.Y. They blessed us with six grandchildren. We have an array of medical problems and rely on many different specialists in New England and down here. God bless us all.” Harry E. Richter writes, “It seems these days that most of our activity is visiting doctors. I had an operation a few months ago to remove a melanoma, which they believe they got in time, but the follow-up is time-consuming and a pain. The summer months are a down time for us in our right whale work, but my oldest son, Matthew, and his wife, Lisa, have sailed their 50-foot catamaran from Florida to Canada and have sighted a few right whales on their trip. The bad news is that the new calf count still stands at zero for the 201718 season, but the good news is that the mortality count is only one this season vs. a total of 18 last season. Hopefully, this will not get worse in the next few months and our health holds up; we hope for a winter season in 2018-19 with lots of new calves to photograph and additions to the population figures. Best regards to all of our remaining OPC ’49ers.”

FALL 2018 •

ALUMNI

Class Notes

1950 Whitman (Pete) Cross writes, “I feel very fortunate to be running on all cylinders and able to know what I am doing daily here in Charlotte, Va., where I have been for 20 years, as predicted when I left college in 1954! Pickleball is one of my pastimes, something you all should try for the social interaction and to keep the mind and body sharp. It takes little physical prowess or talent … anyone out there into this? Over 200 dedicated courts for this at the “Villages” in Florida. Keep moving! See you at the next reunion.” William S. Kurtz reports that he enjoyed July 4th with his new granddaughter, charming daughter and great son-in-law in Alexandria, Va. “Off to our place in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in a couple of weeks.” Christopher W. Parker shares, “Janie and I are doing just fine—with Janie doing most of the doing. A bit slower, less activities and more naps. We shuttle between Chestnut Hill and Oxford, Md., where we’ve had a house for 25 years. A great spot, but had to give up the boat. Sad day. We also do February in Sanibel, Fla., where we’ve gone for many years. We check in with H. Curtis Wood and his wife, Bonnie, who now live in Naples. Looking forward to our 70th reunion in 2020, as I trust many OPC ’50 are too. By my count, nearly half of our class is still alive and kicking, so maybe we’ll have a good turnout.” H. Curtis Wood writes, “Bonnie and I (married for 64 years) are finishing our fourth year at a retirement community in Naples, Fla. Health is good and many opportunities for social involvement are offered, with tennis being my major outdoor activity. I am also finishing my fourth year as a lead-part singer in an off-campus, 40-man barbershop chorus. This entails many hours of learning the lyrics and notes

•

FALL 2018

for my part, which hopefully is helping to keep my brain healthy. We perform around town and have sung the national anthem at major and minor league baseball games in Ft. Myers. Bonnie and I have three kids and six grandchildren, one of whom will be married in October. Anxiously awaiting that first great-grandchild. I’m still driving my 2000 Mustang GT convertible (I’m a 30-year Ford retiree) and put my 1952 Chris-Craft “woodie” into the water of Squam Lake (Golden Pond) in New Hampshire last summer.” William M. Buchsbaum and his wife, Jill, a longtime trustee, were thanked for their philanthropy by the Museum of New Mexico Foundation. The couple have donated more than 300 pottery works, on display in the Buchsbaum Gallery of Southwestern Pottery. In addition, both Bill and Jill were recently named Santa Fe Living Treasures.

1951 Charles C. Rieger shares, “My last check on my bucket list was to hunt a grizzly bear. The hunt took place out of Sitka, Alaska, this past June. I was lucky to down a 900-pound bear, approximately 11 feet in height. It will be mounted in our great room at our ranch in northern Idaho.”

1952 George (Skip) Corson returned to Centre Harbor on Lake Winnipesaukee, N.H. While there, many children and grandchildren visited for their usual family get-togethers. In addition, Skip and Penny spent a week on a lake in Maine near Penny’s childhood home of Camden, Maine. C. Richard Cryer spent the summer at Orleans, Cape Cod—right on the water!

Wayne G. Brown OPC ’51 writes, “Recently, I had a solo exhibition at Media Arts Council—36 pieces of art. The show was labeled Wayne Brown (1933 - ) The First Seventy Years. This goes back to 194651, when I was a student of Ollie Nuse. Since then I’ve continued painting and sculpture, with some 25 awards since 1988 on top of earlier ones while at PC. While my 84-year-old knees are creaky, my brain remains creative. Last year, I was the subject of two articles in the Schuylkill Valley Journal Online, issues 4 and 5; they are still online, with photos.”

ALUMNI

Class Notes Frank F. Embick and his wife, Anna, after Hurricane Harvey, sold their house— or what was left of it—and bought a 1,500-sq.-ft. condo located on the 13th floor of a remodeled building. Colson H. Hillier and wife Pat (pictured below) made a life-changing pilgrimage in June to the Holy Land, “where we walked in the footsteps of Jesus. We got re-baptized in the River Jordan, floated in the Dead Sea and renewed our wedding vows in Cana (just a little before our 50th anniversary next February).”

been part of the Not-So-Modern Jazz Quartet Plus, playing at St. Elmo’s Coffee Pub in Alexandria, Va. They bring a ton of energy to every song. They have hundreds of songs under their belts.” As Mike says: “This keeps me alive. Margo and I have had a great (if hot and rainy) summer here in the Washington, D.C. area.” They enjoyed a wonderful four-day visit to Thousand Island Park, N.Y. “We stayed in the Wellesley (Victorian) Hotel, went to Canada twice and had just wonderful meals. We visited the folks who bought our cottage there last summer, and we’re thoroughly pleased with the few changes (for the better) they’ve been making. We’ll be going back up in the fall to spend a week there, at their invitation.” David E. Smith reports that he is recovering from an inexplicable collapse of the left knee. “Multiple complications landed me in the hospital and rehab for three months. Grandkids like Grace and Kendall (pictured)—there are seven in all—Lee and four daughters are helping me recover.

David M. Jordan is “waiting for my biography of Robert Lovett to come out; it’s scheduled now for December, but the publisher has put an awful price on it.” (This will be his 12th book, including the second edition of his Phillies book). “Otherwise, Jean and I had a pretty quiet summer, watching the Phillies be a contender for the first time in years.” William J. McGuckin and his wife, Carol, enjoyed the summer—and family visits—at their “second home” on Lake Cupsuptic near Rangeley, Maine. Daughter Cathy is also a “Mainer,” living in Harpswell (near Portland). In the fall, they plan to reside at Foulkeways, an active retirement community in Lower Gwynedd, Pa. Michael P. Ritter is one of our most active classmates, reports a friend. “Every Thursday, for the last 17 years, Mike has

parade in the little red 1909 Hupmobile, where we rode along and waved to Janet and F. Bruce Waechter! Then we visited son Joseph B. (Jay) Van Sciver OPC ’96 and family at their new country house in Western Connecticut. We helped celebrate granddaughter Auden’s sixth birthday with older sister Elodie, now 9, and baby brother Beckett, now 2 1/2 years, in tow.” Joe is still working on antique cars, and Carol is still teaching piano. F. Bruce Waechter and Janet made a short excursion in August to Minnesota, where daughter Jill and family reside, although their Minnesota grandson is a senior at Haverford College. They enjoy family visits, but with their three children living in three different states, and five of nine grandchildren in different states (including grandson Dan, whose wife is expecting in Seattle, and grandson Tim, who is getting married in March and living in Denver), their time with family is somewhat limited. It helps that there are four grandchildren and a great-granddaughter nearby in the Philadelphia area.

1953

Joseph B. Van Sciver and Carol’s “late spring and summer were filled with visits of friends, family, parties, picnics and of course the Oreland, Pa., 4th of July

William H. Bux writes, “On Saturday, May 5, 10 members of our class gathered for our 65th reunion at the Philadelphia Cricket Club in Chestnut Hill. Those in attendance were Tay and Robert R. Adams, Marianne and William H. Bux, William M. Felton, Richard L. Geyer, Richard P. Graff, Naomi and Philip E. Lippincott, Jan and William E. Lutz, Anne and George Lyons, Patience and Charles S. Rockey, and Edward W. Veit. Due to conflicts and other last-minute issues, a number of others were unable to join us. A reception provided the opportunity to meet, greet and catch up. Following the reception, we dined on meals that were most delicious.”

FALL 2018 •

ALUMNI

Class Notes

Class of 1953 65TH REUNION

1958 William A. Graham IV has been awarded Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award for the greater Philadelphia region, receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award. In its 32nd year, EY honors entrepreneurs who not only create and build marketleading businesses but also help take the standard of excellence to new heights, transform the face of the industry, create jobs and contribute to the vibrancy of communities.

1959 1955 William T. Commons and Sharon are snowbirds now, spending six months in Avon Park, Fla., and the other six in Hague, N.Y., on northern Lake George. Bill teaches Bible study in small Baptist churches in both locations. Though pushing 81, he is in good health and enjoying his 54th year of marriage to Sharon. John L. MacWilliams writes, “Loved PC. We had great athletic teams, including one of the top football programs in the Philadelphia area in 1954—think number one or two in Philly. We also played basketball against Wilt Chamberlain at Overbrook. Things change. Life goes on. At 81, I still think about those days. We didn’t have girls then … but they weren’t far away, either. We live in Delaware in a 1773 national historic mill (pictured), which was attacked by the British in September 1777. Its history is similar yet different from Penn Charter’s early days in colonial Philadelphia. John Dickinson is on our deed. PC (Col. Clifton Lisle) taught me to write but not to hit a 100 mph Ollie Powers OPC ’56 fastball. I spend my time now doing technology broad maps for the

•

FALL 2018

electronics industry and as a member of the FBI InfraGard program to protect the homeland.

David P. Kollock writes, “My new grandson, Alexander, was born on Feb. 11, 2018. His older sister Sophie, age 3, is his new pal. Other granddaughter, Madeleine, is 9 and lives in San Francisco. “

1961

1956 Martin B. Schneider writes, “Life is still pretty good around here, although age is slowing us down and my wife, Jeanne, is having back trouble. We are lucky to have a dog-walking neighborhood so we get reasonable activity and know lots of dogs—some people, too! Our sons and our granddaughter live reasonably close to us. We were lucky we bought our house here in 1967, as its value has multiplied by about 100. We would be on the street if we did not have a tax law that prevented a like hike in taxes. Cheers to all of us.”

David L. Geyer writes, “Enjoying life with our dog pals at the farm outside Cleveland (pictured). Met with Herbert S. (Pug) Winokur, Raymond W. Vickers and John J. Hohenadel for our annual Christmas lunch in Greenwich and visited with Leonard C. Schwarz in Palo Alto in July. Off to Provence, Paris and Amsterdam in October and Kiawah in January.”

ALUMNI

Class Notes

1962

1963

From left: William F. MacDonald, George E. Meagher, Thomas F. Strickland, George C. Neslie, Frederick R. Glazier, Michael B. Petosa and Stephen W. Simpson, all OPC ’62, enjoyed cheering their alma mater at PC/GA Day in 2017.

Charles Kurz writes, “Please enjoy these two photos from the class of 1963. At the top, classmate Richard M. Dearnley and me, taken following the annual Longport Mile race at the seashore on July 4, 2018; Dick and I were both medal winners again this year for our age group! The photo at the bottom is with classmate Paul R. Kroekel, taken in Scottsdale, Ariz., where Paul and his wife, Janice, have relocated from Santa Barbara, Calif.

Thomas F. Strickland OPC ’62 and George C. Neslie OPC ’62 share Thanksgiving dinner with their families each year.

Class of 1963 55TH REUNION

Robert E. Brickley writes, “If not now, when? … Our theme, to appeal to the Class of ’63 to attend our 55th.) Eleven loyal souls showed up. James T. Dimond ... trim, looking good; Charles L. Burrall ... what a pro, looking good; Richard J. Scarlett … off on an equestrian experience with Darryl Ford, and also looked great! All of the following? Lookin’ good too, of course! Thomas H. Magid … still available for investment counsel; Jonathan M. Grohsman …proudly sharing pics of his young son (way to go, Jon!); James M. Smartt … spending lots of time on Sea Island; John Curtin … hilarious as ever even though he’s cleaned his jokes up since our 50th; Richard J. Gilkeson … his sports stories were a highlight; Charles Kurz … his creation, our Class of ’63 Scholarship

FALL 2018 •

ALUMNI

Class Notes Fund, has grown so that we now support two deserving PC students; Douglas S. Little with wife Nan shared the great experiences they have had traveling far and wide; and me, Bob Brickley … doing great. Also attending were Darryl J. Ford, Jack Rogers Hon. 1689, Stephanie Ball and the irrepressible George “Buff” Weigand Hon. 1689, who at age 90 looked the best of us all. Next? Our 60th. “If not then, when? … Looking forward to seeing you all looking so good at our 60th.”

1965 Georg Jarzembowski reports, “After 18 years as a member of the European Parliament for my home city of Hamburg and four years as a consultant for the European Commission, I am now rather retired, practicing as an attorney-at-law on special cases of the law of the European Union. Now and then I give lectures on and participate in study groups of European affairs. My wife, Gabriela, and I, as well as our son, Daniel Jarzembowski, Class of 2011, still live in Hamburg. Daniel finished law school two years ago, has just finalized his doctoral thesis on corporate law while being an academic assistant at the Bucerius Law School, Hamburg, and just started his legal internship at the Hanseatic Court of Appeals of Hamburg. His heart is very close to Philadelphia: he attended Penn Charter for half a year in 2008; he did research studies for his thesis at the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 2017; and he, like Gabi and I, have many friends in the area. As a former Parliamentarian and as a jurist, I keenly follow the European and global political developments. Thus I am somewhat worried about the German-U.S. relationship under President Donald Trump and even more worried about the exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union in spring 2019. I very much deplore Brexit, which will primarily be very hard for the U.K.—yet it is its own free choice.”

•

FALL 2018

1966 Randal J. McDowell is self-employed and continues to practice law in Jenkintown, Pa. John T. Ort continues to practice law from the Chalfont, Pa., office of Semanoff Ormsby Greenberg & Torchia, specializing in estate and trust law. James Q. Stevens, after a 40-year career in the insurance industry, volunteers for All Vets USA, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit providing hands-on services to vets.

Allen F. Steere is chairman of the board of the Ivy Hill Foundation, a nonprofit providing therapeutic equestrian programs to over 150 disabled individuals in Bucks and eastern Montgomery Counties. Robert W. Ulmer is chair of both the Administrative Council and the Finance Committees of the Jenkintown United Methodist Church, where he has been a member since 1972.

Several members of the Class of 1966 recently connected. From left: Robert W. Ulmer, John T. Ort, James Q. Stevens, Allen F. Steere and Randal J. McDowell, all OPC ’66.

Class of 1968 50TH REUNION

ALUMNI

Class Notes

1968

Class of 1973

Kenneth J. Young writes, “This is my first grandchild, Lucy, born on Oct. 1, 2017, having fun playing the piano.”

45TH REUNION

1970 Thomas R. Field, Glenn J.R. Whitman and Edward R. (Ted) Over met up this spring in Seattle and sailed on a 50-ft. boat. “We bored our wives with OPC stories, braved the rainy skies and counted our blessings in all things. We welcome all OPCs to contact us if they’re visiting the Pacific Northwest.”

1971 David W. Doelp writes, “Quite a bit has happened over the last two years. In 2016, both of my kids were married within five months of each other. On Aug. 20, 2017, my wife and I became first-time grandparents when my daughter gave birth to a son, Michael (pictured).”

1973

from FedEx, and their three labradors,

Frederick H. (Rick) Bartlett writes, “I continue to work at Abington Hospital in the Ob-Gyn Department. My role is as an instructor/supervisor for our 20-resident ob-gyn residency program. My wife, Melanie, and I have three children, all of whom graduated from Penn Charter. We are very fortunate to currently have four grandchildren! As I approach retirement, I look forward to participating in activities at Penn Charter.”

all his electronic advertising. He welcomes

Joseph L. Loughran Jr., a realtor with Long & Foster in Bethany Beach, Del., is licensed to sell real estate in Delaware, Maryland and Virginia, but his focus is in Sussex County, Del., AKA Lower Slower Delaware. He lives in Ocean View, Del., with partner Joe Bass, recently retired

back on my time at School House Lane, and

Brady, Taylor and Barney, who join Joe in visiting classmates and other OPCs! “The real estate taxes are low here and the sales tax is 0.0%!”

1977 Alexander (Alex) S.M. Gibson writes, “As I read the Penn Charter magazine and learn about today’s PC, it gave me cause to think the 40+ years since. I thought about the fact that I have been in an enjoyable career that is culminating with a job making me work at my fullest capacity, and with my greatest professional joy. These reflections made me realize what role PC played in my

FALL 2018 •

ALUMNI

Class Notes life, and I find myself saying, ’Hey, good instruction really IS better than riches.’ “For these reasons, I am pleased to report that in June I began my sixth year as the national sales director for RV Shipping, LLC. We are a freight forwarder primarily specializing in the international shipment of oversized construction equipment. Daily, I am using years of problem-solving business skills to build a company, and I am very happy. I strongly believe that I could not have done this without the total experience I was blessed to receive early on from my time at Penn Charter. “My greatest joy and accomplishments come from being a husband, father and now grandfather (see photo below). Here, too, Penn Charter and the reflective time spent at weekly Friends Meeting provided a further foundation of what true ’riches’ are all about. “So thank you Penn Charter. And to graduates new and old I say: Go out and enjoy the riches from our great instruction! I have.”

1980 Daniel H. Kropp recently joined Lincoln Financial Group as VP, business resilience and employee security.

•

FALL 2018

Class of 1978 40TH REUNION

“The class of 1978 held our 40th reunion on May 5,” Paul C. Mancini reported. “Twenty one classmates, an OPC ’79, a few wives and girlfriends, and former teacher and coach William (Hank) Resch OPC ’71, gathered at Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steak House in Philly for great food and beverages and most importantly, camaraderie and memories. In addition, a few of our classmates who could not make it had a mini-reunion in Florida. Everyone had a terrific time, and we all agreed that five years is too long to wait to see each other again. So please stay tuned for upcoming unofficial and other mini-reunions.”

ALUMNI

Class Notes

Class of 1983 35TH REUNION

1986 David M. Jaspan writes, “I have been the chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology for the Einstein Healthcare Network since 2013. In July of 2018, I was elected to chair the Obstetrics and Gynecology Resident Review Committee for the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. This committee accredits all residencies and fellowships in the field of ob-gyn. My son, Luke, is a junior at PC.”

1988 Nigel T. Richards notes, “After traveling around for a couple decades (yikes) DJing techno, I have settled down and been heavily involved

1984 David C. Berkoff was inducted into the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame on Nov. 1, 2018. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported, “Berkoff changed the world of swimming when he introduced his ‘Berkoff Blastoff’—a new way to speed off the starting blocks—as a backstroker in the 1980s. He attended Penn Charter and matriculated to Harvard, where he won a number of Ivy League individual titles. He won two gold medals as part of relay teams in the 1988 and 1992 Olympics, as well as a silver medal in 1988 and a bronze in 1992, both in the 100-meter backstroke.”

Class of 1988 30TH REUNION

FALL 2018 •

ALUMNI

Class Notes in Philadelphia-area real estate as a Realtor and a developer. Recently, my wife, Nicole, my 3.5 year old son, Jett, and I made the jump from the city where I always lived to the land of grass in Wyndmoor, and I am surprisingly loving it. I love catching up with classmates and would love to hear from any and all of you (nrichards@cbpref.com)! Yes, I still love a good bow tie. Some things never change!”

1990 Derek E. Jokelson writes, “I continue to practice law with my brother David E. Jokelson OPC ’87 in our Center City practice, Jokelson Law Group, P.C. In July 2018, I had the honor of being appointed the president of the Board of Trustees at The Philadelphia School, a pre-K through eighth grade independent progressive-education school. I have been serving on the TPS board since 2010. As part of my new position, I recently attended a training facilitated by Earl J. Ball Hon. 1689 and had a wonderful time reconnecting with my former headmaster. Finally, my nephew, Zachary L. Jokelson, graduated from PC in June 2018.

1994

Class of 1993 25TH REUNION

Mark Eastburn, who teaches science at Riverside Elementary School in Princeton, N.J., led students in an effort to have the rare, endangered bog turtle named New Jersey’s official state reptile. Mission accomplished! The tiny turtle beat out the eastern milk snake, and Gov. Phil Murphy signed the bill in June.

1995 Ariel (Gordon) Bernstein has written two new books: Warren & Dragon 100 Friends and Warren & Dragon Weekend with Chewy. The books, published by Penguin Random House, are available in hardback, paperback and Kindle, and are suitable for beginning chapter-book readers.

Thomas A. Vizza OPC ’90 shares, “In June I had the privilege of being the commencement speaker for Springfield Township High School. Along with my daughters and mother, the privilege was all the more special by having Jack Rogers Hon. 1689 and Pam Ball Hon. 1689 in the audience supporting me, as they have done my whole life.” Pictured: Pam Ball Hon. 1689, Carmela Vizza, Tom Vizza OPC ’90, Julia Vizza, Lydia Vizza and Jack Rogers Hon. 1689.

•

FALL 2018

ALUMNI

Class Notes

2006

Class of 2003

Jeffrey Torchon hosts his own radio show called Exploring Cuban Music every Thursday, 5-6 pm, on a new internet-based radio station @USALAMEDIA. Listen at player.usalaradio.com.

15TH REUNION

2007 Marguerite (Walters) Adzick has launched Addison Bay, a shopping website that features high-performance women’s activewear from multiple sporting brands.

2003 Anthony E. McDevitt OPC ’03 (left) and Aaron M. Greenfield OPC ’02 met at the White House to celebrate the Eagles Super Bowl victory.

our financial services agency here on the East Coast now. Can’t wait to reconnect with all the OPCs.”

2008 Michael D. Massaro has assumed duties as operations officer on the USCGC Tampa, stationed in Norfolk, Va. He is third in command of the ship, responsible for navigation and supervision of radar and sonar operations.

2010 Austin B. Wood writes, “A group of us from 2009 and 2010 went to visit Drew Bonus OPC ’09 in Colorado over Memorial Day weekend this year for some hiking and

Class of 2008 10TH REUNION

2004 Christopher R. Mouzon writes, “My wife, Zahraa, and I moved moved back to Philadelphia from Los Angeles with our 14-month-old daughter, Zameena, this August. We’re in business together, building

FALL 2018 •

ALUMNI

Class Notes outdoor excursions. It was an absolute blast. From left: Joseph A. Acquaviva OPC ’10, Anthony Lordi OPC ’10, James H. Grace OPC ’09, Benjamin Cooper OPC ’09, Drew Bonus and Austin B. Wood OPC ’10.

2011 Danielle Bembry and Gabi Bembry OPC ’14 attended Columbia University Teachers College’s Social Justice Saturday event with their beloved fifth grade language arts teacher, Ruth Aichenbaum. The keynote speaker was Christopher Paul Curtis, author of their favorite fifth grade books: The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963 and Bud, Not Buddy. Dani and Gabi have fond memories of Mrs. Aichenbaum’s passion for literature and her boundless energy for the art of teaching writing. Gabi recently graduated from Oberlin College. Dani graduated from Georgetown University and is currently studying at Duke University’s School of Law.

2012

2015

Giancarlo Regni writes, “I just opened my own private strength and conditioning gym, G-Strength, in Queen Village. We specialize in training athletes and those who want to train like athletes. Our performance-based program is meant to guide our clients toward looking, feeling and playing better.” Pictured: Giancarlo Regni with PC senior Demetrius de Ramus (left) and sophomore Colin Lewandowski (right).

Sophie Gordon, Class of 2019 (pictured, left) and Rachael Gordon OPC ’15 encountered retired Lower School teacher Judi Morrow last summer in a painting gallery in the Brooklyn Museum of Art.

Avery M. Shoemaker made First Team All-ACC for University of Virginia Women’s Lacrosse.

Last spring’s PC varsity softball team attended a Dickinson-Ursinus doubleheader on April 28 to cheer on two recent PC alumnae. Pictured, from left: PC assistant coach Danielle M. Sienko OPC ’12; Kayla A. Quinn OPC ’15; Brigitte M. Gutpelet OPC ’17; John W. Burkhart OPC ’72; Mary Jane McGlinchey OPC ’17 and Alexis N. (Lexi) Hnatkowsky OPC ’17.

•

FALL 2018

ALUMNI

Class Notes

2018

Members of the Class of 2018 celebrated Commencement with their OPC parents and siblings. Pictured, back row: Karl Murray OPC ’81, Charlotte Murray OPC ’18, Bryan Shipon OPC ’15, Marc Shipon OPC ’84, Alex Shipon OPC ’18, Christmas Cotter OPC ’18, Scot Cotter OPC ’81; front row: Jessica Bender OPC ’92, Katherine Bender OPC ’18, Jeff Harbison OPC ’76, Ian Harbison OPC ’18, Max Jokelson OPC ’16, David Jokelson OPC ’87, Zachary Jokelson OPC ’18, Rebecca Miller Hon. 1689, Morgan Miller OPC ’18.

DEATHS 1941

1955

1957 John E. Singmaster, on Dec. 29, 2016.

1960 Craig B. Harlan, on Aug. 17, 2018. Perry C. Kelson, on March 7, 2018.

1944

Alvin A. Swenson, on April 11, 2018.

Steven J. Munzer, on March 19, 2017.

1956

Thomas Wriggins III, on June 4, 2018.

John C. Rodgers, on Feb. 13, 2018.

1953

Ralph J. Bertolino, on April 16, 2018.

George R. Lyons, on Sept. 22, 2018.

John B. Gargalli, on June 7, 2018.

1962

Christopher M. Dunham, on April 5, 2018.

FALL 2018 •

ALUMNI

Class Notes 1970

Quintin Z. Brooks, on Jan. 1, 2018.

MARRIAGES

BIRTHS

2006

Allison Watkins married Alberto DegliEsposti on July 28, 2016, in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Finley Grace, to Brian and Lauren (Ingersoll) Heenan, on May 12, 2018.

1986

Christopher White, on Sept. 15, 2018.

1991 2008 Becca Foley married Spencer Williams on July 14, 2018, in Philadelphia. Andrew L. Bleznak, on May 5, 2018.

1993

Theodore J. Caviness, on June 15, 2018.

MAY 3 and 4

Details and registration at penncharter.com/opcweekend

â&#x20AC;˘

FALL 2018

Silas Ray, to Nikki and Jeffrey Torchon, on July 27, 2018.

EXCELLENCE TODAY The way our community talks about Penn Charter is revealing.

EXCELLENT. WELCOMING. HISTORIC. INNOVATIVE. VIBRANT. INSPIRED. EXCEPTIONAL TEACHING. EXPANDED ACCESS. ENCOURAGING PASSION. SPARKING CURIOSITY.

FOCUSED ON THE FUTURE The Annual Fund helps provide the tools to students to help them discover their hidden talents and pursue their passions.

SUPPORT EXCELLENCE TODAY

AND KEEP THE FUTURE IN FOCUS.

MAKE A GIFT TODAY. penncharter.com/give HOW CAN I GIVE? In our traditional yellow envelope, by check or credit card Online at penncharter.com/give Monthly recurring gifts â&#x20AC;¢ Gifts of securities

QUESTIONS? Contact Director of Leadership and Annual Giving Tiffani Harris: tharris@penncharter.com 215-844-3460 ext. 276

Nonprofit Org. U.S. Postage

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

Save the Date JANUARY 24

APRIL 11

MAY 3-4

Downtown Reception Union League

NYC OPC Reception

OPC Weekend

MARCH 15

APRIL 22

JUNE 8

Bert Linton Golf Outing Huntingdon Valley CC

Commencement

Great Day to Be a Quaker Philadelphia OPC Reception

On a cold and windy day at Germantown Academy, Penn Charter took home the Competition Cup and, with a decisive win in the 132nd PC/GA football game, the Geis Trophy. Overall, PC won the annual rivalry 7.5-2.5. Enjoy more photos at https://flickr.com/photos/penncharter/sets.

Penn Charter Magazine Fall 2018

Articles inside

Another OPC to Root For

The World through a Bee Shaped Lens