After last week’s (Tuesday, May 23) announcement that Penn Principal Steve Hope is leaving to become Goshen Community School’s new Assistant Superintendent Penn-Harris-Madison’s Superintendent Dr. Jerry Thacker announced today the following administrative changes for the upcoming 2017-18 school year: 
 

• Schmucker Principal Sean Galiher will Penn’s new principal
• Meadow’s Edge Principal Jayson Snyder will become Schmucker’s new principal
• Schmucker Assistant Principal Kent Mikel will become Meadow’s Edge new principal

Sean Galiher will carry on Penn’s great academic and athletic tradition. Before being named principal at Schmucker in 2013, Mr. Galiher served as Associate Principal at Penn for three years. From 2006-2009, he was Dean of Students and before that taught Algebra at Penn for four years, while also serving as assistant varsity baseball coach. Under Mr. Galiher’s leadership,  Schmucker, along with Penn, was recently named a “Four Star School,” and has received an “A” rating four consecutive years. Schmucker students have won state and national competitions in performing arts, Academic Superbowls and TEAMS. He also implemented a successful community building and character development program that was incorporated into the start of the students’ day.  In 2015, Mr. Galiher was a member of the “Forty under 40” class.

 

As this year’s IASP District 2 Elementary Principal of the year, Jayson Snyder 

has a wealth of experience and will continue the great work Mr. Galiher has begun at Schmucker. Before becoming principal at Meadow’s Edge, Mr. Snyder was assistant principal at Schmucker from 2010-2012. Meadow’s Edge was just named a “Four Star School”--a first in the school’s history and a first for a P-H-M Title 1 school. During his five years at Meadow’s Edge, the school has also earned an "A" rating for five consecutive years, named one of the state's "Top 3" Title I schools for student achievement, identified as a "Reward School" by the Indiana Department of Education, and nominated for a National Title I Distinguished School Award. Mr. Snyder is a P-H-M student alum; he attended elementary Mary Frank and middle school at Schmucker, going on to play baseball at Penn for Coach Dikos, graduating in 1997.

 

Kent Mikel will make a great principal at Meadow’s Edge.  He served as interim principal of Northpoint in 2015 and has been assistant principal at Schmucker since 2012. Before that he was assistant to the principal at Schmucker and taught science at Discovery for 15 years. Mr. Mikel, like Mr. Snyder, is currently working on his Ph.D. in Educational Leadership from Purdue University. For six years, Mr. Mikel served as a co-facilitator of Notre Dame’s University Guided Inquiry Math and Science Program, with a focus on 4th grade elementary, middle and high school teacher professional development. This experience will serve him well in his new role at Meadow’s Edge.

 

“The P-H-M Board of School Trustees and I are confident that Sean, Jayson and Kent each will continue the great academic accomplishments started by their predecessors,” said Dr. Thacker.

 

The Administrative changes will take effect July 1, 2017.