North Penn High School is not your ordinary high school. With over 3,000 students in a three grade school, there are a lot of things that make going to school here interesting. Located in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, North Penn is one of the biggest high schools in Pennsylvania.
1. You have to explain to everyone how your high school started in tenth grade.
Every other district started high school in ninth grade. Trying to explain why our high school started in tenth grade was a story in itself.
2. When someone says they graduated with a large class, you automatically laugh inside.
You think graduating with 500 people is a lot? Try graduating with over 1,000.
3. Cookie Corner.
Need I say more?
4. When you see a kid wearing North Penn apparel with the "Class of 2022" and you start reevaluating your life.
Am I really that old?
5. Trying to beat the buses after school if you were a student driver.
Trying to get out of the school parking lot before beating 60 or so busses was always a challenge. Once the busses started moving and you didn’t make your way to the front yet, you had to wait at least 20 minutes to leave the parking lot.
6. Ninth period was the biggest waste of time known to man.
(If you graduated from North Penn before 2011, then you probably don’t know what I’m talking about)
Wednesdays and Thursdays were our least favorite days. Don’t get me wrong, having shorter periods were nice and all, but I’d rather do my homework at home than sit in school for an extra 45 minutes. It was nice if you were an athlete, because you got out of eighth period early for away games.
7. No matter how fast they tried to move the graduation ceremony, it still lasted about three hours.
With four different podiums announcing names and about a second in between each name, the ceremony still took forever.
8. Some of your friends lived on the other side of the county.
There was always that one friend in your group that lived over a half an hour from everyone.
9. If you played a sport, you had the pressure of upholding the school’s winning reputation.
When any high school beats North Penn in a sport, it was always a big deal to them. You had a reputation to protect.
10. If you were lucky enough your senior year, you had Ms. Ward for gym.
Even though we all sometimes dreaded going to one of her gym classes, Ms. Ward definitely made things entertaining. As one of the longest lasting teachers at the high school, you were fortunate enough to be taught by her.
11. Burton T. Hynes was the man.
We even had a drink named after him at the 2013 Senior Prom…the Burton "Tea."
12. Even seven minutes wasn’t enough time to get to our next class…especially if it was on the other side of the school.
If you had class in B-pod and your next class was in K-pod, there was no way you were going to be on time.
13. Trying to guess which locker was yours, because you never used it.
The only time you had to stop at your locker was first period/homeroom, since your locker was outside of your first period/homeroom classroom. Good luck trying to get to it later, though.
14. Every class wants to beat the “forking” senior prank from 2004, but no one will ever overcome that.
From peanut butter bread being stuck on the windows of the school to pennies being glued on the ground in front of the K-pod entrance, nothing will ever beat the legendary 2004 senior prank.
15. You couldn’t avoid E-pod traffic in between classes even if you tried.
Stop-and-go traffic (more stop than go) in E-pod made it hard to get to your next class on time.
…And to those groups of people who purposely clogged the hallways in order to stop traffic, you succeeded. Every time.
16. Speaking of pods, why isn’t there an I-pod?
Don’t lie, you’ve asked yourself this question before.
17. There’s always going to be that middle school sense of rivalry.
Pennfield, Penndale and Pennbrook…you always had a thing against the other two middle schools.
18. You’re still meeting people you graduated with to this day.
You probably saw them somewhere in the midst of E-pod traffic at one point in the three-year span.
19. If you had fourth period lunch, you were unlucky.
10:50 a.m. was way too early to even think about lunch (10:30 a.m. on ninth period days were even worse).
20. And if you had swimming first period, you were even unluckier.
Swimming class in general sucked, but if you had it first period, you had to go through the whole day smelling like chlorine.
21. 2:22 p.m. was your favorite time of the day.
Even in the summer you would see the clock turn 2:22 p.m. and think, “I’d be getting out of school right now.”
22. Being constantly asked, “Do you know this person? They went to North Penn.”
It's more shocking when you know who they're asking about than when you don't.
23. “And another North Penn… First down!”
Hearing Mr. Monero, the legendary voice of North Penn, shout this at the football games made the whole stadium hyper.
24. Max sticks made everything better.
25. Trying to get to your bus on time, especially if your last class was on the opposite side of the school.
If you had your last class in K-pod and your bus was at the end of the bus circle, good luck getting to your bus on time!
26. Using the “my last class was on the other side of the school” excuse when your teacher asks why you were late.
“You have seven minutes to get here and you still can’t make it on time?”
I can’t tell you how many times a teacher has asked me this.
27. Being the only high school without a homecoming dance.
This still doesn’t make sense to me to this day. Fortunately they finally decided to have one last year.
28. We all looked forward to the weekly Morning Show.
Especially “Dude Perfect.”
29. You still refer to Penndale as “Penn Jail.”
You have to admit it’s still funny.
30. And refer to the high school as a jail, and you're technically right.
Whoever built North Penn designed jails. Therefore, our high school was a prison. Coincidence? I think not.
31. Lunch Study? Why do I need two periods of lunch?
Our school has too many students and not enough classrooms to have study hall for everyone. So what better place to have “study hall” than in the cafeteria?
32. Always being a part of the biggest student section at every sporting event.
“I believe that we will win…I believe that we will win!”
33. Even if you weren't an athlete, you've heard the name Doc Ryan.
Doc Ryan has been a part of the North Penn family for 46 years.
34. The planetarium was still the coolest place in the building.
Yearly trips to the planetarium in elementary school made this possible.
35. Our high school is too big for an indoor graduation ceremony.
…But you wouldn't want it any other way.
Kaitlyn Wilson – North Penn High School Class of 2013
