Brian M. Stack's School Leadership Blog

This article will appear in the December edition of the Sanborn Voice student newspaper: This month, Revolution Energy has begun the installation process for our solar panel heating system. By the end of December, if all goes according to plan, Sanborn Regional High School will be one of the first in the WORLD to use this new technology to help reduce the heating costs of our school. We expect the heat generated from these panels will save our school district nearly $17,000.00 per year in heating costs, reduce our dependence on oil by about 13,500 gallons per year, and reduce our CO2 emissions by about 48 tons annually. How did Sanborn become a candidate for such a cool project? Since our building was completed in 2006, our School District has been looking for a way to help us “go green” and make use of an alternative energy sources. The district investigated erecting windmills that could collect and use wind-power, but as it turns out we don’t generate quite enough wind in this area f...

Good Morning Parents, Students, and Friends of Sanborn Regional High School: I hope you all had an enjoyable Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Here are your important announcements for the week: 1. I will hold my next PAC meeting a week from this Wednesday (December 7), from 6-7pm in the library. Our focus will be to review the culture survey data from a survey recently completed by all staff and students at the school. One of the focus areas of this survey was bullying. 2. Immediately following my PAC meeting at 7pm next Wednesday, the newly formed SRHS PTO will hold an organizational meeting to elect officers and adopt by-laws. I have attached the draft by-laws for your review. 3. In recent weeks we have received several inquiries into how class rank is computed. We currently use an outdated quality point system to calculate rank, one that has several inequities. For the class of 2012, in an effort to make sure our students have the best competitive advantage for the college application ...

Good Morning Parents, Students, and Friends of Sanborn Regional High School: It is hard to believe that we have reached Thanksgiving week, a short week for us. Here are your important announcements: 1. This past weekend we had a tragic event occur in our community. Here is a copy of the alert-now message that you should have received from Dr. Blake: Good evening, This is Brian Blake, superintendent of schools for the Sanborn Regional School District. As many of you are aware, the Sanborn community experienced a tragedy on Friday night with the passing of one of our 8th grade students. I have met with the local officials and the District Crisis team in preparation for school on Monday. I will be meeting with the faculty prior to the beginning of school to prepare for the arrival of our students. Additional counseling support will be provided in each of the schools in order to meet the needs of the students and staff. Additional information and resources will be forthcoming to parents in...

Good morning Parents, Friends, and Students of Sanborn Regional High School. Here are your important announcements for the week: 1. Tonight our band, chorus, and jazz band will host their fall concert at 7pm in the auditorium. Come support these great musicians and hear some great music! 2. The guidance department's weekly scholarship newsletter is attached to this email. 3. This week, Revolution Energy will begin installing solar panels on the southern face of our building. You can read more about this exciting project and the money it will save our district here: http://www.rev-en.com/projects/current-projects/ . 4. Here is a message from the folks organizing Newton's Turkey Trot next week: Hello All, Sometimes in life, one goes thru a reflection period in hopes of making a better world and contributing to those in needs. The result – Newton Turkey Trot. This event brings together people throughout the area and helps those in dire need for the upcoming winter and holidays....

Good morning Parents, Students, and Friends of Sanborn Regional High School, I hope this week finds all of us "back on the grid" and cleaned up from last week's surprise storm. We also got an extra hour of sleep this weekend, so we are all well-rested, right? Here are your important announcements for the week: 1. I have attached the November calendar of events, published monthly by the Guidance Department, for your convenience. 2. Tonight we will hold our fall sports awards in the auditorium. 3. This week, our students will participate in a culture and school climate survey. The data collected from this survey will be analyzed by groups of students, teachers, and parents - and our goal is to better understand our school culture and the ways we can improve it. If you would like to learn more about this process, visit the website of the company we have hired to assist us with this process. The funds for this were paid through with grant funds. 4. Quarter 1 Report Cards can ...

This article recently appeared in our school newspaper, the Sanborn Voice: I would like to start a privilege system at Sanborn next year. I often hear the complaint from students, parents, and teachers that we have a lot of rules and restrictions at Sanborn. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a system whereby you could earn the right to have certain privileges? I think such a system would help us improve our school culture and climate. It would give students something to work hard for, and it would provide a reward to students who have earned the right to have some privileges. Of course, to start this process, the first logical question is, what should we put in place for privileges at Sanborn? I’ve spent time this fall talking to a lot of students and student groups. Here are the most popular responses I always seem to get. Please keep in mind that at this point, these are student-generated ideas. We haven’t turned these into a formal list of privileges yet. In fact, I haven’t even taken ...

Happy "belated" Halloween. I hope you all survived the storm and are either back (or soon to be back) on the grid later today. Here are some important announcements from Sanborn HS for the week. 1. We are in the process of rolling out a new "Google Ap" and "Google email" system for students. You can read more about this program in the attachment to this email - a letter written by Dr. Blake to all parents in the Sanborn Schools. 2. Did you know that Sanborn HS will be the first in the nation to install a new solar heating system? This system is being installed at NO COST to the taxpayers and it is estimated to save us almost $20,000.00 in heating costs. You can read more about this exciting project here: http://www.solardaily.com/reports/School_Gets_World_First_Solar_Hot_Air_PPA_for_HVAC_999.html Work will begin in a couple weeks. Solar panels will be installed on the side of the building that faces Route 111. A mock-up of the solar panel design can be fou...