Brian M. Stack's School Leadership Blog

Eagle Tribune Tim Jean photo of Sanborn's Sophie Smith A recent Getting Smart Podcast highlights how Project-Based Learning (PBL) connects the real world with deep impact . Blogger Bonnie Lathram highlights the Flight by Design engineering and math course at Washington State’s Raisbeck Aviation High School and also a STEM program in South Carolina’s Westwood High School as great examples of PBL programs for which “s tudents are engaged in authentic and meaningful project work”   that promote “deeper learning outcomes for more students.” On Twitter, the hashtag #PBL is always trending with educators sharing their experiences with PBL. Two years ago in a MultiBriefs Exclusive , I wrote about how PBL had transformed classrooms at Sanborn Regional High School . In this article I talked about how our sophomore small learning community “pods” put science into action by partnering with the University of New Hampshire and the local Kingston Conservation Commission to solve...

This student-created video from Sanborn Regional High School's Modern Media class depicts a familiar scene in a high school hallway: A group of “mean girls” purposefully knock a bottle of water over onto another student. Seeing this, an innocent bystander takes the issue to the school’s justice committee - a peer-run organization that works to mediate student conflict and help determine an appropriate plan to restore justice. From there the justice committee, under with the support of a staff advisor, reviews the case and allows both of the students involved to present their case with a supporter by their side. The committee deliberates and determines the best way to resolve the issue. In this case, the girls apologized to the other student and donated some of their personal time to the school’s custodians to help them with tasks around the school. In turn, the girls avoided receiving a consequence such as a detention or a suspension. In an effort to find new ways to ...

An Article by Erica L. Stack, and Brian M. Stack Parents of today want their children to be the best, the fastest, and the smartest. In pursuit of meeting these goals, many schools have added more time for instruction and testing for core content areas. The added time often comes at the expense of recess, physical education, and many other forms of movement breaks and activities.   As parents of five children under the age of ten, we see the impact of this shift in our own community school each and every day.   After spending most of their school day with minimal physical activity, our children get off the afternoon bus and enter our house full of an energy that can barely be contained.   It is a struggle to corral them to sit long enough to do their homework before they can engage in any number of extra-curricular activities that we have planned for them to release that energy such as sports practice, cub scouts, or just some much-needed play with the neighbor...