Brian M. Stack's School Leadership Blog

This article was written originally for NASSP's School of Thought Blog . My Fellow Principals, Does anyone else feel like a fish out of water right now, just trying to learn how to breathe again? I have felt this way for the last two weeks. As a high school principal for nearly fifteen years, I thought at this point in my career I had seen it all but then COVID-19 introduced me to the terms “social distancing” and “remote learning.” Almost overnight, what I knew about being an effective school leader changed drastically as I am sure it has for you. We all have been thrust “out of our pond” and into a world of uncertainty, but one in which our schools need our courage, creativity, and leadership more than ever before. We have to find a way to learn how to breathe again. I work in a fairly typical American public New Hampshire high school in the suburbs north of Boston called Sanborn Regional High School . My school’s “claim to fame” for the past decade has been as a ...

Article written exclusively for the Hechinger Report OpEd By Brian M. Stack and Jonathan G. Vander Els Millions of parents nationwide have been thrust without warning into the role of homeschool educator for the first time. This stark and sobering experience is a the new reality, as everyone, including the authors of this article struggle with finding the right balance. Jon, his wife Stephanie, Brian, his wife Erica, are now trying to figure out how to manage the “work-from-home” experience while providing support to their combined eight children who range in ages five to fifteen between the two families. Even with education degrees and working as educators themselves, the authors and their spouses feel a great deal of anxiety for what this new reality will bring to their families in the coming days, weeks, and possibly months. For all parents, learning how to navigate this brave new world and find an appropriate work-family balance is of paramount importance. For years...

This article was written originally for MultiBriefs Education . Last week at this time, I thought the worst thing I’d have to deal with that week was the fact that we had a full moon and a Friday the 13th to get through with students. By the weekend though, it became abundantly clear to me that I was about to enter uncharted territory in my 15+ year career as a high school administrator in New Hampshire. On Friday, March 13, I learned that my school was going to be moving to “remote learning” effective immediately for two weeks to slow the spread of COVID-19. By Sunday, the two weeks became three weeks and the rest of our state was doing the same. By Monday morning, it was clear that my state was not the only one doing this. Now, it looks like we are fast-approaching the potential for nearly every school principal to be facing the same reality. This article is written for every school principal that is or might be put into the situation of leading an online school “on the...

This article was written originally for MultiBriefs Education . It is a struggle to help my own fourteen-year-old with his math homework. He struggles to maintain good grades in math, but it isn’t because he can’t do the work. For my son, he just isn’t passionate enough about it to have the intrinsic motivation to engage in it. You’d think that doing well in math would be an easy sell for a boy who wants to fly commercial planes one day. Still, I can sit with him at the kitchen table for hours and go round and round with slope problems. He doesn’t get it. “Dad, when am I ever going to use this stuff?” “Dad, when was the last time you had to put something in slope-intercept form?” He got me - the last time I had used that skill was when I taught it as a math teacher myself. For my son, reaching mastery with the concept of slope only came about when I took the time to phrase it in the context of an aviation problem that he had to solve involving landing a plane at the nearby airp...