Brian M. Stack's School Leadership Blog

The following blog post has been written for students. It will appear in this month's Sanborn Voice (student newspaper): To Block or Not to Block Social Networking Sites at Sanborn? This is a question that I have agonized over for the past few months. Not a day has gone by that a staff member or a parent has asked me a question related to that topic. “How come Sanborn doesn’t block social networking sites like every other high school?” a parent may ask. “Why can’t the technology department give me to control when to turn on and off the Internet?” a teacher might ask. For the past few months I have been able to avoid the inevitable – making a decision to temporarily block popular social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and Formspring, etc on the Sanborn network. Social networking sites have historically been blocked at Sanborn. At some point early in the 2009-2010 school year, the decision was made to remove the block. Dr. Blake, myself, and others believe that no good ca...

This past week, parents received a request from me to join our Safe Home Compact (SHC). The SHC is an opportunity for parents to stand up and be recognized for promoting safe and healthy behaviors for their children, and join a network of families in the Kingston, Newton, and Fremont communities who feel the same way. Sanborn Regional High School is committed to working with parents to keep help kids safe. The SHC is a joint partnership between Sanborn Regional Middle School, Ellis School in Fremont, and SRHS. Parents and others can join the SHC by filling out a quick form at the following link: https://spreadsheets0.google.com/viewform?formkey=dEM5Rno3VHJZM1dJUkp4TFdrclNpTFE6MA The SHC reads as follows: Dear Parents, The Sanborn Regional High School Safe Home Compact is a new service offered to the parents and guardians of high school and middle school students from Kingston, Newton, and Fremont. The compact is designed to promote a parent-to-parent exchange of "safe" househ...

This past week I had an opportunity to spend a day at the Christa McAuliffe Technology conference for educators. This year's conference was held in Manchester and was an opportunity for school administrators and teachers to learn about some of the new tools and technology resources that schools are using to stay "current" in the 21st century. I took some time to attend a couple of different "Web 2.0" workshops -- these always interest me because I always learn about new web tools and resources that schools are using (as well as new ways to use some old tools). Here is a summary of some of the tools I plan to try soon: 1. Twitter and Blogger -- I have used both of these before, but the twist (or challenge) is to find a way to use one of these to publish the school newspaper. I have asked a couple of students to help me explore how we might upload our December 2010 school newspaper to Blogger to allow for more reader interaction. More to follow on that soon... 2....

One of the pleasures of working at Sanborn is that the school has a rich 127 year history. In my office I have a bookcase where past principals have left yearbooks from each graduating class since 1957 (the library has yearbooks dating back further than that)! Two years ago, we digitally uploaded most of these yearbooks to our Facebook Alumni page as a way to boost our participation on that page, and it worked - over 1500 alumni have signed up. Still, I often feel that it is a shame that these old yearbooks aren't more widely available to all. For today's post, I pay tribute to the class of 1960 by posting some of their yearbook candids along with the captions they used. I thought it was a fitting way to look at what life at Sanborn was like fifty years ago. Enjoy!

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, I thought I would dedicate my column this month to listing some of the things that I am thankful for this year. Please note that these are in no particular order. 1. I am thankful that we successfully (successfully within reason, that is) made it through our first round of report cards. As you know, we made some significant changes to the way grading works at Sanborn, and with those changes came a new report card format and a new grading program (Pinnacle). As with any change, we expected some “bumps in the road.” I am thankful that I have teachers, students, parents, and administrators who know this new system is the right thing to do and have been patient as we work through the implementation process. 2. I am thankful that our school community has pledged to put an end to vandalism in our school. I thank each of you who have come forward with information on an act of vandalism. 3. I am thankful for the high level of sportsmanship and teamwork...

This past Thursday, we had a unique opportunity to host a session of the NH Supreme Court. The day was part of an annual trip that the court makes to a local high school for "Court on the Road." Sanborn was lucky enough to play host for this important event thanks to Deb DeBay, fourth grade teacher from Memorial Elementary School in Newton, who asked the court to consider our location last year. Ten local high schools sent student representatives to watch the two actual court cases. Sanborn had 150 students from Mr. Hurley's AP US History classes, Ms. Karcz's and Mrs. Jules's block 6 Democracy class, and Mr. Hatem's and Mr. Welch's block 2 Democracy class. Sanborn ran a live video feed to the UNH Granite State Distance Learning Network - this allowed high schools form the North Country to participate in the event as well (and this technology was a first for the court!) It was a busy week. Sanborn students were paid a visit last Tuesday by Attorney General ...

I had a difficult time writing the five-year textbook replacement plan this year for the high school. I found this to be a little ironic though, considering where Sanborn was just a few years ago - My first week on the job as assistant principal in 2006, I was attacked by a swarm of teachers begging me to order them some much-needed textbooks. The math department wanted to stop the practice of having just one set of classroom textbooks for each teacher (meaning no one could bring a book home). The science department was still using a biology book with a copyright date of 1984. The Social Studies department had ten different sets of US History books that they had accumulated over the years and none of them talked about the "War on Terrorism," the biggest news of the last decade. The problem was, by 2006 the textbook budget was grossly inadequate for the needs of the school and by the time books were actually purchased for a course or department, the information in them became...