Brian M. Stack's School Leadership Blog

This article was written originally for MultiBriefs Education . This month, I will complete my thirteenth year as a principal in the same New Hampshire High School. I’ve seen an entire generation of students complete their K-12 education in my system. According to the Learning Policy Institute , I am in a category with very few others - only 11% of principals nationwide have been in the same school for more than a decade. Last June, in a Multibriefs Exclusive , I wrote about an Arkansas principal who was retiring after 48 years of service to his district! For me, this is about the time of the year when some of my teachers will come to me and ask me if I am planning to leave to school at the end of the year. “If you leave, I leave!” is a common phrase I hear from them. The truth is, I’m not looking to leave. I have a high level of job satisfaction, and every day I am excited to go to work in an effort to work with my team and my staff to make a different for the 700 students...

This article was written originally for MultiBriefs Education . “The same boiling water that softens the potato hardens the egg. It’s about what you are made of, not the circumstances.” Years ago as a high school math teacher this quote was displayed in my classroom as a way to remind my students that regardless of their circumstances and their environment, they could overcome adversity and succeed. In life, we make do with the hand that is dealt to us. We find a way to exploit our strengths to compensate for our differences. Yet, for all the promise of a positive outlook when dealing with shortcomings in life, the reality is that sometimes, an upgrade can go a long way towards changing one’s promise for a better future. In America, there are nearly 100,000 public and charter schools scattered across our 50 states. They represent a combined 6.6 billion gross square feet of instructional space, sitting on over 1 million acres of land. According to this report back in 2011, sc...

This article was written originally for MultiBriefs Education . Every month or so, a community member or parent in my high school sends me an article that talks about how schools need to spend more time investing in the trades. The latest share came from the Hechinger Report’s Matt Krupnick, who wrote about how after decades of pushing bachelor’s degrees, U.S. needs more tradespeople . Krupnick went on to share how states like California are spending millions of dollars on campaigns to revive the reputation of vocational education, which includes funds targeted at redesigning career and technical education training programs. California’s efforts are at the heart of a debate raging across our country. Trades have often had an “image” problem, being seen as a less-desirable alternative to college. This is wrong. What does it mean to be college and career ready? That definition has changed with the times, and it is likely set for another big change in the years that lie ahead....

This article was written originally for MultiBriefs Education . My New Hampshire suburban high school, home to some 800 students and staff, is not unlike many high schools from coast to coast that has, in recent years, received a variety of security upgrades including the expansion of our video surveillance network. What once was a limited system with just ten cameras pointed in the most high-traffic parts of the campus is now a system that is approaching 100 individual cameras that record and save footage for nearly two months. Our eyes in the sky allow us to watch, in real time, our hallways, stairwells, common areas, athletic fields, cafeteria and patio, parking lots, and entrances/exits. As visitors enter our building, they are greeted by a sign reminding them that our campus is under video surveillance. Our cameras have become an invaluable resource in our efforts to maintain order and discipline, acting as both a deterrent for misbehavior but also a primary witness in inv...

This article was written originally for MultiBriefs Education . I’ll never forget the first cyber security attack I endured as a high school principal. It happened years ago, after I had to assign consequences to a tech-savvy student who regularly would hack into our school wifi network to access websites and social media platforms that, at the time, were blocked from student access during the school day. I remember the student being upset because he was trying to meet a critical deadline for his international business, and his two other partners (one in Finland, one in Russia) needed his help to finish a project for their company. The three ran a company that rented and solder server space to gamers around the world. Mind you, my student had just recently celebrated his 15th birthday. Coincidentally, the day following the in-school suspension I assigned the student, my school district was placed under a distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack from unknown sources on th...

This article was written originally for MultiBriefs Education . It seems these days that every news broadcast starts with a look at a hate crime happening somewhere in our world. These cries could be as big as the recent attacks in New Zealand , where dozens were killed in Christchurch mosque attack; or as small as a hate crime story happening in the town next door. America’s youth are growing up in an age where they are seeing these instances of hate in a constant basis, and it is our job as educators to help them process, reflect, and take action to turn the tide on this awful trend for their generation. Late last year, the FBI reported a 25% increase in hate crimes in schools and colleges from 2016 to 2017. The FBI tracks instances of criminal incidents motivated by bias toward race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender, and gender identity. Of the 7,175 instances of hate reported to the FBI in 2017, 10.5% occurred in schools and colleges...

This article was written originally for MultiBriefs Education . In a recent Edsurge blog article, Giancarlo Brotto makes a strong case for why the future of education depends on social emotional learning (SEL), which he sees as a critical indicator to predict college and career readiness. He writes, “social and emotional abilities are said to be indicators of how well a person adjusts to his or her environment, adapts to change and, ultimately, how successful she or he will be in life.” He does on to suggest that early success mastering SEL skills and competencies helps young children develop into happy, fulfilled, contributing members of society. Brotto went on to reference this “Ready to Lead,” Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report which was based on a national principal survey that looked at how SEL prepares children. The report suggests data that supports the need for SEL in schools, such as a 2011 meta-analysis that found that “students who re...