Brian Stack

Brian Stack is the principal of Sanborn Regional High School in Kingston, N.H, and the 2017 New Hampshire Secondary School Principal of the Year. He is also an author for the educational publisher Solution Tree, with a book on competency education that will be available later this year. He is a strong advocate of personalized learning, competency-based grading and assessment, and high school redesign for the 21st century. He has BA and BS degrees from Boston University in mathematics and secondary math education and an M.Ed. degree from the University of Massachusetts Lowell in education administration. Brian has presented his education reform and redesign work in conferences and think tanks from coast to coast. He lives with his wife and five children on the New Hampshire Seacoast. Follow him on Twitter @bstackbu or visit his blog.

Articles by Brian Stack

• Strategies to attract new teachers to schools that need them most

  Monday, July 12, 2021

  School principals from coast to coast are reporting that this year may have been one of the most tumultuous for hiring and staffing. The pandemic disrupted normal staffing patterns for a variety of reasons, including filling the voids left by teachers who needed to take leaves of absences and those who needed to work remotely (which means someone needed to be in the classroom, in person with students). Principals had to get creative on how they would find new teachers.

• What does the research say about COVID-19 safety protocols in schools?

  Monday, June 14, 2021

  I noticed the other day as I walked the halls of my high school that no one follows all the one-way floor stickers we placed all over the building last summer — no one. The funny thing is, no one has been following them at the Demoulas Market Basket grocery store I shop at either. Maybe that’s why the grocery store got rid of them last week. I just told my head custodian to do the same this summer when they do their annual deep clean and waxing of our school floors. The floor stickers may be one example of a safety protocol that we won’t need this fall, but we know that COVID won’t be gone. The question is, what protocols will we need?

• The secrets of an effective school leader

  Tuesday, May 11, 2021

  I know a lot of great school principals who are very modest when it comes to talking about how their effectiveness as leaders correlates with the success of their schools, but let’s be honest — school principals play an incredibly large role in the success (or failure) of their schools. In an April 2021 Educational Leadership article, entitled "What Great Principals Really Do," researchers and authors Jason Grissom, Anna Egalite, and Constance Lindsay completed a meta-analysis of six major research studies on principal effectiveness and concluded the following: "The quality of a school's principal is a big determinant of student achievement."

• Showing support for school counselors during the pandemic

  Tuesday, April 13, 2021

  We are just over a year into a pandemic that has already caused radical shifts and rifts in our society and our profession. Since it started, some of our profession’s unsung heroes that you don’t often hear enough about are our school counselors. This team, often a small group in a school, have been quietly trying to hold things together for the sake of our students, our staff, and our families. Have you checked in on your school counselor lately to make sure they are OK?

• How can we raise the quality of teacher crowdsourcing resources?

  Monday, March 15, 2021

  As a society, we have developed quite the appetite for information that is received by way of "crowdsourcing," which can be loosely defined by sites like Google as the practice of obtaining information or input into a task or project by enlisting the services of a large number of people, either paid or unpaid, typically via the internet. For all the benefits of the strategy, there is one significant drawback that has become an increasing problem for those who use it: How do you filter out the good information from the junk? If we are to continue using this strategy in our field, we must as a profession figure out how to raise the bar for educators on crowdsourcing resources.

• Who is checking on the mental health of our school leaders?

  Monday, February 15, 2021

  Remember when you were a child at the amusement park, and the ride operator said if you want to get off the ride all you have to do is wave? Well, I’ve been waving furiously for several months and yet some days it seems no one is coming to my rescue. I am sure I am not alone. Being a school leader is tough enough but doing so in a pandemic starts to take its toll on us as professionals and as human beings. Who is checking on the mental health of our school leaders during this challenging time? I hope all of you reading this can recognize if and when you need help and know the signs of when to reach out to your fellow school leaders.

• Is the pandemic to blame for lower college enrollments?

  Monday, January 11, 2021

  As is customary for a high school principal who lives in the community that he serves, when I see my former students out and about in town I always ask them how they are doing and what they have been up to since graduation. This season, I have been surprised to hear about the number of my students who have chosen to defer their freshman year of college. Among all of the reasons given, three pandemic-related ones are often cited.

• Supporting rural students during remote learning

  Monday, December 14, 2020

  After nine months, the impact that the pandemic is having on our nation’s most isolated and rural communities continues to rise. With rising cases, the pandemic has forced many schools into extended periods of remote programming this holiday season. In rural communities that often already have equity gap challenges to overcome, this simply does not help to make things better.

• Reflections from a school leader: What I’m thankful for in 2020

  Monday, November 30, 2020

  I hope you all had the opportunity to celebrate, in some small way, the Thanksgiving holiday this past week. As we enter the season of giving this month, we will all need to make some adjustments and concessions to our “normal” celebration routines during the holiday season as a result of the challenges brought to us by the pandemic. This fall, as an educational leader, there is no shortage of things to be thankful about. Here are the top two things that made my list this year, thanks to the pandemic.

• Grading what matters most

  Tuesday, November 17, 2020

  In a recent article, Edutopia’s Stephen Merrill asked a pivotal question that every educator needs to ask themselves right now: "In schools, are we measuring what matters?" Merrill reports out on a recent interview he conducted with educator Angela Duckworth, a champion for the push to include non-academic skills and dispositions in assessment, grading, and reporting plans. Duckworth is best known for her 2016 bestselling book "Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance." The book raised questions and concerns from fans and critics on whether the concept of grit was a skill that should be measured by schools.

• Will the pandemic make us better educators?

  Monday, November 02, 2020

  I try to be an eternal optimist, even when times are tough. I’m the person looking for the silver lining in every bad story. Some days it drives my wife crazy because she tells me I don’t have to find a lesson in every situation. The pandemic has offered all of us a series of lessons, whether we like it or not. I’ve been struggling lately to be the instructional leader that I want to be for my New Hampshire high school staff. They look to me for advice as they navigate the tricky waters of teaching in a pandemic, and yet I cannot offer them first-hand advice from experience, because I’ve never been in this situation before.

• Principals: Don’t forget to take care of yourself!

  Monday, October 19, 2020

  Even on an average day, the challenges a principal can face can seem daunting. Add a global pandemic into the mix and one piece of bad news can be enough to make principals feel helpless, lost, or ready to throw in the towel. As we celebrate National Principals Month, we need to remember to take care of ourselves so that we don’t fall victim to the challenges that will prey on our weaknesses. As a fellow principal, I feel your pain and I offer you these tips to help you keep your focus, momentum, and most importantly, your sanity through all of this.

• The pandemic has taught us that school facilities need attention

  Tuesday, October 06, 2020

  The pandemic continues to expose weaknesses in various parts of our educational system. This fall, one of the most debated was one that is often forgotten: The state of our 100,000 elementary and secondary public school facilities. America seems to have a love-hate relationship with its school facilities. They are costly to replace, yet when they are in disrepair, they can be expensive to maintain. For many communities, however, they are some of the most heavily used community resources.

• Pandemic pods: Band-Aid fix or wave of the future?

  Tuesday, September 22, 2020

  I'll admit it, as a school administrator, the pandemic has given me some new vocabulary to incorporate into my daily professional life. For example, a new concept has emerged this fall: Microschooling or pandemic pods. Pods are popping up all over the country as families try to cope with fluid school models while maintaining their ability to work and/or keep their kids safe if they do not feel comfortable with the school's plan. But, are these pods a Band-Aid fix to the challenges the pandemic has presented to schools, or might they be the wave of the future?

• Hiring tips for modern schools — even in a pandemic

  Tuesday, September 08, 2020

  With the uncertainty of the pandemic, it is apparent that schools will find themselves on a perpetual hiring cycle to keep positions in classrooms and other programs filled, including both regular and substitute positions. What should a principal look for in a new hire? What should new hires expect from a school in this "new normal?" Here are some questions a school leader should consider when making hiring decisions for their school.

• A new look at math in the classroom

  Monday, August 24, 2020

  Be honest with yourself. How many of you remember how to factor a polynomial? How many of you have found a use for this skill in the real world? Am I being a little snarky right now? Perhaps. But as a former high school math teacher myself, I'm worried that the profession is doing a disservice to millions of students who are not making the deep connections with math in the same way that they do with other content areas.

• Leading your school during a pandemic

  Monday, August 10, 2020

  When they write the history books a generation from now, 2020 may get its own chapter. We are not quite two-thirds of the way through this year and it is already proving to be one that has thrown us, as school leaders, more curveballs than we can count. While some may choose to only focus on the negative, I’d like to think that our experiences have given us clarity in our mission and our purpose as educators and as learning communities.

• Strategies to combat racism: Considerations for teachers

  Monday, July 27, 2020

  In case you hadn’t noticed, our nation is divided, and I’m not talking about politics here. I am talking about one of the most fundamental ideals that our country was founded on: That all were created equal. As debates surge around the nation on how we as a society can finally put an end to racism, we need to be mindful that many of our children are set to return to their schools this fall and need our guidance as adults to help them make sense of this very important issue that we are all facing.

• Increasing your remote learning instruction skills

  Monday, July 13, 2020

  As the clock starts to click down on summer vacation, many educators are still left wondering exactly what the 2020-21 school year will bring as a result of the pandemic. Will things finally settle down and allow schools to return to normal? Will we see a spike in COVID-19 cases, thus leading to significant changes to school operations? Can teachers ever get "comfortable" with their situation, their schedule, and their routines?

• Summer school looks different during the pandemic

  Monday, June 29, 2020

  Summer school is underway in my New Hampshire high school, but it looks a little different from what we have offered in years past, although we have always offered a remote platform. For my school, an in-person summer school is just not practical due to our size, limited staffing resources, and lack of public transportation for students. For years we have relied on online platforms such as Edgenuity and VLACS to provide content and, in some cases, instructors. Our staff have always provided remote technology support. This year, we took a slightly different approach for summer offerings.

• Even in a pandemic, grades matter!

  Monday, June 15, 2020

  Fellow school principals, I’m calling on each of you to take action with grading reform in your schools. We need grades that matter, and we need them now! Last month, I participated in a Zoom call with 50 fellow high school principals from my state as we all discussed the pros and cons of reverting to a pass/fail grading system to close out the 2019-20 school year. A pass/fail system is a fail for our kids, and a fail for our school. It serves to remind us that we don't have a reliable grading system.

• On equity: How the pandemic may impact schools in the future

  Monday, June 01, 2020

  As our nation prepares to enter a third month of altered operations as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, an alarming reality is starting to give rise amongst policymakers, educators, and parents alike: When it comes to equity, many schools and school systems may in fact be worse off than they may have originally thought, and it will get worse before it gets better.

• Is it time for higher ed to move away from time-based learning?

  Monday, May 18, 2020

  As he approaches 15 years of age, my son Brady has now started reminding me regularly that he will be able to drive soon. In the state of New Hampshire, the law will require him to complete 46 hours of driver's education before he can be eligible for a driver's license. For a life or death skill such as driving a car, why do we continue to rely on such an antiquated, one-size-fits-all training and assessment model? The Department of Motor Vehicles, much like our colleges and universities, could learn a thing or two from high schools that have moved away from time-based models.

• How can educators promote self-direction, independence during remote learning?

  Monday, May 04, 2020

  Remote learning is not a new concept in education. For many years, it went by the terms "distance" or "correspondence" learning. With the increase of online technology options at the turn of the millennium, the terms "virtual" and "online" learning became more prevalent. Over the years, some students have thrived in these environments while others have not. My own 14-year-old son Brady is a great example. This past summer, he opted to take an online class at VLACS, an online school in New Hampshire.

• Incorporating the US Census into remote classroom instruction

  Monday, April 20, 2020

  Like most school principals around the country, earlier this year I received a package in the mail from the U.S. Census. The package contained a toolkit for educators, complete with colorful maps and activity books, designed to help teachers incorporate the U.S. Census into their classroom instruction. There are specific areas for K-12 activities, pre-K materials, ELL/adult ESL resources, maps, videos, and tools that are specific to Puerto Rico and the islands.

• Helping graduating seniors cope with COVID-19’s impact

  Monday, April 06, 2020

  The COVID-19 crisis of 2020, featuring unprecedented calls by states for social distancing and the emergence of remote learning in schools from coast to coast, has left our teens feeling helpless, especially our soon-to-be high school graduates. As educators, we need to help them through this difficult time. Consider the situation through their eyes.

• I’ve never led an online school. What do I do?

  Thursday, March 19, 2020

  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. This article is written for every school principal that is or might be put into the situation of leading an online school "on the fly" in the coming days and weeks.

• Project-based math classrooms can better engage students by addressing the ‘why’

  Monday, March 09, 2020

  It is a struggle to help my own 14-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. 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 airport where he takes flying lessons.

• A compassionate approach to student discipline

  Monday, February 24, 2020

  We've all had those moments where, as educators, we wish we could have handled a student behavior issue differently after it was all over. My moments, although extremely rare, often come when I let my emotions get the best of me when working with a student. Over the years, I have come to understand that I can achieve far better results when I can exhibit compassion, empathy, and care when working with students through a difficult behavioral situation. I have made it my mission to utilize this approach with every student interaction, and I implore my teachers to do the same.

• When sickness sets in, teachers can be reluctant to take sick days

  Monday, February 10, 2020

  My wife Erica recently returned to the elementary classroom after a decade-long hiatus to raise our young family. In late January, she succumbed to her first multiday battle with the flu. She knew she was going to be in trouble when the aches and pains started to set in, then the cough followed almost immediately after. Twenty-four hours later, she was laid up on the couch and miserable. Ironically, for as bad as she felt physically, the guilt she felt from missing her students and her team was significantly more impactful than anything else.

• When it comes to social media, what do our students need to know?

  Monday, January 27, 2020

  Imagine a world without social media. No likes. No status updates. No notifications. Those of us born before 2000 can remember life before social media, but I'm not sure how many of us would actually want to go back to those days for any length of time, especially when we start to weigh the advantages and disadvantages that social media platforms have given us in both our personal and professional lives. We are at a unique time in our human existence — one where teachers and students are learning how to navigate this brave, new digital world. How can teachers make sense of all of this so that they can do right by their students?

• Screen time: How much is too much?

  Monday, January 13, 2020

  As our world becomes more and more digital, our classrooms continue to become transformed through technology. The curriculum binders in the back of the teacher's classroom have been replaced with a shared "drive." The whiteboard at the front of the room seldom has dry erase marking on it because students know their agenda, know that their notes will always live in the "cloud" and realize that the whiteboard is really a way for the teacher to project the Google Classroom on the wall. There is an app for everything — literally.

• 2019: A year in review

  Tuesday, December 31, 2019

  Happy New Year! As we begin 2020 and look forward to what the new year will bring, let's take a look back at what our profession learned in the last year. From the over 25 articles that I wrote for MultiBriefs in 2019, the topics that seemed to have the highest reach with educators focused on topics such as competency-based/personalized learning; mental health and social-emotional learning (SEL); and school safety.

• The case for detracking in our schools

  Monday, December 16, 2019

  Secondary schools have historically relied on tracking as a way to sort students into ability groups for the purpose of providing appropriate instruction at a "just right" level. Last week, I visited a high school with no fewer than five different tracking levels for its 1,500-student population. When talking with teachers in the school, I had to ask the seemingly obvious question: What is the difference between a level 3 and a level 4 student? Not surprisingly, the responses I received from the teachers in this school had little to do with academic ability and more to do with work study skills.

• A new definition for competency-based education

  Monday, November 18, 2019

  The CompetencyWorks initiative of the Aurora Institute (formerly iNACOL) recently released an updated definition of competency-based education (CBE). Aurora developed the first nationally recognized definition for CBE back in 2011 after much input from over 100 practitioners in the field. The 2011 definition has provided a common understanding of the important features needed in CBE systems to schools and school districts from coast to coast. The updated definition reflects the evolution of CBE in the field as the model has grown to include schools from 49 out of 50 states.

• Advice for principals: The importance of building trust with your staff

  Monday, November 04, 2019

  If there is one thing I have learned after nearly 15 years as an administrator in my New Hampshire school, it is this: There is no greater return on investment for a school principal than the steps he or she takes to build trust with the staff in their school. After all, it is not the principal but the staff members, including teachers, support staff, office staff, custodians, bus drivers, and food service providers, who act as the boots on the ground to make a school function successfully. Without trust between the principal and his or her staff, a principal will never be truly effective.

• Moving away from timed tests

  Monday, October 21, 2019

  In a recent Education Week article, Alden S. Blodget asked why we as educators believe that speed reflects intelligence. Blodget reported an alarming upward trend he observed over three decades during his tenure as an assistant head of school: students’ parents pushing for extended test time accommodations — for both school tests and standardized tests. He would receive diagnoses from families looking to get extended time added to their child’s education plan, and he wasn’t always convinced these were accurate. Blodget’s observations led him to a startling realization.

• Supporting transgender students in schools

  Monday, October 07, 2019

  In an Education Week article last month, author Madeline Will reported on what happens when school is a battleground for transgender kids. Will referenced research that "has found that compared to their non-transgender peers, transgender youth are more likely to miss school, have lower grades, and view their school climate negatively." Several years ago, the school board in the district where I work adopted a very progressive policy in an effort to extend equal and fair treatment to all students in all aspects of the district’s affairs, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

• Supporting educators transitioning to a competency-based learning system

  Monday, September 23, 2019

  In a recent article, I reported on how competency-based learning (CBL) systems continue to take hold across the nation. According to the International Association of Online K-12 Learning (iNACOL), 49 out of 50 states currently have policy language in place to support CBL systems in schools and school districts. Competency-based learning is sometimes referred to as mastery learning, proficiency-based learning, and, to a lesser degree, standards-based learning. It is part of a larger movement known as personalized learning, a philosophy that puts students at the center of their learning and encourages schools to identify multiple pathways for student learning and achievement.

• Artificial intelligence: Coming soon to a classroom near you

  Monday, September 09, 2019

  As a child, I was always enamored with books and movies that let me imagine what the future would look like. I wasn’t excited about the idea of traveling on spaceships from planet to planet with the crew on "Star Wars," and I didn’t care so much about flying a car like the people from "Back to the Future 2." Maybe I was afraid of heights. I did, however, love the idea that one day computers would be as smart (or smarter) than humans. That day has been slowly creeping up on us, and we haven’t even noticed.

• Could 4-day weeks catch on in schools?

  Monday, August 26, 2019

  Imagine having the option to schedule your school weeks as four 10-hour days instead of five eight-hour days. Earlier this summer, We Are Teachers blogger Elizabeth Mulvahill reported that 25 states are currently testing four-day school weeks. What started as a logistical solution for rural school districts is now gaining popularity in both suburban and urban areas. According to Mulvahill, "Research by the National Conference of State Legislatures estimates 560 school districts...have at least one school with a four-day schedule. Leading the charge are Colorado (55%), New Mexico (43%), Idaho (38%), and Oregon (32%)."

• Do grades matter?

  Monday, August 12, 2019

  Last month, ASCD released a series of articles on grading reform where both teachers and researchers identified key considerations for assessments that "fairly gauge and report students' learning" with the rise of the "no-grades classroom," one where the traditional A-F system is replaced by teachers by one with methods that encourage students to take charge of their learning progress. As a professional community, we need to move to a model where we grade students on what they learn, not what they earn.

• Moving beyond standardized tests

  Monday, July 29, 2019

  Earlier this summer, Education Week published a thought-provoking blog by Maryland elementary principal Margaret Pastor, where she explored the question, "Why Standardized Tests Aren't Working for Teachers or Students?" Pastor talked about how her view of the role of standardized testing changed when a colleague told her that she should match her lowest performing kindergarten teacher with her highest performing teacher, based on recent standardized testing. From there, she began to formulate her opinion that many educators have "deep misgivings" about the role standardized tests should play.

• Competency-based learning systems continue to take hold across the nation

  Monday, July 15, 2019

  Earlier this summer, the International Association of Online K-12 Learning, better known as iNACOL, released its most recent map displaying the implementation of statewide K-12 competency-based learning policies across the nation. The map now shows 17 states that have reached an advanced level of implementation with comprehensive policy alignment and/or an active state role to build capacity in local school systems for competency-based learning. This current map is in stark contrast to the 2012 map, which listed just three states at the advanced level.

• Plan to combat chronic absenteeism in Newark, New Jersey, sees initial success

  Tuesday, July 02, 2019

  In an article published last month, Chalkbeat's Patrick Wall reported that early data shows attendance gains in Newark, New Jersey, as a result of a district push to combat absenteeism. Wall reported that Superintendent Roger León launched an attendance campaign this past school year called "Give Me Five," where every district employee reminded five students to show up for the first day of school. Newark is not alone in its efforts to combat chronic absenteeism, an issue that plagues many communities from coast to coast.

• Understanding principal turnover

  Tuesday, June 18, 2019

  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 the 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 I am excited to go to work every day in an effort to work with my team and my staff to make a difference for the 700 students that we serve. I wish more of my principal colleagues could feel the same way about their school and their situation.

• Why we need more graduates to enter the trades

  Tuesday, June 04, 2019

  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, the 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. 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.

• Security cameras in classrooms: The debate continues

  Monday, May 20, 2019

  My suburban New Hampshire high school, home to some 800 students and staff, is not unlike many a high school from coast to coast that has received a variety of security upgrades, including the expansion of our video surveillance network. What once was a limited system with just 10 cameras pointed in the most high-traffic parts of the campus is now a system approaching 100 individual cameras that record and save footage for nearly two months. As expansive as our security camera network is, we have drawn a line in the sand in terms of what footage we record.

• How a new school facility can improve learning

  Monday, May 06, 2019

  "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. 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.

• How to protect against cybersecurity threats in schools

  Monday, April 22, 2019

  I’ll never forget the first cybersecurity 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 Wi-Fi 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 needed his help to finish a project for their company. The three ran a company that rented and sold server space to gamers around the world. Mind you, my student had just recently celebrated his 15th birthday.

• Stopping the spread of hate in schools

  Monday, April 08, 2019

  It seems these days that every news broadcast starts with a look at a hate crime happening somewhere in our world. These crimes could be as big as the recent attacks in New Zealand, where dozens were killed in the 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 on 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.

• Strategies to embed social-emotional learning in schools

  Tuesday, March 26, 2019

  In an EdSurge 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." Student affect and SEL are important skills and dispositions that schools must find consistent, deliberate ways to assess. As schools think about college and career readiness, they must know that the critical competencies for success are evolving.

• Strategies to engage girls in STEM

  Monday, March 11, 2019

  For at least the last decade, there has been a push in our profession nationally to find ways to engage more girls in STEM-related courses and careers. This push has not gone unnoticed to me in my own New Hampshire high school, where currently more than 50 percent of students enrolled in AP Calculus and 80 percent of students enrolled in AP Biology are girls. The statistics are similar for other high-level STEM courses. What's more, girls are performing as well, if not better, academically in these courses as boys.

• Study concludes later school start time benefits student learning

  Tuesday, February 26, 2019

  I recently spent time eavesdropping on some of my students while on a bus ride for a field trip. I couldn't help but listen to their discussion on later start times at school. The day prior, our school had a two-hour delay due to weather, the fifth this school year. The students were remarking at how much more productive and effective they felt overall when we had weather delays, and they wished school would start later on a regular basis. The conversation got me thinking about an issue that has come up for me time and time again as a high school principal.

• Eliminating the digital divide and increasing access to technology

  Monday, February 11, 2019

  Inequities regarding technology access in our schools can cause students from different socioeconomic backgrounds to fail to develop information capital, which leads to a shift in power. This concept has come to be known as a digital divide, and it is a problem that schools take a close look at. Today, school districts are seeking effective ways to increase access to digital tools and resources to disadvantaged populations in an effort to close the achievement gap that the digital divide has the potential to create.

• The increasing load of the small-town school leader

  Monday, January 28, 2019

  Every year for the past several years, I have been asked to justify to the elected officials in my New Hampshire school community why with a declining enrollment I am not recommending a reduction in school administrator positions at my high school. It is hard to explain to someone not in the field that the amount of responsibility and workload of a school principal does not correlate directly with the size of a student population. Some aspects of the job do — such as managing student discipline and evaluation of staff. Yet, other aspects of the job do not.

• Fostering small learning communities in your school

  Monday, January 14, 2019

  In a recent National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) blog, 2018 New York State Assistant Principal of the Year Terry Adamec wrote about how she developed small learning communities (academies) at her school as a way to help all of her students find a place. These communities "encourage students to get involved in not only their daily education plan but extracurricular activities linked to the academy as well." According to Adamec, the small learning community model at her school resulted in three main benefits.

• Call to action: Is your school best preparing kids for the future?

  Thursday, January 03, 2019

  As we embark on a new calendar year, I ask my fellow school principals whether your school is best preparing kids for the future. This will be my single focus as we start 2019. At our graduation ceremony last year, I reminded graduates that they entered the PK-12 education system at just about the same time that the first iPhone was introduced to the market. I noted how much our world and our society has changed as a result of personal smartphone devices and drew a parallel to how much our school’s definition of "college and career readiness" has had to evolve over that same time frame.

• How to fire kids up to be excited for their core subjects

  Monday, December 17, 2018

  I spent years as a high school math teacher unsuccessfully trying to find an answer to this question: Why didn’t my students have as much passion and enthusiasm for math as they did for their extracurricular activities, and what could I do as a teacher to change that? The closest I had ever come to reaching an answer actually came two years after I left the classroom to become a school administrator. That year (over a decade ago), my school tried an experiment. We paired a math teacher with a woodshop teacher to offer a class entitled "Geometry in the Woodshop."

• Understanding the impact of chronic absenteeism for students

  Monday, December 03, 2018

  Chronic absenteeism data for schools is about to become much more public. By the end of this month, the Every Student Succeeds Act has required that schools list chronic absenteeism rates on their state report cards. Many schools across the country have already started to do this, and the work started with states defining at what point absences would be considered a chronic issue. By whichever standard you use, there is no debate that chronic absenteeism among students is a growing problem that plagues all schools.

• How can micro-credentials be used to support teacher training?

  Monday, November 19, 2018

  Earlier this year, the organization iNACOL released its latest map, charting the rise of policies that support K-12 competency-based education systems in states from coast to coast. By last count, 17 states have earned the status of "advanced," another 13 have reached the "developing" status. Another 18 have entered the "emerging" status. This leaves just two states (Wyoming and California) that have not yet begun their journeys. Competency education operates under the notion that curriculum, instruction, assessment, grading, and reporting are focused on the transfer of skills in and across content areas.

• Does your school facility need a makeover?

  Tuesday, November 06, 2018

  Does your school facility need a makeover? According to this 2012 report by the National Center for Education Statistics, 53 percent of American schools are due for such an upgrade. Upgrades can be done in ways to fit almost any school budget. The key for school principals is to stretch the financial resources they have to provide the biggest rate of return possible to enhance student learning and overall school culture.

• Helping your school go green

  Tuesday, October 23, 2018

  Last month for an Education Week blog, Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching Program participant Michael Cruse, a special educator from Arlington, Virginia, talked about his travels to Israel to study different models for green schools. Cruse's biggest takeaway from his Middle East experience that he would apply to American schools was this, "Since coming back to work at my school and reflecting on how my experiences in Israel translate into my teaching, I realized that the best lessons about sustainability are actually about people. That can be in their classroom, on the playground, at home, or in the community."

• The learning power of breakfast

  Monday, October 08, 2018

  Many mornings as a school principal, I feel like I am fighting a losing battle with my students with regards to breakfast. They say it is the "most important meal of the day," yet it is obvious to me that many of my students don’t see it that way. Last spring, I surveyed the 700 students in my New Hampshire high school and found that 25 percent of my students report rarely or never eating breakfast before school. Another 30 percent report that they skip breakfast 2-3 days per week. Sadly, only 33 percent of my students report eating breakfast every day. This statistic is at the higher end of the national trend.

• Maximizing learning time while riding the big yellow bus

  Monday, September 24, 2018

  My seventh-grade son Brady informed me the other day that with the change to bus routes this year, he is now on the bus for nearly 45 minutes each way to school. At first, I was surprised. We live in a small town of about 10 square miles, and it would take less than 10 minutes to drive from our house to the school. Yet, he was right. He is one of the first students picked up in the morning, and one of the last to be dropped off in the afternoon. Each day, Brady, like millions of other children from coast to coast, deals with one of the great inefficiencies of our education system — bus transportation routes.

• What to know about teaching to Generation Z

  Tuesday, September 11, 2018

  In any profession, you have to know the audience of the people you work with or serve. As educators, what do we really know about our current students, who are members of Generation Z? How can we use that as school leaders to promote effective instructional strategies to meet their learning needs? To know how to educate them, we have to understand how a Gen Zer is different from a millennial. They are a group that was born in the era of smartphones, and those devices have become more robust with the passage of each year.

• The evolution of the school lunch menu

  Monday, August 27, 2018

  For anyone in their 30s or older, it comes as no surprise that over the past two decades, America’s palate has evolved and diversified. Tuna casserole and meatloaf dinners have been replaced with meals that have much bolder flavors and are influenced by many ethnic backgrounds. As you might expect, the changing palate for adults also means a new palate for kids, and that has had a big impact on school lunch programs from coast to coast.

• Flexible learning starts with flexible classroom spaces

  Monday, August 13, 2018

  The latest craze with my New Hampshire high school teachers is to supplement, or in some cases replace, their institutional, inflexible classroom furniture with more student-friendly options. In a school with a very tiny furniture budget, my staff has accomplished this task by soliciting donations, applying for grants, and in some cases, building their own furniture. A walk through the few re-imagined spaces that we have completed thus far is reminiscent of a trip through a trendy Ikea showroom.

• The relationship between student behavior and engagement

  Monday, July 30, 2018

  A recent Mind/Shift article by Katrina Schwartz highlighted the efforts by San Francisco middle school principal Michael Essien to get classroom behavior under control in his school. Essien’s story touched me personally as I too shared his frustrations. Over the last 10 years as a school administrator, I have seen a dramatic decline in classroom disruptions and general student misbehavior that I believe is correlated to increased student engagement in school.

• Improving engagement for students with disabilities

  Monday, July 16, 2018

  Recently, I co-hosted a chat on Twitter on student engagement for Understood.org, an organization that focuses on giving parents of children who struggle with learning and attention issues the tools and supports they need to be successful. As we get ready to embark on a new school year, I thought it would be a timely opportunity to summarize the chat and the resources that were shared.

• Detracking math classrooms in San Francisco: A model for all?

  Monday, July 02, 2018

  Education Week’s Stephen Sawchuk recently highlighted an initiative now four years old in San Francisco schools where middle and high school students are heterogeneously grouped for math instruction. The city has leveled the playing field by enrolling all students in math courses of equal rigor in middle school all the way through Algebra 1 in high school. There are no "honors" classes. There are no accelerated programs where students can take Algebra 1 in 8th grade. This practice was not implemented without controversy.

• The importance of career and tech education in today’s schools

  Monday, June 18, 2018

  On the afternoon of their certificate ceremony from the Seacoast School of Technology in Exeter, New Hampshire, a couple hundred soon-to-be Career and Technical Education (CTE) graduates from my high school as well as some of the surrounding high schools filed into the school cafeteria for what they thought was a pizza party and a raffle drawing for a new pair of workboots from the local Timberland corporate office. This was a follow-up to the survey that Timberland gave students a month earlier, asking for their shoe sizes. What happened next shocked not only the students, but also the teachers and administrators of the CTE school.

• The impact of stable school leadership

  Monday, June 04, 2018

  When the school year comes to a close this month, one Arkansas school will have big shoes to fill at its helm, as longtime Southside High School Principal Wayne Haver has his final curtain call after 36 years in the role as principal and 48 years of service to the district as a whole. Without question, Haver is an exception to the rule. He represents a rare breed of school principals that continue to stay loyal to their school communities and buck the alarming trend of principal turnover that is plaguing many school communities in this country.

• Taking drastic steps to improve teacher recruitment

  Monday, May 21, 2018

  I recently attended the ASCD Empower18 national conference in Boston and was surprised to see that a brave rural New Hampshire school district from the western part of the state had set up shop in an effort to recruit educators to their schools. For this rural district, attracting educators from far away is their best strategy because their part of the state has seen a decline in population and an exodus of skilled workers leaving the region to seek employment in other parts of the state or country, where wages are often higher and housing is more affordable and/or available.

• Solving the opioid crisis by empowering students

  Monday, May 07, 2018

  In 2016, New Hampshire had one of the highest national opioid death due to overdose rates, a whopping 39 per 100,000 people. For a state with roughly 1.3 million residents and fewer than 100 high schools, this means that virtually every school community has, in some way, been impacted by this epidemic. As a principal in a small suburban New Hampshire community, I am starting to lose count of the number of funeral services that I have attended for students and former students from my high school community.

• The daily teacher struggle when faced with declining wages

  Monday, April 23, 2018

  It is starting to become the norm for teachers to seek out other forms of income to make up lost ground from low teacher salaries that plague many schools from coast to coast.

• Move when ready: The case for eliminating grade levels

  Monday, April 09, 2018

  In a recent EdSurge article, writer Felice Hybert introduces the notion of eliminating grade levels in an effort to better connect classes to careers. Hybert highlighted work in the Kankakee Public Schools in Illinois where elementary students are introduced to a number of career pathways in an effort to start conversations and explorations around career possibilities.

• Embedding community service into schools

  Monday, March 26, 2018

  ​At my New Hampshire high school, we have a community service tradition that all of our seniors participate in called the Senior Day of Caring. During this one day in early fall, our seniors sign up in groups or as individuals to engage in any number of community service activities that have been identified in our community.

• Fostering self-advocacy skills for all students

  Friday, March 16, 2018

  What does it mean for a student to successfully self-advocate? Simply put, self-advocacy happens when a student, at any age, knows what they need to be successful and feels empowered to ask for help if and when they need it. The rise of innovative student-centered learning environments in K-12 education has increased the need for self-advocacy skills, particularly for students with disabilities.

• How do we bring back imagination in our schools?

  Monday, February 26, 2018

  My wife Erica and I made a startling revelation one recent Saturday afternoon about our five children and a decline in their ability to engage in imaginary play. We often have what we refer to in our house as "no technology Saturdays" in our attempt to get our children away from the screens that seem to dominate their weekdays — particularly as a result of their schoolwork.

• A grading debate: Pros and cons of reassessments

  Monday, February 12, 2018

  It is a typical day at my New Hampshire high school, and I am observing a biology class. The teacher is returning a recent assessment to her students that they completed on ecosystems. Students are reviewing the teacher's feedback and their grades on the assessment, as noted on the rubric they had been given in advance.

• What do top-performing school districts do well?

  Monday, January 29, 2018

  Education Week recently released the first of what will be three reports entitled, "Quality Counts 2018: A Report Card for States and the Nation on K-12 Education." Now in its 22nd year, the publication "aims to illuminate what the high-performing states did well, how low-performers are approaching improvement, and lessons for boosting the quality of K-12 education overall."

• Stressed at school: The rise in anxiety among teens

  Monday, January 15, 2018

  One of the most difficult and often frustrating tasks I have to perform as a school principal is that of working with students who have high rates of absenteeism. Students miss school for all sorts of reasons, and many of those are beyond their control to overcome without some sort of intervention or assistance from someone, either the school or another adult.

• 3 New Year’s resolutions as an educator

  Tuesday, January 02, 2018

  Jan. 1 marked the start of my 17th year as a public school educator and my 12th as a high school administrator. For many, the new year signals a rebirth. It is an opportunity to start fresh with a new idea, a new habit or a renewed commitment to something designed to promote improvement.

• Moving from teacher-centered to learner‑centered classrooms

  Monday, December 18, 2017

  ​I hit a wall of frustration last week when I was doing some walk-through classroom observations in my school. Fellow principals can probably relate with what I am about to say. I spent a little under an hour in one classroom hallway, and in that time I made it into six different classrooms. In five of the six classroom visits, I saw the exact same thing: The teacher was lecturing from the front of the room, and students were seated at their desks taking notes.

• Grading on what students learn, not what they earn

  Monday, December 04, 2017

  ​Ask high school teachers how they handle a student who doesn't submit an assignment, and their answer most likely will be this: "The student receives a grade of a zero for that assignment."

• What are you thankful for as an educator?

  Monday, November 20, 2017

  ​Later this week, most of us will gather with friends and family to celebrate the tradition known as Thanksgiving. Whether you plan to celebrate in a traditional manner with turkey and all the trimmings or whether you plan to take the road less traveled, let's take some time to celebrate why it is great to be an educator in this day and age.

• The impact of suspensions on students with disabilities

  Monday, November 06, 2017

  The kind of meeting I hate having the most as a high school principal is one with the parent of a student who has just engaged in behavior in the school that warrants, according to our school board policies, a suspension from school for a period of time. In these kinds of meetings parents and guardians ask, rightly so, what good will come of keeping their child out of school where the child will fall further behind his or her peers.

• What is your school’s most effective form of communication?

  Monday, October 23, 2017

  As a school principal for a medium-sized New Hampshire high school, I am always looking for the best way to communicate with my school's stakeholders. There are so many choices these days including email, text, automated phone messages, social media and the good old-fashioned traditional letter in the mail.

• Preparing for the gig economy

  Monday, October 09, 2017

  It has been interesting to watch the job market change through the lens of many of my teacher friends who, for the duration of my 20 years in education, have taken part-time jobs to supplement their income. Today, technology has drastically changed the jobs I see them doing. For many, short-term jobs and projects known as "gigs" have started to replace the traditional job.

• What happens when you bring America’s top principals together?

  Wednesday, September 27, 2017

  Being a school principal in America can be a thankless job, and one that is ever-evolving. But what would happen if you brought together some of the best, most influential school principals in our country to talk about how they leverage their strengths and resources to stay focused on transformational leadership on behalf of their students?

• Plot twist: Starting school later is good for teens and saves money

  Monday, September 25, 2017

  Part of the back-to-school preparation for many teenagers this fall was readjusting their sleep schedules to accommodate the early start times at many American middle and high schools.

• Lessons from 9/11 nearly two decades later

  Monday, September 11, 2017

  Today marks the 16th anniversary of one of the largest international terrorist attacks in history, a series of four coordinated attacks against the United States that killed more than 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001. On that date, life as we know it changed forever.

• What can schools learn from summer camp?

  Thursday, August 31, 2017

  This summer, my 9-year-old Cameron had a blast at Camp Carpenter in Manchester, New Hampshire, where he participated in a week-long overnight Cub Scout program with some of his friends from our local Cub Scout Pack.

• Parents and educators: There is a new app to watch out for

  Friday, August 11, 2017

  ​As we embarked on back-to-school season last fall, a 16-year-old girl named Natalie Hampton from Sherman Oaks, California, was winning over the hearts of parents and educators alike for the launch of her free app Sit With Us.

• The importance of branding your school

  Monday, July 31, 2017

  This summer, have you gotten to share a Coke with Melinda yet? How about with Alisha? For the fourth summer in a row, Coca-Cola is hedging their bets that by putting your name or your friend's name right on their bottle, you'll drink more Coca-Cola than if they don't.

• How teaching becomes the test in New Hampshire

  Monday, July 17, 2017

  Last week, Christian Science Monitor's Stacy Teicher Khadaroo wrote about how New Hampshire teachers have developed new ways to measure deeper learning. In her article, Khadaroo highlighted schools like Concord High School that have students simulating real-world experiences through enriching learning experiences. Known as performance tasks, these experiences become both the teaching and the testing at both the local and state level.

• Embedding mindfulness into your school

  Wednesday, July 05, 2017

  ​Stress can be a normal part of life, but too much stress can become toxic to the body, the mind and the soul. This is true for both children as well as adults. Toxic stress can impede learning with students and erode productivity for teachers in the school. This can lead to burnout and compromise relationships between children and schools with parents.

• Adding ‘soft skills’ to report cards

  Monday, June 19, 2017

  Every weeknight, my kitchen table is a story of two boys raised by the same parents who approach their school work from two opposite ends of the spectrum. For my 11-year-old, homework time can’t end soon enough. My 9-year-old, on the other hand, has developed a series of coping strategies to help him persevere through challenging academic situations with grit and tenacity. These strategies did not manifest themselves on their own.

• Flexible periods allow for personalized learning opportunities

  Monday, June 05, 2017

  For decades, school principals have searched for better ways to use time more effectively in the school. At the high school level, this search has manifested itself through iterations of daily period schedules, sometimes referred to as "bell schedules." Schools, on average, change their bell schedule every five to seven years as needs in their building evolve.

• Netflix series sparks school debate on teen suicide

  Monday, May 22, 2017

  ​On the heels of what has become a controversial topic in schools from coast to coast, Netflix has renewed the popular teen drama "13 Reasons Why" for a second season. The series, based on the best-selling novel by Jay Asher, follows the story of 17-year-old teen Hannah Baker, who took her own life after creating a series of 13 tapes to document the reasons for this decision.

• What educators need to know about concussions

  Monday, May 08, 2017

  It can happen in an instant, from something as simple as a fall or a collision in a recreational setting, to a more significant event such as an automobile crash. These events can cause a concussion, a type of traumatic brain injury (TBI) that results when a bump, blow or jolt to the head causes the brain to move back and forth.

• Retooling libraries with makerspaces

  Monday, April 24, 2017

  Nearly three years ago, in an article for MultiBriefs Education, I talked about the need to transform libraries for the 21st century. Since that time, the need for change in library structures continues to be great. "For school libraries — much like the newspaper industry — staying relevant in the 21st century has been the story of reinvention," I wrote. "Technology has put information at our fingertips like never before."

• Virtual reality in the classroom

  Monday, April 10, 2017

  ​I made the mistake of bringing Brady and Cameron, my 11- and 9-year-old boys, with me last month to the store when it was time to upgrade my phone. Much to the dismay of my wife Erica, the salesperson also sweet-talked me into buying a virtual reality (VR) headset, like one of these.

• The debate over grading and ranking public schools

  Monday, March 27, 2017

  ​For more than a decade, states have published grades and ranks of their schools as part of the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), a federal mandate first signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2002. Since that time, many states have developed a system that uses common measures such as standardized test scores and graduation rates to generate letter-grade report cards for schools, similar to the ones that students are issued.

• Is too much technology a bad thing for kids?

  Monday, March 13, 2017

  Does this story sound familiar to you? It is a typical weekday evening at home. Our family has just finished eating dinner together. The kitchen has been cleaned up, lunches have been packed for school the next day, and my wife Erica and I both sit down and start to scroll through the many notifications that have popped up on our phones from both email and social media over the past couple of hours.

• The evolving role of police in schools

  Monday, February 27, 2017

  ​It is just another typical day at work for police officer Emmanuel "Manny" Fardella, a member of the Cheyenne Police Department in Wyoming. Fardella serves as the school resource officer (SRO) at Cheyenne's South High School. His day, like many who serve in similar roles in schools across America, begins by being visible as kids first enter the school in the morning. He walks the halls, saying hello to staff and students, working to develop positive relationships.

• Increasing your students’ global awareness

  Monday, February 13, 2017

  ​President Donald Trump's recent controversial executive order impacting both refugees and immigrants has raised concerns for educators on how their students view their global world. More importantly, teachers want to know what they can do to raise the global awareness of their students to help them become better informed, empowered and compassionate citizens of the world.

• The coding advantage: Why kids should learn to program

  Monday, January 30, 2017

  Recently, I had the opportunity to listen to Justin Reich, executive director of the Woodrow Wilson Teaching Systems Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He spoke to a group of teachers about the changing landscape of the workplace and the need for more technology education. Reich made an observation that has stuck with me to today regarding the overwhelming role technology plays in our world. He showed teachers a picture of an airline ticket counter from the 1970s, with 20 ticket agents working behind a counter assisting travelers.

• Successful communication between home and school

  Monday, January 16, 2017

  ​As a high school principal, one of the things I dislike to hear from parents is when they tell me they don't know what their child is doing in the classroom. While we have a sophisticated communication plan for schoolwide news and announcements, we fall short as a school in a systematic common approach to how we handle classroom-level communication between teachers and parents. In the new year, it is a personal goal of mine to work with my staff to improve in this area.

• The real cost of being a teacher

  Tuesday, January 03, 2017

  ​This fall, the daughter of one of my co-workers was eager to start her first school year as a new teacher in a nearby urban school district. After she was hired over the summer and received her classroom keys, she was eager to get into the room to start decorating her space in anticipation of the first day of school.

• What does Betsy DeVos’ appointment mean for public schools?

  Monday, December 05, 2016

  President-elect Donald Trump recently named Michigan's Betsy DeVos to be the next Secretary of Education. DeVos, a strong advocate for school vouchers and school choice in her home state, is expected to bring this topic to center stage when she begins her term in Washington in the coming months.

• Dual enrollment: Good for secondary schools and colleges

  Monday, November 21, 2016

  ​Like many schools in our country, my public high school in southern New Hampshire seeks to offer a wide-range of college credit-earning opportunities for our students. These schools recognize that providing high school students with an opportunity to experience early college success can positively impact the overall achievement rate of students when they finally get to the college level.

• Understanding how to teach students with mental health disorders

  Monday, November 07, 2016

  ​In quiet New Hampshire, among the beautiful autumn mountain backdrop and the New England seacoast towns, a silent killer known as opioids is making its way from family to family and from community to community. The issue is sending shockwaves throughout the state and leaving family and friends to question themselves on why they couldn't (or didn't) act sooner to save the lives of their beloved who are succumbing to addiction at an alarming rate.

• Assessing work study practices in schools

  Monday, October 24, 2016

  I recently had the opportunity to attend a large networking event with business leaders from my community. When I asked them what we (the school system) could be doing to better prepare students for their workplaces, I was not surprised to learn that employers are less concerned about a potential employee's academic preparation but care more about their "employability" skills.

• How can we solve our teacher pay dilemma?

  Monday, October 10, 2016

  ​Last month, The Nation's Alissa Quart put the spotlight on teacher salaries in her article, "Teachers are Working for Uber Just to Keep a Foothold in the Middle Class." Quart highlighted Matt Barry, a public high school history teacher in the suburbs of San Jose, California, who at 32 has taken a part-time job with Uber to support his wife Nicole and their soon-to-be-born child.

• The debate over NARCAN in our schools

  Monday, September 26, 2016

  It is a familiar story that is plaguing America's communities, with a familiar headline that appears to repeat itself over and over again: "Young person dies of apparent drug overdose." The American Society of Addiction Medicine reports that opioids — the class of drugs that include the illicit drug heroin as well as prescription pain relievers such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, codeine, morphine and fentanyl — are the root cause for a spike in drug overdose deaths in recent years. Of the more than 47,000 lethal drug overdoses in 2014, more than 29,000 were caused by opioids.

• Restroom rules: Where do we go from here?

  Tuesday, September 13, 2016

  ​In May, a joint letter from the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights clarified for educators what schools must do to ensure the civil rights of transgendered students. The letter served not to make changes to the law, but rather to clarify that the civil rights of transgender students are covered under Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972.

• Addressing student mobility and homelessness in schools

  Monday, August 29, 2016

  As schools across America embark upon a new school year this fall, hundreds of thousands — perhaps millions — of students will be playing the often difficult and complex role of "the new kid." They will have to quickly make new friends, adapt to a new school and a new learning environment, and look for opportunities to bridge the gaps from one school experience to another.

• Using YouTube as a flipped classroom strategy

  Friday, August 19, 2016

  This summer, my 10-year old son Brady and I decided to build a deck around our above-ground pool after he convinced me we could learn how to do it simply by watching this 15-minute video posted on YouTube by Pennsylvania builder Craig Heffernan. His video walks viewers through the entire process of building a deck from start to finish and has been viewed more than 3.8 million times since it was first posted to YouTube in the summer of 2012.

• Highlighting the educational technology coach

  Monday, August 01, 2016

  For the last decade or more, educational technology has been one of the hottest trends in American schools. While teachers are eager to make use of technology tools that can help them engage their students at deeper levels, it can be stressful to keep up with all that is happening in the ed tech world. As a classroom teacher, how do you decide what technology tools to use? When will you find time to learn how to use them effectively? Teachers cannot and should not be left to answer these questions on their own. For this reason, many schools are turning to the assistance of technology coaches.

• Rethinking failure in the classroom

  Monday, July 25, 2016

  Earlier this month, The Washington Post's Moriah Balingit and Donna St. George opened up a large debate by asking a simple question: Is it becoming too hard to fail? Their article discussed how schools are shifting toward no-zero grading policies as a way to focus a student's grade on what they know and are able to do rather than to use grades as a means to motivate or punish students for their academic behavior.

• The case for 1-to-1 technology in schools

  Friday, July 01, 2016

  Just a few short years ago, it was considered a luxury for a school to have enough technology devices to be able to assign one to each student for use in the classroom and often at home. This model is commonly referred to as a one-to-one technology program.

• A flipped approach: Bringing the school to the parent

  Monday, June 20, 2016

  One of the most critical dilemmas that school leaders face is how to get more parents involved at their school. One North Carolina middle school may have found a unique solution that could serve as a model for other school communities – bring the school to the parent. According to this Winston-Salem Journal article, Philo-Hill Middle School Parent Involvement Coordinator Javier Correa-Vega recognized that a lack of transportation was one of the biggest reasons parents didn’t engage with his school.

• Is summer vacation a relic of the past?

  Monday, June 06, 2016

  ​This is the time of year when Alice Cooper's song "School's Out for Summer" can be heard playing on public address systems in schools from coast to coast. I am reminded of the days of my youth, busting out the front doors of my elementary school and charging into the streets of my Haverhill, Massachusetts, neighborhood filled with mixed emotions of what my life without an academic structure would look like for the next two months.

• Developing a positive math mindset

  Monday, May 23, 2016

  As a former high school math teacher, I often ask myself why math has such a bad reputation in our society. For years I have found people either really enjoyed math — likely because they "got it" in school — or they just plain hated it.

• Policy in practice: Personalized learning and students with disabilities

  Thursday, May 05, 2016

  ​On Wednesday in a media room on the ninth floor of the Alliance for Excellent Education office in Washington, D.C., National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD) Executive Director James Wendorf was excited to announce the release of a new report entitled "Personalized Learning: Meeting the Needs of Students with Disabilities." I was fortunate enough to be part of this event, which was held in front of a live audience and was also broadcast online to an estimated 1,400 participants.

• How to apply growth mindset in schools

  Monday, April 25, 2016

  ​All month, #growthmindset has been trending on Twitter. It started when Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck highlighted the topic in a general session talk at the 2016 ASCD Annual Conference and Exhibit Show in Atlanta. In fact, Education Week has made available the above video of Dweck's entire 60-minute talk, entitled "The Journey to a Growth Mindset."

• The genius of genius hours

  Monday, April 11, 2016

  More than a decade ago, Google introduced the Pareto principle to its company. First conceived by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto at the turn of the 20th century, the concept came from Pareto's observation that 80 percent of Italian land was owned by 20 percent of the population.

• Microcredentials provide educator personalization

  Monday, March 28, 2016

  ​Our world is changing at such a rapid rate that our schools need educators with specific skills and experiences. Gone are the days when schools could supplement an educator's "general education degree" with a one-size-fits-all professional development model. Today's educators need access to professional develop that is highly personalized, competency-based and targeted to specific knowledge and skills.

• The power of student-led conferences

  Monday, March 14, 2016

  ​Each time the image above appears in my social media news feed it makes me angry. The image compares and contrasts a parent-teacher conference in 1961 with one from 2011. It suggests that 50 years ago the conference was an opportunity for parents and teachers to "gang up" on students, while today the pendulum has shifted with parents and students "ganging up" on the teachers.

• The latest in project-based learning

  Wednesday, March 02, 2016

  ​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 "students 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.

• Making it right through student voice: Restorative justice in school

  Thursday, February 18, 2016

  The student-created video above from New Hampshire's Sanborn Regional High School (where I am principal) depicts a familiar scene in a high school hallway: A group of "mean girls" purposefully knock a bottle of water over onto another student.

• Better late than never: Accepting late work without penalty

  Thursday, January 21, 2016

  The debate over whether to charge students a penalty for late work is not new to American education. For years, proponents have argued that a penalty is the best way to hold students accountable for meeting deadlines, a lifelong skill.

• Harvard set to reimagine Teach for America model

  Monday, January 04, 2016

  ​In 1989, Princeton University student Wendy Kopp understood our country's growing need to be able to compete in the global economy with a workforce that had evolving skills and knowledge. She also noted that our country was faced with a teacher shortage and droves of high-poverty urban and rural schools that for decades had been failing our children.

• What will the NCLB reauthorization mean for schools?

  Thursday, December 03, 2015

  Today, in a presentation to a group of South Carolina educators on competency education, Gene Wilhoit praised the House of Representatives for their overwhelming support of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which sailed through the House in a 359-64 vote. The bill is expected to have similar support in the Senate, and President Barack Obama has indicated he would sign it when it reaches his desk.

• Reimagining the schools of tomorrow

  Monday, November 30, 2015

  Earlier this fall, movie enthusiasts rejoiced at the arrival of Oct. 21, 2015, the actual date that a young Marty McFly traveled back in time to fictitious Hill Valley, California, to save his children in the hit 1989 movie "Back to the Future II." Director Robert Zemeckis introduced us to a world in 2015 that looked very different from the one we knew. Sadly, however, Marty McFly would find almost no differences in Hill Valley High School from 1989 to 2015. Why have we made so much progress as a society, yet our schools continue to operate in much the same way as they have for decades?

• Tackling the challenge of making homework relevant

  Monday, November 16, 2015

  Late afternoon on a school day means only one thing in my house — it's time to put on your game face and prepare for the inevitable. The bus is about to drop off my three elementary-aged children, and my wife Erica will transform into an after-school teacher and tutor.

• Reflections from the 2015 iNACOL Symposium

  Tuesday, November 10, 2015

  This week, Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, is playing host to 3,100 of the country's most promising innovators in education. The annual Blended and Online Learning Symposium, sponsored by the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL), advertises this event as "the industry's leading event for K-12 online, blended and competency-based learning," adding that it is a place where "experts, practitioners, educators, policymakers and researchers gather and work to transform education."

• Fostering reading through student choice in high school

  Monday, November 02, 2015

  Like many Generation Xers and millennials, my high school English classroom memories stem from my experiences reading popular required readings such as To Kill a Mockingbird, Romeo and Juliet, The Great Gatsby, Lord of the Flies and Catcher in the Rye.

• The changing role of advisory in a high school setting

  Monday, October 19, 2015

  Advisory programs in high schools are not a new concept. In fact, they have been popular in schools for more than two decades. They were born out of an early movement to personalize an individual school for each student and ensure that schools connect every student with at least one adult who can understand and advocate for them as needed.

• As rate of school shootings rises, what can educators do?

  Monday, October 05, 2015

  ​This week, our country mourns the loss of 10 people in a school shooting at a small community college in Roseburg, Oregon. In that same event, another nine were injured. At a vigil the night of the shooting, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown stated, "In our sorrow, we will remember and honor those lost today, and they will forever be in our hearts. May peace be with you."

• Are we effectively supporting new principals?

  Monday, September 21, 2015

  ​American schools today face issues that are unprecedented in our nation's history. Among the top issues that have become part of the day-to-day reality of our school leaders include class size, poverty, family factors, technology, bullying, student attitudes and behaviors, parental involvement, student health, funding and No Child Left Behind.

• Could OERs spell the end of textbooks?

  Tuesday, September 08, 2015

  ​Early in August, a letter arrived in President Barack Obama's digital inbox calling on him to commit to policies that support the development of open educational resources, known more commonly as OERs. The letter was first developed and signed by multiple organizations from the education, library, technology, public interest and legal communities.

• Teacher resources for the new school year

  Monday, August 24, 2015

  The end of summer marks the beginning of a new school year across the country. For returning teachers, it is often a time to start with a clean slate and a new outlook on the year ahead. For those who are new to the profession or new to their school or classroom assignment, it is a time to make some decisions about how they will organize their instruction and structure their classroom environment for the upcoming year.

• The movement From STEM to STEAM

  Monday, August 10, 2015

  ​In an elementary classroom in southern California, teacher and educational consultant Sarah Weaver was working recently with a group of students to use marshmallows and spaghetti to build the tallest, freestanding structure possible. In her blog, she writes about this activity as a great way to promote communication, teamwork and creativity, while allowing students to get to know each other and develop an understanding of appropriate group work behavior.

• Race to the top: The charge of the elitist parent

  Monday, July 27, 2015

  You see them all the time, but maybe you have never noticed that they are there. I often refer to them as the "elitist parents." Elitist parents firmly believe that their job is to keep their children's resumes so packed that Ivy League schools like Harvard, Yale and Dartmouth will be fighting over the right to make them a part of their school one day. This twisted scenario is like a bad American dream, one that I don't want to have any part of.

• Should teacher tests receive a failing grade?

  Monday, July 13, 2015

  As our nation continues to look for ways to hold our schools accountable for student learning through student tests such as PARCC and SBAC, we have also turned to raising the bar for teacher tests. Elizabeth Harris, a writer for The New York Times, examined the issue in a story last month entitled, "Tough Tests for Teachers, With Question of Bias."

• To test or not to test? That is the growing question

  Monday, June 29, 2015

  ​Earlier this month, New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan took a bold step in the debate over whether students can opt out of standardized testing. She vetoed a bill that would have allowed students to do so.

• Coming soon to a school near you: The new SAT

  Tuesday, June 16, 2015

  The introduction of the Common Core has caused many high schools and colleges to move toward proficiency and competency-based assessment systems in recent years. The focus in the educational community has now turned to one of the rites of passages that many high school juniors and seniors still face: college entrance exams like the SAT.

• College 2.0: A new age of learning

  Friday, June 05, 2015

  ​For 100 years or more, America's greatest institutions of higher learning have relied on a tried-and-true recipe for success: Hire the greatest minds in our society as professors and charge students a fee to be able to learn from the lectures and stories those great minds would tell in their classrooms.

• Remembering Grant Wiggins and his impact on education

  Thursday, May 28, 2015

  On the morning of May 27, shock took over the educational community with a single tweet from Grant Wiggins, written by his beloved wife Denise: "Grant Wiggins, of brilliant mind and dearest heart, died yesterday. The world has lost a true champion of learning. Carry on the work. -Denise"

• How does your school garden grow?

  Monday, May 18, 2015

  After a long winter, spring has finally arrived. For many — especially those who spent a season buried under record-breaking snowfalls — the warm weather means it is time to plant the family garden. Home gardens have been on the rise since 2009 when the White House announce plans to plant their own kitchen garden.

• Senate bill may provide big boost to competency education

  Tuesday, May 05, 2015

  In a news release to its members last month, the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) announced that it has been assisting in the reauthorization of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The bill is moving forward from committee to the full Senate as the Every Child Achieves Act of 2015 (ECAA), a bill last updated as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in 2001.

• A new era in teaching: The rise of personalized learning

  Monday, April 20, 2015

  Last week, I had a great conversation with one of my teachers who had recently started incorporating the flipped classroom model into her classroom. We talked about how her role as a teacher looks different today than it did just a few years ago.

• Is it time to end zero-tolerance policies in schools?

  Monday, April 06, 2015

  Last month, a former student from my school came back to interview me on zero-tolerance policies for a research paper she was writing for her graduate program. Her questions really got me thinking about the purpose and the effectiveness of this approach in schools.

• Addressing plagiarism in schools

  Monday, March 23, 2015

  In a scene that takes place in 1955 during the classic movie "Back to the Future," Biff is seen bullying Marty McFly's father (the classic nerd) into doing his homework for him, but he is smart enough to know what to do so he won't get caught cheating.

• New Hampshire sets the PACE with new accountability strategy

  Monday, March 09, 2015

  ​To test or not to test? That seems to be the question these days when it comes to state-run standardized testing that is used to hold schools, teachers and students accountable.

• How does your school use social media to connect with families?

  Monday, February 23, 2015

  As I was walking down the hall the other day, I was struck by some recent student artwork that had been posted by one of our art teachers. I took a few pictures of them on my phone and quickly uploaded them to our Sanborn Regional High School Facebook page with a caption that read, "Check out some of the latest pieces of art by students in Ms. Ladd's class!"

• It’s time to redefine the credit hour

  Monday, February 09, 2015

  Recently, a hot topic on the Web has been the Carnegie Unit. Also referred to as credit hours or student hours, the system has come under scrutiny by many in the educational community who believe that a major shortcoming with the model is its inability to link "seat time" with actual learning. Last month, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching published a new study entitled "The Carnegie Unit: A Century-Old Standard in a Changing Educational Landscape." Interestingly, the Foundation agreed that the time had come to redefine the credit hour.

• How do you personalize learning at your school?

  Thursday, January 22, 2015

  Personalized learning has been one of the hottest trends in education, especially in the past two to three years. The system must include flexible learning environments that allow the system to adapt to the individual needs of each learner on an ongoing basis, one with personalized learning paths.

• Kindness: The sometimes-forgotten teaching standard

  Monday, January 12, 2015

  ​Last month, my school hosted a regional conference for student councils from other neighboring high schools. The focus of the day was on compassion and the importance of this character trait in the development of effective student leaders.

• Will changes to AP courses save them from becoming obsolete?

  Monday, December 15, 2014

  This October, the College Board announced that they will be overhauling more of their AP courses to better emphasize college-level critical thinking. The work will involve looking at all of its 36-plus courses in order to cover fewer topics and aim to address charges that the old courses prized rote memorization over imaginative thinking.

• New Hampshire’s PACE option: Building a better accountability model

  Monday, December 01, 2014

  In October, Education Week's Alyson Klein asked the question, "Will New Hampshire be Arne Duncan's 'test case' for Accountability 2.0?" Klein noted that Secretary of Education Duncan has hinted for some time that he would like to reduce the number of standardized assessments that students take. In New Hampshire, a model that includes the use of both standardized assessments and competency-based performance assessments has piqued the interest of Duncan and his staff in Washington.

• School districts weigh pros, cons of later start times for high schools

  Monday, November 17, 2014

  ​The American Academy of Pediatrics published research this summer that will likely become a hot topic at many school board meetings in the coming months and years. The report, entitled "School Start Times For Adolescents," studied the sleep patterns of teenagers.

• Reflections from iNACOL 2014: Realizing the future of education

  Thursday, November 06, 2014

  This week, more than 2,500 educators, experts, researchers and policymakers have converged on the city of Palm Springs, California, for the annual Blended and Online Learning Symposium hosted by iNACOL, the International Association for K-12 Online Learning.

• The gender gap is closing in schools, when will it translate to the workplace?

  Monday, November 03, 2014

  Despite the fact that our country is built on a foundation whereby "all" are created equal, a significant gender gap still divides us. Parenting blogger Ron Lieber recently stated that "the girls of America seem to know less about money than boys, earn less and have lower expectations for their earnings going forward" in his recent article for The New York Times, "The Wage Gap Starts With Less Knowledge, and Lower Expectations."

• Increasing rigor in the classroom

  Monday, October 20, 2014

  Every teacher wants to be able to say that he or she is increasing rigor in the classroom. How does a teacher go about doing that? The key is to understand what rigor is, but first we need to understand what it is not.

• 21st century twist: Video gaming now belongs in the classroom

  Monday, October 06, 2014

  My two oldest sons — Brady (age 9) and Cameron (age 7) — are addicted to the video game Minecraft. If my wife Erica and I didn't heavily limit their time using it, it is quite possible they would spend days on end building new worlds in this interactive game.

• Using rubrics to provide more accurate feedback

  Monday, September 22, 2014

  Teachers, make this your year to make better use of rubrics and a rubric scale for your assignments and your courses. If you do so, you will show improvement in instruction, assessment, performance, expectations, directions, assignment quality, self-evaluation, grading quality and feedback.

• Promoting positive parent-teacher communication

  Monday, September 08, 2014

  ​Ask teachers what they wish they had more time to dedicate to in their job, and better communication with parents will almost always be at the top of their list. The reality is that teachers want parents to be informed. But once the school year gets going, parent communication often takes a back seat.

• Grading practices that better support 21st‑century learning

  Monday, August 25, 2014

  If you'd like to see just how polarized a high school faculty can be, survey them on how much they think homework should count in their overall course grade. You'll get the full range of responses from zero to 100 percent.

• Transform your classroom into a modern learning space

  Monday, August 11, 2014

  In schools across America, the floors have just been polished, and fresh paint now adorns many classroom walls. Over the next couple of weeks, an army of more than 3 million educators will begin to transform these newly refurbished blank-canvas classrooms into spaces that are conducive to learning in the 21st century.

• Bringing the hashtag to teacher professional development

  Monday, July 28, 2014

  ​It's 8 p.m. on a Sunday evening. Dinner is finished, and the dishes have been put away. It's time to get ready for another busy week at school. For many teachers, this is also a great time to engage in much-needed professional development with their peers.

• Overdue notice: Transforming libraries into learning commons

  Monday, July 14, 2014

  For school libraries — much like the newspaper industry — staying relevant in the 21st century has been the story of reinvention. Technology has put information at our fingertips like never before.

• Why do we still use class rank to select graduation speakers?

  Monday, June 30, 2014

  The movement of schools across the country from a traditional to a standards-based or competency-based grading model is calling into question the age-old practice of asking the valedictorian and the salutatorian to be the speakers at graduation.

• Homework 2.0: It’s time to upgrade our approach

  Monday, June 16, 2014

  Few would argue the importance of homework on academic achievement. But in today's world, the purpose, amount and type of homework that teachers assign looks vastly different than years ago. In the time of the Common Core, quality homework is tied to specific learning goals for a course.

• Cultivating teacher leaders at your school

  Monday, June 02, 2014

  Last week I had an engaging conversation with one of my teachers. After just two years in the classroom, she was at a point where she was looking for ways to take on leadership roles. Our school, like many around the country, is transforming the way we look at teaching and learning.

• The ‘new normal’ life of a teacher

  Monday, May 19, 2014

  ​In the age of accountability, college readiness and the Common Core, the role of PK-20 teachers is changing dramatically in schools and communities across the country. We used to think of teachers as masters of their domain and rulers of their classroom.

• Making mistakes is the key to learning

  Monday, May 05, 2014

  ​"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." This phrase, etched into the minds of children for generations, was first popularized in a proverb by British educational writer William Edward Hickson in the late 1800s. It reminds us all how important mistakes are to the learning process.

• Parental involvement in schools: How much is enough?

  Monday, April 21, 2014

  In a school near you, an elementary school principal is asked to predict which adults will have the greatest impact on a child’s educational success later in life. Most would place parents very high on that list. It is no surprise, then, that in many elementary schools parental involvement is significant.

• The importance of grit in a positive school culture

  Monday, April 07, 2014

  Last week I visited a high school in which every teacher had posted in their classroom a large sign that said "Keep calm and have guts." When I asked students and teachers what this poster meant to each of them, they unanimously said it meant they needed to practice grit and determination.

• Common Core is the latest reason to adopt standards-based grading

  Monday, March 24, 2014

  If your school hasn't started discussions on what it would take to move to a standards-based model, I hope this article will inspire you to finally start planning. My school made the switch five years ago, and we haven't looked back.

• Quality performance assessments are trending in New Hampshire

  Monday, March 10, 2014

  In a meeting at a highly-effective school near you, a group of math teachers are working as a professional learning community (PLC) to analyze their students' work on a recent performance assessment in their Algebra 1 classes. Through their conversations and dialogue, they are attempting to use a commonly developed rubric to score the student work.

• How project-based learning is transforming classrooms

  Monday, February 24, 2014

  At many schools around the country, project-based learning is transforming classrooms by creating student-centered environments where teachers can act as facilitators of learning, coaching students as they use critical thinking, problem-solving and inquiry to make sense of their world.