KINGSTON — Sanborn Regional High School (SRHS) is excited to be one of the newest members of the Plaistow Area Commerce Exchange (PACE). SRHS serves students in the communities of Kingston, Newton, and Fremont. The school, led by Principal Brian M. Stack and Assistant Principals Ann Hadwen and Michael Turmelle, has made headlines recently at local, state, and national levels for its bold and innovative redesign work around college and career readiness for the twenty-first century.
National Magna Award - The National School Board Association awarded the 2012 Magna Award to Sanborn Regional School District in Kingston New Hampshire for its new Freshman Learning Community (FLC). Under the leadership of Assistant Principal Ann Hadwen, Sanborn Regional High School created a learning community within the high school for freshman students to be together with a core group of teachers to include English language arts, social studies, science, mathematics, technology, information literacy, and wellness instructors. This community operates on a rotating schedule within the block schedule of Sanborn Regional High School. Embedded in this rotation is flexible grouping time to provide students with a weekly re-teach and enrichment period to intervene and support students and monitor progress. All students take math at the same time during the day, in an uninterrupted ninety minute block. The entire math department is involved in math instruction for freshman during this time.
Following the Professional Learning Community model, the FLC teachers have developed common team norms, goals, common grading practices for class work and homework, grading policies, integrated units, performance-based assessments, and communication to parents. Early data shows that course failures have dropped dramatically in courses that are associated with the team. Discipline issues are sharply reduced from the 2008-2009 school year. Instruction, designed to meet individual student needs, is showing promise of meeting the challenge set forth by the Sanborn Regional School Board when they adopted a single goal for the school district - to become a top ten percent school district, based on a variety of indicators.
Next Steps: Career Pathways - Lead by Assistant Principal Michael Turmelle, the school has now started a similar sophomore small learning community which expands upon the ideas of the FLC but embeds more real-world project-based learning experiences that connect students to the local community. Perhaps the biggest undertaking will be the restructuring of students in their junior and senior year into career pathway learning communities such as Arts, Communication, and the Humanities; Business Management; Health and Human Services; and Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). This redesign work will be completed over the next couple of years. The goal of these pathways will be to provide students a better transition to college and careers and to foster long-term partnerships with the local business community. Stay tuned for more information in the months to follow. We hope that you and your business will consider partnering with Sanborn Regional High School on this important endeavor! Please contact Principal Brian Stack at bstack@sau17.org if you would like to get your business involved with Sanborn.
For more information about Sanborn Regional High School, visit their website at www.sau17.org or follow Mr. Stack’s blog at http://srhsprincipalsblog.blogspot.com/.
