For Matt Stark, the start of a new school year is like Christmas morning.
This year it’s extra special, as he’ll be back home in the halls of Brown County High School.
“It’s the opportunity to start anew for students and staff alike. We get to start over every year and make something amazing,” he said with a smile.
Even though he’s been here before, Stark is starting over, too. Five years ago, he left this same job at BCHS to take another principal job at Urbana High School in Illinois.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]“Brown County High School is a very different high school than it was five years ago when I left,” he said.
“I am approaching coming back as principal not as, ‘We’re going to make it like it was in 2013,’ but really spend time learning from our students, learning from the staff, learning from families, learning about, ‘What is Brown County High School doing well? What are things we need to work on and improve?’”
Stark said he’s changed, too. He plans to push students to advocate for themselves and their school. “My entire career I’ve believed in student voice. I want to find ways to formalize that more to students. I’m a big believer that this is their high school.”
His job, philosophically, is “how do we best help our students? How do we best help our staff to help our students? That’s my role, is to try and figure out ways we can do better jobs to do that.
“I want to continue to build on the work that has been done before, and continue to grow this school and make it the best school we can make it,” he said.
Coming home
The reason Stark left in 2013 was for family, and the reason is the same for why he is returning.
“I am moving back for family for different reasons, but in the same way,” he said.
“I am very proud and pleased of my time in Urbana. I am not angry with them or upset with them, or I didn’t get fired, anything along those lines. They were sad to see me go, and I was sad to see them go.”
He said he had other opportunities to return to Indiana, but chose not to take them because it “wasn’t the right fit.”
“Here just seems like the right fit,” he said.
Stark was hired right out of Purdue University to teach social studies at Brown County. He taught for 10 years before taking over as principal at the high school for another 10 years.
“This is home. No, I did not grow up here. I am not a native Brown Countian by any stretch, but I really consider here home. I have friendships that are 25-year friendships that, even though I moved, continued,” he said.
Students he’ll have at the high school now are the children of students he taught 20 years ago.
“There’s just something about this area and specifically Brown County that I just have missed,” he said.
As the summer break nears an end, Stark said he is “very hungry to get started.” From the nervous freshman to the melancholy senior, he’s ready to embrace all his new students.
“For the kid who is struggling, this might be the year they turn it around,” he said.
“I just feel like the first day of school should be filled with such hope. How do we hold on to that and keep that positive energy and hope alive throughout the entire year, to not let that fire inside of them get put out? That’s the goal.”
Stark said there has been “tremendous successes” at the high school during the last five years, from STEM programming to students winning History Day, science fairs and academic competitions. He’s excited to “rediscover” the school he loves.
“All 650-plus students that are here, they are all going to be new to me. I am excited about what the potential that holds. A lot of the staff is new to me. It’s that rediscovery of a school that I loved when I left, a rediscovery and learning how it has grown, changed and developed,” he said.
He plans to bring “restorative practices” to Brown County High School. That’s a concept he used at Urbana, a diverse school of more than 1,000 students.
“The purpose of school discipline is not to punish. The purpose of student discipline is to change behaviors, whether that being something as familiar as being late to class or not doing your homework. How do we change that behavior?”
That means finding the root cause of problems and helping a student to fix them so they don’t repeat a mistake.
“In some cases, like a kid who is falling asleep in class or not paying attention in class, as you dig into the problem, it turns out that they got kicked out of their house, they’re actually couch surfing and everything else. They’re not falling asleep in class because they’re bored with the class; they’re falling asleep in class because outside of these walls, they’re not sure where they’re going to sleep tonight,” he said.
When he left Brown County High School five years ago, he took with him the philosophy of empowering staff to best help kids. That philosophy grew at Urbana.
“At the core of why they got into this profession, they want kids to be successful. Part of my job is trying to help tie into that passion for success and figure out how we can best help those kids … because I think sometimes we have to step back to see things that we can’t see because we’re in the middle of it.”
Partners in success
Stark wants parents to view the relationship between them and the school as a “covenant.”
“It’s more than a partnership. A parent is sending their most precious thing in their life to the school. … This should not be an adversarial relationship. It shouldn’t be viewed as, ‘I have to fight the school to help my kid.’ How do we work together?”
He said it’s important for parents to communicate their child’s strengths and weaknesses to their teachers. “Be open and up front with that out of the gate,” he said.
High school is also a time when students transition from children to young adults who will make their own decisions, so it’s important those students advocate for themselves.
“Your parents should be your greatest supporters, but over these four years, we’re going to shift from being the out-front advocate to being the supporter. The student needs to take that role,” he said.
“What do you want to see done for you? What do you want to see done for you school? You need to find ways to advocate for yourself.”
If students have issues or ideas they want to discuss with administrator, they’ll be able to fill out a form to set up a meeting, he said.
Stark said it’s critical for students to really participate in their education.
“I can’t do the homework for you. I can’t learn the stuff for you. You need to be here every day,” he said.
“If you can’t show up mentally for that or physically for that, then we need to figure out how to help you do that, because if you do that, there’s not a kid in here who can’t be successful.”
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Principal Matt Stark will be in the Brown County High School cafeteria for a half-hour before the high school open house officially begins on Wednesday, Aug. 8. His meet-and-greet will run from 5:30 to 6 p.m. and the open house from 6 to 7 p.m.
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