Three moments, three divisions, one incredible day in the life of our Head of School.

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"The Colonel just melted." As Hillbrook team have been thinking about how best to launch the 2025-26 school year and celebrate our 90th anniversary, Head of School Mark Silver found himself have been drawn back to the school’s early years, and reminded yet again of how the foundations of what we do today are so deeply rooted in that place and time.

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After 16 8th Grade Promotions (and counting!) Head of School Mark Silver takes some time to reflect on the flashpoint between history and future. "Promotion powerfully affirms our school’s 90 year tradition and commitment to see, know and understand each and every student, and serves as a beautiful and moving connection with generations of Hillbrook students and families," he says. "At the same time, it represents a new and equally inspiring connection to the transformative moment we are going through as we expand into a JK-12, as increasingly these young people walk off the amphitheater stage on the Los Gatos campus and transition across the valley to our Upper School. What a gift that they will have the opportunity to build on their JK-8 experience at an Upper School that is delivering a truly extraordinary and engaging educational experience for high school students. It is, as we have often noted, an educational opportunity that all students deserve."

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"Engagement" is about so much more more than paying attention in class - it's about truly being a part of a community, with kindness and intention. In this week's episode, Head of School Mark Silver ponders the recent Atlantic article “The Anti-Social Century,” self-imposed solitude, and how schools are a place where students can find both purpose and community.

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In a special Thanksgiving episode of "Just a Moment," Hillbrook Head of School Mark Silver takes time to reflect on his mother's lessons on gratitude - and how one of the greatest gifts we can give to others is sharing a sense of home, whether it's for an evening or a lifetime.

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I have been thinking a lot about this recently as we have been talking about how to help students engage with the upcoming election. As a school, we believe that it is critical for us to find age-appropriate ways for students to learn about the world around them. We also know there are a few things that make this challenging. In this episode of "Just a Moment," Hillbrook Head of School Mark Silver takes a moment to reflect on teaching challenging and complicated ideas.

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The first few weeks of the school year, I have had the opportunity to jump back into the classroom, co-teaching a 10th grade Immersive course - “Our Voices, Our Rights: Sports, Pop Culture, & Campus Protest.” The agenda was inspiring and challenging, and it pushed students to grapple with complex contemporary questions - how should universities manage campus protest amidst the most turbulent campus period since the 1960s? What, if any, restrictions should exist on social media platforms and who makes those decisions? What’s the right way as a society to manage hate speech? What role should athletes play in social justice movements?

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Since I was a young child, I have spent a week or two every summer in Central Oregon. Each time upon my arrival, I feel a change in my body, as I breathe in the pine-scented air, see the Cascade mountain range rising up in the near-distance, and find myself walking paths and trails that I have visited my entire life. There is a small creek that I always visit on my first and last day, a bubbling spring emerging directly from the ground that is so clean that you can actually drink the water. The tagline for the community we stay in is, “There is a place,” which has always struck me as just the right way to describe it. There is something about the place that needs to be experienced to fully understand.

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Over the last few years, many of us have started to refer to this time of year as May-hem or spoken about “the 100 days of May.” I have used those expressions more than once, particularly during the latter part of the month, when I find myself digging deep to find the energy to show up as my best self for a big event. There is certainly something to be said for naming our feelings and for using humor to add a bit of levity and perspective to what can be a very busy time of year.

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During Spring Break, I read a book - Co-Intelligence, by Ethan Mollick, Professor of Management at Wharton and a leading voice helping people make sense of the place of AI in business, education and life. I had heard him on a recent podcast by Ezra Klein, and I was struck by the clarity of his message. It was the most accessible and compelling framework I have found yet for trying to understand my own relationship to AI.

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Do you remember what you did yesterday? Stop and take a moment to think about it.

While I certainly hope you remember something, I suspect your day was not nearly as interesting as the days our Middle School students had yesterday and are having throughout this week, as part of our annual Reach Beyond Week.

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In these early days of Spring, with blossoms of all colors appearing daily, there is such a sense of possibility in the air. How joyful and meaningful that our students are able to see and experience the myriad ways that different cultures and religions, including their own, celebrate and recognize this moment in time.

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In an increasingly volatile and uncertain world, it has never been more important for students to feel like they can do something and make a difference.

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So much of what we do at Hillbrook helps students discover who they are and allows them to both tap into their innate superpowers and passions and push themselves to do hard things and grow. It is, in the end, arguably the most important thing we do as a school. It’s a gift, one that keeps on giving as they go into high school, college and beyond.

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Farewell, little dragon: last Tuesday an iconic item on our Los Gatos campus met an unfortunate demise. The Dragon that oversaw students as they crossed over the bridge into the Middle School was destroyed by a branch during a recent winter storm.

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Last week, as part of a series of webinars for families interested in our Upper School program, we offered a session with five 9th graders talking about their experience during the first semester. Here's what we learned.

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“Coming back is like coming home because it’s just a very good comfortable feeling. Feels so good sometimes I like to just stay here and take it all in - just pretend that I never left.”

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Jokes, stories, Instagram posts, and memes about terrible meetings are a dime a dozen, with everyone bemoaning how much time is wasted in workplace meetings. Apparently, they aren’t participating in the meetings I am.

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If you look at the top high schools in the Bay Area as identified by Niche magazine, the top six schools, and nine of the top 10, do not have AP programs. These nine schools, all independent school peers of Hillbrook that reflect the type of high school we are designing, have strong college placement records and offer - without question - academically rigorous programs.

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Lou Jiménez, a professional artist and muralist who connected with our students in downtown San José last year, helped students understand the role of art as activism, showing students how artists can and have used murals to teach and call people to action.

See our mural in action here: https://www.instagram.com/p/C0PrXmYP39v/

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Monday afternoon we toured a team of educators from Hangzhou Yungu Chinese School around both our Los Gatos and San Jose campuses. They were interested in visiting us to learn more about our approach to education, including our reach beyond programming and our developing competency-based architecture that we are implementing in the Upper School. As we spent time with them, it became clear that they were extremely impressive in their own right.

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HUB teacher Martin Magnana is relaunching HELP - Hillbrook Engineering Leaders Program - which ensures that students are making and building with a purpose.

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In a world that feels increasingly disconnected, turbulent, and polarized, it's more important than ever to be openhearted and to learn the skills that are essential to build friendships and create community.

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Serious scientific research is taking place - in our classrooms. Biochemistry teacher Mike Judge used the recent regional smoky air event from a few weeks ago as an opportunity to collect data about the impact of wildfire smoke on the urban heat island effect. Middle School science teacher Brian Ravizza has also brought the science of wildfires into his classroom, bringing 7th graders to visit the site of the CZU Lightning Complex Fire in Big Basin State Park.

Watch the video about our Upper School's project research here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9PhyHxvB-U

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I strongly believe that a piece of our success is tied to our historical roots. From our beginning in 1935, we were a school that dreamt big and that understood that all children are capable of achieving extraordinary things if provided the right environment. And, we were a school that knew how to take a vision and turn it into reality.

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One day in late April, Carla said, “Hey, I didn’t know you had purchased bees this Spring. “ I looked at her, “Huh?” And then went out to look. Lo and behold, there were bees in the hive. Clearly, a swarm from somewhere in our vicinity had found my bee boxes and happily settled into it for their new home.

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This morning at the 7th grade “Year Ahead” coffee, I shared with parents that 7th grade is one of the hardest years in school.

“For the children or the parents?” a father quipped.

I paused - “Yes,” I replied.

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In our first Immersives, students immediately grappled with relevant and timely questions - “How are civic leaders working to address the challenges for the unhoused community in downtown San Jose?” for example - and then heard from the people who are actually tackling these issues about the steps they are taking and the challenges they face as they deal with ambiguous and complex problems.

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As educators, we have increasingly come to understand the science of learning, the ways to help us identify each child’s proximal zone of development (the space between what a learner can do without assistance and what a learner can do with adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers). The goal with children is to help them develop the resilience to struggle and do hard things, recognizing that it is a winding and circuitous path, not a linear function.

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Tuesday morning started off with one of our family’s oldest traditions - the first day of school photo in front of our house. There is only one child left for the photo, as my others are both off at college, but I quietly cheered last night when she reminded me that we needed to get the shot. Standing next to her this morning I flashed back on 15 years of first day photos - initially me with the two older children, then there were three of us for a number of years, and then back to two, and now, just one.

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Nearly 90 years later, we remain deeply committed to Mary’s vision - both the belief that learning needs to be challenging and engaging, and that it needs to create the foundation to help students reach beyond and make a difference in the world. You can draw a clear throughline from her vision in the 1930s to Hillbrook today

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Last week the Supreme Court delivered decisions in two related cases challenging race-conscious admissions in higher education. The decisions declared race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina unlawful under the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

The decision ended decades of practice in which universities have been able to consider an applicant’s race as one factor among many in a holistic admissions review process. While it is too soon to tell what the impact of this decision will be on the makeup of colleges and universities, the message it sends - that racial inequity is no longer an issue that colleges should be empowered to address - is troubling. Notes

While the implications for this decision remain unclear for K-12 private schools, Hillbrook is and will continue to be committed to building an intentionally diverse community. As universities and colleges have noted, we will, of course, comply with the law in our enrollment practices. And yet we will do everything within our power to continue to attract, enroll, and retain a diverse set of students and families. We know that the strongest academic programs are diverse programs. Full stop.

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Really? Rain in June? In California? Apparently, 30 percent odds had not been in our favor. But everyone stepped up to embrace the moment - and what had started as a normal 8th grade promotion ceremony quickly became one of the most memorable events in my time as Head of School.

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in his book, “Education at Bat: Seven Principles for Educators," Harvard Graduate School of Education professor David Perkins notes that schools are very good at asking students to practice things in isolation - learn your multiplication tables, practice your vocabulary and grammar, write an essay for your teacher, without ever asking children to put the parts together and play the game. We would never ask children learning to play baseball to only take batting practice, run the bases, and throw with a teammate, never giving them a chance to put the parts together and play the game.

So why should we do that with school?

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As we were preparing for this year’s show, I realized that exactly 10 years ago the Class of 2013 produced this same show. As I watched the current cast, I  started wondering - where are they now? Where are those now 24 year old young professionals in 2023?  While I wasn’t able to connect with all of them, I was able to connect with a small group of them. Not only did we get short updates on where they are now, but several of them sent short videos wishing the current cast good luck (or, more appropriately, they were encouraged to ‘break legs’).

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Can you solve the Zombie Bridge Riddle?

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High school is an experience that provides tremendous value to them as a student and a person, and not simply a blur of experiences that provide you entry into the college of your choice. Put another way, I hope that high school is not a waiting area before you enter the real world….. But a real-world experience that helps you reach your highest potential in school and in life.

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