KINGSTON — Brian Gray, a business technology teacher at Sanborn Regional High School, has elevated the use of technology in the classroom to give his students the tools they need for life after school.
Gray is one of 15 semifinalists for 2025 New Hampshire Teacher of the Year.
Other semifinalists from Rockingham County include Hampstead Middle School teacher Brittney Hewett and Kristen Dacey, a first-grade teacher from Soule Elementary School in Salem, New Hampshire.
Gray has been a teacher in Sanborn for the last 16 years. He started his career as a global studies freshman teacher in 2008 after he graduated from Keene State University.
While he began in the social studies field, the district saw a need for business technology and modern media studies which he teaches for all high school grades.
He said he’s humbled to represent Sanborn as a semifinalist this year, adding it’s a reflection of the relationships and connections he’s made with staff and students over his tenure and what’s been accomplished.
“This honor is a culmination for the number of things I have been able to do here and the opportunities that have been afforded to me in Sanborn,” he said.
“It has been continuous opportunities to see what we can achieve next with our group of students.”
His goal has been to give students real-world experiences and problem-solving techniques they can apply for life after school. As a life-long learner and switching over to business technology courses, Gray said he began learning about advances in technology students would be able to implement in future endeavors.
His students learn video production, and digital media among other innovative technologies. He also teaches students how to start a business in one class offerings, doing everything from designing logos to now running the school store.
Helping his students navigate how to problem solve has been a rewarding experience, he said.
He has also helped other district programs get up and running. For Gray, it’s been about different ways to engage in the Sanborn community and with its students.
Gray coached the girls’ basketball team for 16 years and helped build the school’s program. He ran clinics when there wasn’t a recreation program available, coaching four nights a week in a summer league.
He is also involved with the Sanborn Submariners, a team where students design, build and eventually race submarines in an underwater course at the International Submarine Races.
Being a co-coach for the unique club has allowed him to fuse his business tech knowledge to build partnerships in the community and also get his classes involved to develop things like the submarine team’s logo. As a life-long learner, he said he became scuba certified to be involved and assist science teacher James Enright, who started the team.
Gray said he knew he always wanted to teach at this level or the middle-school age because it gave him a chance to better interact with the students, get to know them and curate a curriculum for those students to live out what they are studying.
Global studies involved decision-making and problem-solving rather than regurgitating facts and dates.
“I’ve always had fun helping students navigate problem-solving,” he said.
It’s about learning the newest technological initiatives to share with his students and see them grow, he said. Gray strives to have them not just learn the material, but make it their own and find their own connections. He’s always someone to ask the students what they need. If they ask a question, figure it out and make it happen.
“I always talk about how any skill can be taught, but the content is interchangeable,” Gray said. “When students are given a choice, they’re able to develop some really cool things.”
The nomination is an opportunity for the veteran educator to represent the integral role technology plays in education and he’s looking forward to sharing that with the other semifinalists and judges this summer.
“I want to be someone who helps think about what technology is next,” Gray said. “Students have to be more prepared now than ever with technology and find ways to build more technology in schools and get these students the skills.”
“I’m looking forward to being someone who can help push that conversation forward,” Gray said.
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