Most of my time here at App47 is spent taking care of customers and formulating new solutions to make sure we stay ahead of the game. Sometimes, though, I like to take a break and get involved in the community.
Last May, I took a trip out to DC for the House Student App Challenge to help connect Congress with tomorrow’s coders, entrepreneurs, and tech leaders. It was a great opportunity to help make a difference in legislation that will likely affect the next generation of companies like App47. This year, however, I decided to do something different and take some time to help determine the vision of Loudoun County Public Schools.
As someone with 4 kids in our local public school system, I’m pretty invested into the outcome and productivity of the public school system. After all, LCPS is going to play a huge part in my children’s future. So when I was invited to participate in the LCPS Vision 20/20 Strategic Plan Stakeholders Work Group back in December, I jumped at the opportunity.
The premise is simple: meet with other stakeholders in the community to determine what LCPS graduates should know and be able to do. We started with our first meeting back on December 16th, and last Tuesday, we continued the conversation, synthesizing and making more recommendations about the vision of LCPS. The meeting was very productive, and I left last week feeling confident about the work we’ve done and the direction we’re headed.
We had people from all different walks of life, from teachers to parents, administrators, and financial officers for LCPS present at the meeting. While we all pretty much agreed about what the top two components of the vision statement should be, once we got past that, the hard work began. There were a wide variety of goals, views, and concerns about what else should be included, and although we made great strides in figuring all of those components out, we still have a lot of work left to do at our meeting next week.
All of that being said, helping to paint that vision to those that will take our work and implement it, well, that’s a story all unto its own, and something I know we’re all looking forward to.
Anyone with a company (and really, most people in business today) probably knows how important a vision statement is to a company’s future. Here at App47, our vision is our guiding principle for everything we do on a day-to-day basis. The same is true for public schools, so having the opportunity to shape LCPS’s vision is something I’m proud to be a part of.
Even though it meant time away from the business, any time that’s invested back into the future of public schools is time I’m happy to spend. With one more session with the Vision 20/20 Work Group, I think it’s safe to say that all of us are confident in the future of LCPS.
