It’s always nice to be able to show off your best assets, and that was exactly what the Vicksburg Warren School District did this week, inviting educators from around the region to witness the changes brought to the local school system through the Leader in Me program.

More than 150 representatives from schools throughout the region interested in learning more about Leader in Me attended a symposium at the Vicksburg Convention Center and toured schools with the VWSD Friday.

It was the third time VWSD and FranklinCovey have teamed up to host the annual event in Vicksburg.

“I think the thing that is amazing is when you feel the breadth of what you are doing,” VWSD superintendent Chad Shealy said. “This isn’t just impacting a child, which is important, or a school, which is also important, or a community, which is also important, when you can make a footprint on the nation by the practices that are being executed inside your school district and have other states come in and emulate what you are doing, that validates all that we are doing.”

By the response from participants, there’s no doubt VWSD is doing things right. Participants toured Redwood, Bowmar and Beechwood elementary schools, as well as the Academy of Innovation

“It was amazing,” Bianca Jefferson, a middle school principal in Nashville who toured AOI, said. “I was a little jealous of all the great things they had going on. I got so many great ideas. I am excited to go back and start doing stuff immediately. I brought two people with me from my building and honestly I am completely sold. I am all the way bought in.

Now, I am formalizing how I am going to go back to my school and get everybody else in. We are doing it.”

We thank our education visitors for visiting and validating what we already knew.