With the news of state lawmakers reviewing ideas of how to “properly” fund schools in Mississippi and the ongoing Senate confirmation hearings of President Trump’s pick for education secretary, Betsy DeVos, public education has been the topic of many discussions.

For full disclosure, I am a product of public schools and am the son of parents who both spent more than 30 years teaching in the public school system in Alabama. And, to top it off, my sister is a mathematics and robotics teacher at a public school in Mobile, Alabama.

To say I am a little biased when it comes to public schools, and the role they play in society, would be a huge understatement.

When we moved to Vicksburg, our daughter found a home in a third-grade class midway through the first semester at Sherman Avenue Elementary. We were proud of what she learned, what she accomplished and the steps taken to prepare her for the fourth grade and beyond.

At the time, Sherman Avenue was not among the Leader in Me schools in the Vicksburg-Warren School District, but rolling the program out at that school and others in the future had been discussed.

Before the fourth-grade year, Sarah Cameron was accepted at Bowmar Elementary.

And while we were pleased with her third-grade year, we really could tell the difference the Leader in Me program made in how the curriculum was taught, the energy of the school and the laser focus placed on each student and their overall development.

When it came to Leader in Me, we were sold.

Now, to hear the program has been rolled out to even more of the elementary schools, with the rest of the elementary schools and middle schools adopting the program very soon, I could not be more excited for the parents, the students and the teachers.

The Leader in Me program is one that is funded in partnership with the businesses and individuals throughout Vicksburg through the Vicksburg-Warren Chamber of Commerce.

Vicksburg’s Leader in Me schools have become prime examples of what that program can do for schools and school systems, and is routinely on display for visitors throughout the region and country.

Last week, Vicksburg played host to the Leader in Me Symposium, welcoming hundreds of educators and administrators who wanted to learn more about how this program could help their schools, their systems and their children.

The success of Leader in Me though is not just in the lesson plans or syllabuses. It is not successful because of what can be found in a book or laid out on a spreadsheet.

The success of this program is the people who run it, the teachers who teach it, the businesses and individuals who help support it and the community that has rallied around it.

It is my hope the type of education my little girl is receiving — and my boys will soon experience — can help redefine what it means to have a public education in Mississippi and America.