have a passion for learning and they
invite you to join I’m the kind of
person who has to say yes and that’s why
I found myself last June on a Saturday
morning at early o’clock seven am
driving to Darden thao park in the mist
and when I got there kids were already
gathered with teachers with their
principal their assistant principals the
media and me why this group of young
people powered by what I call one times
two female leadership two young girls in
middle school had decided that year that
they wanted more than anything to fly a
high-altitude balloon to the edge of the
atmosphere so they went out and they
recruited other students they got their
teacher involved they got funding to be
able to take this project on and they
worked all year on it as a team and
there they were on a Saturday morning
school was just about ready to be out
getting ready to put that balloon up so
I show up and I have with me my cell
phone camera and I’m documenting images
and video and watching these kids get to
work and what they’re doing is that
they’re assembling all the final pieces
of this apparatus together GoPro camera
they had an Arduino powered tracking
system they had loaded apps onto their
cell phones to track and actually did
that for me while I was standing there
and they also had to get the balloon
ready and call for different air traffic
control centers from Cho to Washington
DC
these guys they get it ready and they
start to put it up we’re all gathered
around the adults and as the balloon
starts to rise we all cheer and the
balloon goes up and up and we’re
watching and then it slowly descends
back to earth
well I looked at the kids and their
shoulders did droop a bit but they
looked at it and quickly figured out
we’ve got to get some of the weight off
of this balloon and so they set about
ditching parts of the apparatus and once
again they had it ready to go and we
were standing around and the balloons
started up and up and out into space it
went and we finally breathed a sigh of
relief and cheered well the kids of
course had their tracking devices and at
some point the balloon went so far away
they couldn’t track it anymore
so they went through the weekend and
they started the week and they hadn’t
heard anything from their balloon and
they were starting to get really worried
that they had lost the balloon and maybe
all of that year’s work but then midweek
I’m in central office and we get a phone
call and it’s the kids their app had
alerted them that the balloon had landed
and so we cheered our rocket kids got
into the cars with her parents and with
her teacher and took off they went all
the way to the other side of Lake Hannah
until they found where the balloon had
landed and it appeared to be on a farm
and right on the gate there was a sign
that said no trespassing
so the kids had to quickly figure out
how do we find the farmer and get
permission which they did and so they
got into the farm they recovered their
balloon and the apparatus mission
accomplished
this was what was on their GoPro camera
their balloon had indeed gone to the
edges of the atmosphere mission
accomplished
what I like to think about though is
that these kids and accomplishing that
mission started out with the power of
one times two and ended up having
tremendous influence over an entire
school community and now we have kids in
some other schools that are saying I
want to do that too
so as superintendent I have to tell you
that there’s nothing that’s more
important to me than thinking about what
if we could have that kind of passion in
all of our young people all of our
children because here’s what I’ve
learned that when our kids get pathways
to their hopes and dreams when they get
to pursue their interest and their
passions when they get a lot of choices
about the things that they get to do all
of a sudden we find that we’ve got kids
that are really exercising a sense of
that their voice matters that they have
agency over their own learning and if
they can have influence beyond just
their classroom and that’s what these
kids did so I’d love to be able to share
with you the story of some of our other
what I call now our power of one student
leaders that are doing similar kinds of
things as we move forward
so here’s Julian I discovered Julian a
little over a year ago because he was
working in a brand new makerspace in one
of our libraries and I walked him I
started talking to Julian and he was
like this is fabulous he had always
loved drones and now he had a place
where he could build drones at school
and he said really all you need is a
little bit of duct tape we learned that
from the Apollo up mission some phone
board and a few devices that help you be
able to construct your drone and get it
up into the air and control it so he’d
been building drones in this makerspace
and he said to me that he and his
principal had been talking about how he
was feeling a little lonely and he
wanted to find out if there were other
kids that might have an interest because
I will actually have a drone curriculum
but here’s what he did he took his
drones into the cafeteria at his high
school one day during lunch and he put
them out and all of a sudden he had
all kinds of kids coming over and
expressing interest in drones the next
thing you know he started a drone Club
they’re flying drones around in the gym
and around the school grounds and not
only that but the middle school kids
right next door heard about it reached
out and he’s over there helping to build
a drone Club at the middle school now
let me tell you about Julian’s power of
one he’s become a student voice in the
national maker movement and actually
gave a keynote speech last year or this
last fall excuse me at the national
conference for educators at the world
Maker Faire at the New York Hall of
Science out of a whole day of speakers
Julian is the one person the only
student and the one person who got a
standing ovation from hundreds of
educators from all over the country how
here yes with his drone Club then
there’s AI awadhi
another one of our seniors this year who
two years ago had an idea because she
was concerned that middle school girls
did not have a real understanding that
engineering could be a great career nor
did she feel like that they knew you
could have fun doing engineering so she
went to her teacher and pitched an idea
and the teacher said why not within just
a few weeks she had put together a team
of other females at her high school and
they had built out the idea of a bridge
building camp for middle school girls
they pulled girls together in the summer
they got the materials they organized
the curriculum and ended up going down
along one of our walking trails and
building a bridge over a small creek
that would give access to community
members that otherwise might not have it
now she’s done this for two years but
when I talked to Iowa D and I say so
what do you learn from this experience
she says well here’s what my takeaways
are the girls learned that engineering
is fun more importantly they learn about
community service and the importance of
giving back to the community and thirdly
they’ve learned how to be leaders too so
what I love is when you see a leader
like Iowa D it’s not just her but it’s
the influence that she has with other
people in her community and there she
I also want to share with you the story
of Kourtney and Kourtney is between
Josiah in his orange shirt and Obed in
his blue shirt and Kourtney is an
actress she’s a dancer she’s a
choreographer but she’s also a
scriptwriter
and this past fall Courtney’s peers
built from her script up one-act play
that they took to a state competition
and ended up being one of the six best
one-act plays in the state of Virginia
here’s what’s really important though
you might say well what makes Courtney
unique Courtney believes that drama is a
pathway to teaching communities about
social issues and engaging them in
dialogue so her one-act play was taken
from a speech by Congressman and civil
rights leader John Lewis and it was
called necessary trouble and it was
built around civil rights issues that
can play out in classrooms in our
schools as an effort to get kids engaged
in dialogue not only did she perform it
for her community and for the state and
now here there’s a high school in
Arizona that’s interested in performing
her script and that’s there’s her her
gathering and then lastly I want to tell
you a little bit about Josh josh is a
student that landed in a new program we
have in our high schools called the
teams program and Josh is self-described
as a kid who’s been living in foster
care has had real struggles in school
both the behavior and academics and also
has been somebody that’s moved around a
lot from school to school and all of a
sudden you’re seeing Josh standing on
the stage right where our presidents
stand to give a keynote address at the
White House so you might ask well how
did Josh get to the White House Josh was
sitting in a group of our students who
were working with a national student
leader of a group called student voice a
student from a university in North
Carolina and he was talking about what
high school transformation meant to him
a few weeks later we get a call from
this student leader who said I’m part of
a planning team at the White House and
there was this young guy now he’s a
ninth grader at this time
I’m a young guy whose voice was so
powerful we think he needs to come to
the White House and be one of our
keynote speakers
and Josh was at the White House this
fall
talking to economic political and
educational leaders from all over the
country about what he believes high
schools should be for contemporary
learners another power of one leader
influencing here and well beyond so as I
end I want to tell you these stories
don’t happen by chance they happen
because of educators who see a future
adjacent to the possibilities of what we
can build in schools today Courtney Josh
Julian the balloon kids I awadhi
represent all the kids in our schools in
Charlottesville and Albemarle all the
state in the nation
we’ve got poets and artists we’ve got
engineers and designers and nurses and
doctors and lawyers and I like to think
a few teachers and principals and maybe
even a superintendent out there and
those kids grow and develop when we are
able to give them opportunities to see
themselves as leaders in their schools
able to influence our community and able
to have their voices be seen as
important to them and others and when
they do that we’re educating them for
life not for school and they’re moving
from being power of one leaders in their
schools to being power ful leaders of
the world in their future and I would
just end by saying this when we unleash
the potential of our young people
allowing them to build their learning
through a sense of agency and to find
their powerful leadership voices through
experiences that plumb their passion the
sky is no longer the limit and we start
to see the potential beyond the sky I’d
like for you to think about this imagine
that in all of our schools thank you [Applause]