The importance of presence

Usually when I think about presence, my mind jolts to mindfulness and putting my phone down. Sure that presence is important, but there’s a larger presence that’s worth more than deep breathing and escaping the ongoing alerts on your smartphone.

This presence has to do with community. This presence has to do with people. This presence has to do with demonstrating your commitment to the people and communities you serve.

Over the past few years we’ve been building a network of preschools. This network is nothing less than remarkable, not because of the work our team has done but because of the work of the preschool directors and leaders.

These professionals have redefined presence in our community. They have left their islands and silos. They have started truly collaborating and coming together around their core objective of teaching and caring for our youngest children.

As one of our directors noted, “There was a time in my career when preschool owners and directors considered one another only “competition” and would never come together, the Early Learning Alliance Network has brought us together as a team, working for a common goal…to create and maintain an environment for our earliest learners.”

The most miraculous observation of the network is this: these professionals now have a presence in…