The KHS_App project was my exciting and also frustrating project to date.  This incredible opportunity for students to learn about software development using industry standards was priceless for the students.  

The NTHS (National Technical Honor Society) students wanted to get involved in a major IT project.  We brainstormed some ideas and clearly all the students believed that a school mobile app would benefit the school significantly.  As such, I reached out to the community to find a mobile app developer to help support the project as I had no clue how to go about this development.

Under the tutelage of our first mentor, we were able to design a quality prototype utilizing two Raspberry PIs serving as the front and back-end of the system.  The students did a fantastic job with the layout design and content, whilst the mentor focused on the programming.

The following school year, I recruited a team of two local military app developers.  One volunteer had some experience with IOS, while the other had an Android background.  Together we would create the app for both platforms, eventually having them added to both the IOS and Android Play stores.

The mobile app was PERFECT!!   It offered push notifications, the ability to push school announcements and tons of very important student-driven information to the user.  When I offered the product to the school to become the school's official mobile app, I was told that the app would need to become vetted through official channels.

Low and behold, we were told that our product could not be used officially due to security concerns.  To be vetted, the application would need to be associated with the student Google accounts, which was not part of the original design.

This was EXTREMELY disappointing!  Two years of hard work and to be denied acceptance was tough for everyone.  Since the denial of use as an official school app, we have somewhat removed ourself from the project.  We did not renew our subscription to the Play Store and the app is currently not available.  

I hope to revive the project this year and see if we can find a way to utilize the app in an unofficial capacity.