BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA - NOVEMBER 03: Pharrell Williams accepts the Hollywood Song Award onstage during the 23rd Annual Hollywood Film Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on November 03, 2019 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for HFA)
Pharrell is known for giving back to his community in major ways, and for his latest initiative, he is helping to better the education for low-income families.
According to The Virginian Pilot, Pharrell is working to open small private schools for students, with the first school scheduled to open in Norfolk. The school will open this fall on September 7th in Ghent and will consist of grades three through five.
Pharrell spoke about the schools and said, If the system is fixed and unfair, then it needs to be broken. We dont want lockstep learning where so many kids fall behind; we want bespoke learning designed for each child, where the things that make a child different are the same things that will make a child rise up and take flight.
The schools will be known as Yellowhab, which is named after Pharrells non-profit Yellow, and hab derives from the name of the Mars habitat in the movie The Martian.
The school will place focus on the STEM curriculum, and will enroll at least 40-50 students. However, although enrollment is open to students in the third, fourth and fifth grade, the school will place focus on the students’ skill level, and they will group them as such, opposed to their grade levels.
Executive Director Mike McGalliard said, “The challenge is that if youre progressing too slow relative to some benchmark, then youre tagged with that title remedial or something like it. And thats detrimental to your evolving self concept, to your sense of what you can achieve. Its oppressive, and its a weight kids carry.”
The cost of the school will remain tuition-free for at least the first year and will be funded through the support of philanthropists.
McGalliard also noted that the school has no plans to look for local approval or funding to make the school a public charter.
“We are very clear here that were not taking away from the city or the district. We want to be additive and not put any kind of onerous, intrusive impact on those institutions. Its very important that we not disrupt that revenue stream, he said.
When it comes to Norfolk being the location for the first school, the Virginian Piolt notes that the decision was made due to the “deeply entrenched housing segregation and the citys plans to redevelop three public housing communities through its billion-dollar St. Pauls redevelopment.”
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TSR STAFF: Jade Ashley @Jade_Ashley94
