Pharrell has proven time and time again his commitment to giving back. While the multi-hyphenate has already extended his reach into the mogul world by adding different entities to his portfolio, his green thumb has remained intact in many of his other endeavors has remained intact.
On Saturday (June 12), the Grammy-winner announced plans to open a group of small private schools for low-income families. The first of these schools will be in Norfolk and will open this fall. Students in the city in grades three through five will be eligible to attend the school, with an end goal of expanding on his equity-focused non-profit's established summer program for students.
“If the system is fixed and unfair, then it needs to be broken,” said Pharrell of the endeavor in a press release. “We don’t 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.”
Dubbed Yellowhab, the school will be completely tuition-free for at least the first year of running. The costs of attendance are set to be covered by philanthropic supporters. One of the school's earliest donors was the Walton Family Foundation, which has already spent millions over the last two decades to support and promote charter schools.
According to Executive Director Mike McGalliard, the school currently had no plans to make the school a public charter. “We are very clear here that we’re 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,” explained McGalliard. “It’s very important that we not disrupt that revenue stream.”
Norfolk Mayor Kenny Alexander praised the work Williams' nonprofit has done, adding that he was looking forward to seeing what else he'll be able to accomplish. “What happened was breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty,” Alexander said. “To see that students had gone on to university and some of the Ivy League schools was just very impressive. That’s what we witnessed there.”
The school will initially enroll 40 and 50 students and will follow a skill-level format rather than traditional grade-level cohorts. Families can apply for admission at www.teamyellow.org/yellowhab and will be selected through a lottery process.
Yellowhab will officially open its doors on September 7th.
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