This is amazing! Pharrell Williams has decided to give back to his community in Virginia.
The Root reports that the music producer will open a new network of private schools for low-income families in the Norfolk area. This network will be under his newly launched educational program, “Yellowhab.”
Yellowhab is an independent micro-school providing customized learning pathways serving the unique needs + aptitudes of children.”
The school will be opened for the Fall 2021 school year. It will be a tuition-free private school and will enroll between 40-50 students between third and fifth grade. Each student will also be classed according to their skill level.
Mike McGalliard, the Executive Director of Yellowhab spoke about the new school and said, “The challenge is that if you’re progressing too slow relative to some benchmark, then you’re tagged with the title ‘remedial’ or something like it.”
He went on to say, “And that’s detrimental to your evolving self-concept, to your sense of what you can achieve. It’s oppressive, and it’s weight kids carry.”
Students are Yellowhab can live anywhere within the city. The school’s curriculum will be heavy on science, technology, engineering, art, and math, better known as STEAM.
Pharrell spoke on the new network as well. “If the system is fixed and unfair, then it needs to be broken. 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.”
Parents can apply for the school until July 1st.