Atlanta Public Schools (APS) has partnered with The Iovine and Young Education Group (IYEP) to launch the Iovine and Young Center, a learning pathway to be offered at Frederick Douglass High School beginning August 2024.
Entertainment and innovation icon Jimmy Iovine, co-founder of The Iovine and Young Center in Los Angeles, visited Douglass High School to formally announce The Iovine and Young Education Group (IYEG) partnership with Atlanta Public Schools on Aug. 29. He was accompanied by surprise guest Dallas Austin, the award-winning musician and producer.
This innovative initiative is set to amplify Frederick Douglass High School’s focus on engineering and applied technology. The pathway will initially be offered to a cohort of scholars at the school’s 9th Grade STEAM Academy and each year the cohort of the entering freshman class will be expanded and given the opportunity to enroll in the Iovine and Young Center.
The program will be fully implemented in all grade levels 9th -12th grade by the 2027-2028 school year.
“Future engineers, designers, entrepreneurs and innovators walk these halls daily. In order to foster their creative energy, we must change our approaches to learning to ensure we are meeting the diverse needs of our students. Integrating the Iovine and Young Center at Frederick Douglass High School supports our ability to teach students how to design their thinking, brings student ideas to life, and further prepares our students for competitive careers that may not even exist yet,” said Douglass Principal Forrestella Taylor.
Students enrolled in the center will explore diverse disciplines, businesses, and industries to bring solutions to the problems surrounding these areas. At the end of the course, students will be able to collaborate and create pitches for their innovations that challenge real-world problems. Upon graduation, students will be highly skilled in innovation, making them competitive amongst top universities and better prepared for a global career.
“It is the most critical imperative that we work together to solve the challenges of learning for students,” said outgoing APS Superintendent Dr. Lisa Herring. “The IYEG Learning Framework allows our scholars at Douglass the ability to critically analyze and solve challenges with innovation and aligns perfectly with the APS Profile of a Graduate.”
The Iovine and Young Center at Frederick Douglass High School is in alignment with the district’s continued pursuit to ensure innovation is at the forefront in classrooms, giving students an opportunity to unlock their creative potential and drive meaningful change. The partnership between APS and IYEG stems from Jimmy Iovine and Andre “Dr. Dre” Young’s pursuit of fostering interdisciplinary skills such as technology, business and design in future generations.
As the visionaries developed BEATs technology both Iovine and Young noticed that each professional sector demonstrated expertise in their unique area but none possessed a combined knowledge. In 2013, Iovine and Young partnered with the University of Southern California to create the Iovine and Young Academy (IYA), a school offering USC college students an opportunity to develop interdisciplinary skills.
After many successful years, the pioneers noticed a lack of ethnic diversity in their IYA graduating classes and thus began the pursuit of expanding their innovative learning framework to high school students, targeting black and brown students in public education.
“We want to give the next generation of students access to a proven, revolutionary learning experience where technology meets design and entrepreneurship,” Iovine said in a statement. “This will not only prepare them for the jobs of today but equip them to reimagine and shape the jobs, technologies, and creative enterprises of the future,” Iovine said. We are thrilled with our results in higher ed and the Los Angeles high school, and hope for similar success with Atlanta Public Schools.”
