Music executives Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine are making a high school in Los Angeles their newest philanthropic project. The two recently revealed they are opening a high school in South Los Angeles and promised to make it one of the most “successful” and “sought-after” institutions in the country. Expected to open in fall 2022, the school’s plans have already been approved by the Los Angeles Board of Education.
Hoping to inspire the next generation of creatives, Dre told the Los Angeles Times that this wasn’t a production school or a recording facility.
“This is for kids who want to go out and start their own company or go work at a place like Marvel, or Apple or companies like that,” he said about the school’s targeted demographic. “Here’s a place that you can go where there’s something that you can learn that you’re really interested in.”
Los Angeles has the nation’s second-largest school system, where more than 80% of students are Latino and Black and about the same number come from low-income families.
“That guy that didn’t have an opportunity, that had to scratch and figure out things on his own. That had the curiosity but didn’t have these type of opportunities, really smart kids — we want to touch and give them this open door and these opportunities to be able to show what they can do,” The Chronic creator added.
The school, which is part of the magnet program, is currently being referred to as Regional High School No. 1 until it receives its official name and will be located at the Audubon Middle School in the Leimert Park neighborhood in South LA. The news comes within a week of fellow super producer Pharrell Williams announcing that he was opening an elementary school in Norfolk, Virginia, this fall called Yellowhab. Williams’s school will be educating kids in grades three through five.
