The transition from middle to high school is a vital period for students to discover who they are and want to be.
At the Frederick Douglass 9th Grade STEAM Academy, every ninth-grade student will receive help finding their spark from Usher’s New Look (UNL), a non-profit which helps train young people to be global, passion-driven leaders through its program that focuses on talent, education, career and service.
“Frederick Douglass High School 9th Grade STEAM Academy is a school we’re partnering with because it has students that we want to serve,” Usher’s New Look CEO and president Careshia Moore said. “We want to help provide them with the tools, access, opportunity and exposure that they need in order to be passion-driven global leaders.”
The non-profit organization was founded in 1999 by Usher Raymond IV and his mother, Jonetta Patton, who were inspired after witnessing the dire narratives of Atlanta teens in a courtroom.
The launch of the program introduced students to the Usher’s New Look Disruptivator Club. Disruptivators are students who use their spark or passion to bring change to the world. Usher’s New Look developed its own curriculum where students can learn about leadership, networking, financial literacy, identifying their spark, and career exploration on a weekly basis.
“Students who have participated in our afterschool program, 100% of them have graduated high school. About 95% go off to college and about 97% of them graduate within five years,” Moore said. “Students who go through our program, 100% of them say they are now able to identify their spark, they have increased their knowledge on financial literacy, and they are also able and feel confident to participate in business opportunities.”
While some schools utilize Usher’s New Look as an afterschool program, at the Douglass 9th Grade STEAM Academy it is integrated into every student’s schedule during their advisement period. Douglass is the first school to have the Disruptivator Club available to all its students.
“One of the purposes we have here at the ninth grade academy is to really strengthen the transition from middle school into high school and help them identify early what some of their pathways are,” Douglass High School principal Forrestella Taylor said. “The beginning of high school is always a challenge. You’re dealing with students who are very much still in their early adolescence ages, and they have maturity issues or are just trying to find out who they are. This helps us to help them hone-in and focus on who they are.”
“Doing it this way makes it so that we’re not isolating a set group or a primed group,” she added. “All of our kids have exposure to this opportunity in identifying who they are and finding their passion. We are excited about the potential of having this at Douglass to see what this will look like as these students matriculate up to the main campus, and how UNL will follow with them so we can help them broaden their horizons.”