LOS ANGELES – Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine announced Monday a partnership with the Inglewood Unified School District to open a new high school as part of their second public school project. The district hopes the project will attract students and inject new vitality into the district, which has been forced to close schools over the past decade due to declining enrollment.
The announcement at Morningside High School featured the Inglewood High School marching band and cheerleaders, who welcomed Iovine, the co-founder of Interscope Records, to an auditorium full of district employees and community members.
The Iovine and Young Center will open for ninth graders in the summer of 2025 and expand each year until it reaches 12th grade in 2028. The center’s focus will be on developing creative skills and social impact, culminating in a final project in the senior year that will give students the opportunity to solve real-world problems.
“(Dr. Dre and Iovine) will invest in state-of-the-art technology, professional development for staff and any necessary campus improvements needed to create the new academy,” district spokeswoman Jessica Ochoa said.
The school will be housed on the campus of Crozier Middle School, which is scheduled to close in June 2025, Ochoa said.
“We wanted to start downtown because Dre and especially I owe a lot to downtown Los Angeles and we intend to give back,” Iovine said.
The Inglewood school’s announcement comes two years after the music moguls founded a Los Angeles Unified high school in the Leimert Park neighborhood that focuses on interdisciplinary learning and entrepreneurial talent. The school is housed at Audubon Middle School, which also faced sharp enrollment declines in 2021.
In Inglewood County, middle-class families are increasingly sending their children to charter schools or Los Angeles county schools, while low-income families have dropped out of school due to rising rents. Low birth rates and gentrification have also led to sharp declines in school enrollment.
“We’ll have NBA All-Star weekend, the FIFA World Cup and the Olympics, but what’s most important is what our kids, the next generation, take away from all of this,” said Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts Jr. “We want parents to want to enroll their kids in the Inglewood Unified School District because that’s the only future for this district.”
The long-troubled Inglwood district is in receivership after financial mismanagement forced it to take out a $29 million emergency loan from the state in 2012. The Los Angeles County Office of Education has since taken over the district and given the district-appointed administrator sole authority over the district’s financial decisions until a path to stability and solvency is found.
District Administrator James Morris said the new high school is an example of the rapid progress the district is making in its attempt to emerge from receivership.
“Inglewood is on the move,” he said.
The application period for students begins this winter or spring, Ochoa said. Academic criteria will not be considered in the selection process, she added. Rather, students’ interest in innovation and creative pursuits will be valued.
Still, feelings were mixed among some attendees, as the district faces five school closures by June 2025 – around the same time the new high school opens – and the district’s financial decisions remain outside the control of local authorities.
Carliss McGhee, president of the Inglewood Unified School District, told the auditorium filled with parents and staff, “We have been in bankruptcy for far too long. The Iovine and Young Center will bring practical applications to our students.”
Some teachers praised the new high school but said the district should also use its resources to pay teachers higher, living wages, which would immediately improve the quality of education for students.
“What about us?” said Toni Butler, a teacher at La Tijera K-8 Charter School Academy of Excellence.
