D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and Public Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson announced the Empowering Males of Color initiative on Jan. 21. The initiative pledges to invest $20 million in the education of black and Latino male students in the District.

Spread over the course of three years, the funds will be used to create a mentoring program, targeting grants to specific district schools and open a college preparatory school for male students of color east of the Anacostia River.

Bowser emphasized the focus on young minority males, who comprise 43 percent of the DCPS student population, in the initiative’s official announcement.

“Too many of these young men are not reaching their full potential. We need to fundamentally change that dynamic. That’s why my administration is committed to advancing achievement and opportunity and reducing disparities for boys and young men of color in the District,” Bowser said.

DCPS School Operations Specialist Frederick Lewis explained the initiative as key to unlocking their potential.

“We are modelling our initiatives on programs that have proven successful in DCPS and elsewhere and bringing them to scale so that all our males of color can reach their potential,” Lewis wrote in an email to The Hoya. “And, with that, we strongly reject a deficit perspective that there is something fundamentally wrong with our black and Latino males — our boys are not the problem. We simply are not doing enough to support them, empower them and encourage them.”

Black and Latino male students have the lowest high school graduation rates in the District, at 48 percent and 57 percent, respectively.

To boost the rates, a new all-male college preparatory school is set to open east of the Anacostia River in fall 2016 with the help of Urban Prep Academics, a Chicago-based nonprofit organization that oversees a network of three all-male high schools in Chicago with similar missions, each of which has an average size of 350 students. One hundred percent of students in the Urban Prep system since its first class in 2010 have graduated from high school and been accepted to four-year institutions.

Urban Prep Academics Founder and CEO Tim King (SFS ’89, LAW ’93) spoke fondly about his past in D.C. when announcing the partnership with Mayor Bowser and DCPS. He alluded to his time at Georgetown, which he attended with Henderson, as well as work as a tutor in Sursum Corda and high school teacher in northeast D.C.

“I couldn’t be more excited by the prospect that Urban Prep’s first school outside of Chicago be in a city that, in a way, is where it all began,” King said.

In addition to the new high school, Empowering Males of Color will work to increase mentorship programs in elementary schools. Currently, roughly half of black and Latino fourth-graders fall below norms for their grade level.

The final component of the initiative includes a new method for schools to apply for grants, through what it calls the “Proving What’s Possible” model. Schools are asked to focus on academic development, family engagement or social-emotional supports when applying for funding.

Lewis added that the initiative will have a positive impact on all DCPS students, not just minority male students who directly benefit.

“We believe this is an equity and social justice issue, but also believe the cumulative effect of increased academic rigor and enhanced social supports that specifically target males of color will be a boon for all students, in the spirit of the idiom: A rising tide lifts all boats,” he wrote. “There is enormous untapped potential in our students. To unlock this potential, we must target how we educate students who have not yet fully benefited from the progress we have made. We are confident that our investment in young men of color will pay off for all our students, and for the entire city.”

The initiative is separate from but works in coordination with the White House’s My Brother’s Keeper project, which similarly aims to aid young minority males through collaborations with institutions across the nation. Georgetown’s Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation was approached by the Department of Education last summer to work on My Brother’s Keeper, including a data jam session in August.

In addition to community service programs such as D.C. Reads and the D.C. Schools Project run by the Center for Social Justice, Georgetown also directs the Meyers Institute for College Preparation to ready students in Ward 7 for college. Despite these partnerships, no Georgetown organizations have yet announced formal involvement with the Empowering Males of Color initiative, according to Director of Media Relations Rachel Pugh.

Aligning with her commitment to increasing opportunities for the District’s disadvantaged youths, Mayor Bowser recently launched the annual Marion Barry Summer Youth Employment Program, opening the application process for students ages 14 to 21, renamed this year after the former mayor who began the program and died in November.

The university has provided around a dozen opportunities through the program in past years. Selected candidates will earn six weeks of employment and work-readiness training. Applications are open until Friday, Feb. 20 at summerjobs.dc.gov.