Frederick Douglass Academy - Partnerships

Partnerships

Frederick Douglass Academy's business partnerships include a variety of companies.

• HBO -- The HBO mentoring program in FDA is an important asset to the school as it pairs high school students with HBO employees. In such manner, students gain insight to the professional world and receive advise such as how to write a resume or prepare for a college interview.
• Gap -- The Little Shop of Scholars is FDA's school store—affiliated with Gap—which has everything from school uniforms to holiday gifts. The merchandise are gifts from Gap. The monetary proceeds go to graduating seniors in the form of scholarships.
• Harlem Children Society—This program partners FDA with Harlem Children Society—indirectly with Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the renowned cancer research institution. FDA students part of the program are able to be paired up with research mentors and are placed in research labs. Students take part in research ranging from nutrition to neurology. This program gives students who have an interest in science and medicine a great hands-on experience. Students involved in the past have been able to assume important roles in the lab as they have done tasks ranging from performing perfusions on lab mice to DNA ligations.
• Columbia University -- As a college preparatory school, FDA spends a great deal of effort in providing SAT-prep courses catered mostly to juniors and seniors. With Columbia University, the school has a Let's Get Ready chapter. The program has been proven effective as it generally increases the students' SAT scores by placing the students in appropriate groups that target the students' specific problems, be it math or the verbal section.
• The New York Times -- Every year a senior is offered a scholarship for outstanding scholarly articles awarded by a New York Times affiliate. Thus, seniors are motivated each year to compile their most outstanding written pieces in hope of winning the prestigious scholarship.
• Sullivan & Cromwell -- This partnership is a very fundamental one given that the law-firm company is the main provider of Advanced Placement-course textbooks.
• Futures and Options -- This nonprofit organization serves as an umbrella to several other programs in the school as it offers "paid semester internships at private sector and not-for-profit sites in the city."