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We Are Our Brothers' Keeper...
The Paul Laurence Dunbar Young Men’s Leadership Academy (YMLA) is the District’s first single-gender school for boys. The Young Men’s Leadership Academy is a school that will nurture the “whole” child to ensure that each student is successful in the classroom and in life. Our goal is to provide the education for young men to achieve their promise as students, as family members, and as engaged citizens.
The Academy offers students a rigorous college preparatory curriculum that begins in 6th grade. As a college preparatory school, the YMLA has a varied curriculum aimed at helping students acquire knowledge and develop critical thinking and problem solving skills in order for them to be successful in and out of the classroom.
The primary objective of the Young Men’s Leadership Academy is to prepare young men for lives of responsibility and leadership in a globally competitive world. The students who graduate from the Young Men’s Leadership Academy will uphold the values of courage, honor and acceptance of responsibility for their actions. The Young Men’s Leadership Academy is committed to training the leaders of tomorrow who will change their communities, the nation and the world.
"We are our brothers' keepers" Latin Translation: "Nos sumus custodes fratrum nostrorum"
Student Qualities
- Honesty
- Integrity
- Confidence
- Respectful
- Disciplined
- Compassionate
- Ambitious
- Accountable
- Curious
- Risk- Taker
- Open Mind / Awareness
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In the winter of 2009, a small group of Fort Worth ISD administrators and board members visited several single gender schools in the New York City public school district.
Their mission was to gain insight about the successes and challenges of such schools and how they could be utilized in the Fort Worth ISD.
Over the course of two days, the group spent time with students and faculty at the Young Women’s Leadership Academy of East Harlem (Grades 6-12), the Young Women’s Leadership Academy of Queens (Grade 7-10), and the Eagle Academy for Young Men in the Bronx.
They also visited the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders in Austin as well as the Barack Obama Men's Leadership Academy in Dallas.
What they saw – and what they heard from both young people and their teachers – convinced them that the single-gender concept could work in Fort Worth.
(Eagle Academy for Young Men, Bronx, NY)
A steering committee was organized in early 2011 to develop Fort Worth ISD's first single-gender school for boys. The group consisted of District officials, neighborhood leaders and other community stakeholders.
In October 2011, the steering committee took their ideas to the Fort Worth ISD Board of Education.
After a series of public meetings, trustees voted to establish Young Men's Leadership Academy in fall 2012. As was recommended by the YMLA Steering Committee, Dunbar 6th Grade Center (5100 Willie Street) was repurposed to house the new academy.