From District Administration: Magnet schools make a comeback

by Mackenzie Ryan

A t Nashville’s Pearl-Cohn Entertainment Magnet High School, a female student distressed by the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, wrote rap lyrics that became the song “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot.”

With the help of her teachers and classmates—and Pearl-Cohn’s recording studio—the student, Queen McElrath, starred in a music video that has since been viewed 124,000 times on the school’s YouTube channel. In a television-style interview with another student, McElrath says: “I decided to write this song so that we could unite, so that young people could have a voice.”