Jada Pinkett Smith Opens Controversial New School

With her history as a successful movie and TV performer, plus one of the most high-profile marriages in the industry, Jada Pinkett Smith is probably not someone you associate with a schoolroom. But according to the Daily Record, that is indeed her new, real-life role.

A graduate of Baltimore School for the Arts where she studied music and dance alongside Tupac Shakur, the 37-year old actress and her husband, Will Smith, have recently founded a new private school in Los Angeles, welcoming sixty students ranging in age from pre-kindergarten to sixth grade, with plans to extend that range if the need is sufficient. “My plan is to eventually have a High School,” Pinkett Smith said. “I’m keeping my fingers crossed. I’m just trying to make it through this year.”

Conceived as a modest home-schooling project, the New Village Leadership Academy soon grew into a full-size school when local parents all wanted their children to join. But it has raised some eyebrows due to its focus on the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the Scientology realm. The School Director, however, has denied their goal is to train new believers. Ms. Pinkett Smith explained to reporters that the new Academy simply stresses a program of total mastery, encouraging a body of students that was deliberately chosen to be both ethnically and financially diverse to take and re-take exams until they achieve 100-percent.

With a new School to run, plus Exec-Producing and starring in her new TNT show in June, it would seem she’s more than proficient at such demanding achievements herself.