Junior and senior students at Sandy Springs' Mount Vernon School are consulting for Verizon, Mercedes-Benz, Chick-fil-A and Piedmont Pediatrics during the fall 2026 semester.

The four companies are the latest corporate and healthcare partners in the school's Innovation Diploma program, which pairs student teams with organizations facing genuine design challenges. The partnerships are not simulations. Each organization posed a problem it wants students to help solve, according to a Mount Vernon blog post published Wednesday, Sept. 16.

The Innovation Diploma, known as iD, launched in 2014 after a campus design sprint asked how school could better mirror real life. The program now enrolls roughly 25% to 30% of Mount Vernon's upper school students, according to a Southern Association of Independent Schools profile of the program. Students apply in eighth grade and spend four years building toward the kind of client work juniors and seniors take on each fall semester.

"We have 16-18-year-old kids doing real, actual consulting work with companies," Emily Wilcox, the school's Innovation Pathway lead, said in the Sept. 16 post. "They're not working on a typical school project with a clearly defined rubric, outcomes, and objectives; they're using design thinking to create solutions for their clients."

The fall 2026 partner list spans four industries: telecommunications, automotive, food service and pediatric healthcare. Wilcox said the variety is intentional, helping students discover career interests and develop broader perspectives by designing for unfamiliar audiences.

The Piedmont Pediatrics brief is the furthest along in public detail. The practice moved into a new building and is expanding services. Students are exploring website design, marketing, branding and wayfinding to help families navigate the changes.

Caroline Birdsey, a Mount Vernon senior in the Class of 2027, said her team has been researching the practice from both the patient and staff sides. The student team held an internal review Thursday, Sept. 10, sharing discovery work from interviews and focus groups. A site visit to speak with doctors, nurses, office staff, patients and parents is the team's next step, according to the post.

Caroline Kincaid, another Mount Vernon student on the Piedmont Pediatrics team, said the goal is to help parents feel confident and supported as the practice grows.

No details about the specific challenges posed by Verizon, Mercedes-Benz or Chick-fil-A have been made public. Past iD partners have included Inspire Brands, The Coca-Cola Company and Google.

By the end of the first module, each team is expected to deliver something the partner organization can respond to: a concept, a prototype or a pitch. In the second module, students shift to a futures-thinking challenge called "Future Of," in which they reimagine entire industries. Previous topics have included retail, food, air transportation, entertainment and cities.