Here’s what these youth advocates have to say about Philly’s truancy problem, and how they would fix it

At his first State of the Schools address earlier this week, Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. reiterated that the School District of Philadelphia is focused on preventing dropouts.Schools serve much more diverse resource needs than they used to. It is not just academic instruction. Truancy is one of the outside social issues, like sustained poverty and violence, that we struggle with. “Youth come to school to go to afterschool," Joseph Brand, High school programs manager, University-Assisted Community School at Netter Center for Community Partnership. The Netter Center has over 30 years of investment in involving the University of Pennsylvania as the lead partner to connect resources to address these issues. One of the things the Netter Center does well is establish after-school programming. Recreation, gardening, culinary. Youth come to school to go to after-school.

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