Philly BOLT aims to test whether strategically integrating community leaders into neighborhood schools as mentors and advisors to students can alleviate pressure on teachers to manage student wellbeing and cultivate student agency to make change in their neighborhoods. In addition to teaching, public school teachers are expected to manage non-curricular student priorities, such as socio-emotional well-being, securing summer internships, and mediating conflicts. Underpaid and overworked, nearly 1 in 3 Philadelphia teachers quit their jobs in 2021-2022. Meanwhile, students in under-resourced schools often feel powerless to overcome the challenges and environments they experience, despite the existence of grassroots community leaders working to do just that, often through self-funded, ad-hoc youth programs. The BOLT model leverages these two untapped groups- community experts and student leaders within the schools–to provide in-school support. Via BOLT’s model, these groups will strengthen neighborhood schools and connect students to opportunities to improve their neighborhoods. By systematizing the relationships between community experts, adolescents, and schools, BOLT aims to increase teacher retention, cultivate youth as changemakers, and ultimately strengthen the social fabric of neighborhoods.
