The Philadelphia OST initiative takes a holistic view of OST to strategically and thoughtfully align and leverage all our OST assets to help us reach ambitious goals on behalf of our young people.

To realize this vision, the Initiative is concentrating on quality programming, community engagement and partnerships. Over the next two years, Philadelphia will focus on:

Quality Programming:
Aligning efforts and resources to increase student achievement in early literacy as well as defining key program quality metrics that are shared by the citywide OST network.

Community Engagement:
Understanding local needs and barriers to OST access and attendance as well as building a network-wide infrastructure to create an OST system that encourages civic engagement.

Partnerships:
Strengthening the city’s OST network and developing localized areas of OST to test and pilot new partnership opportunities.