Project U-Turn began in 2004-2005 as a city-wide collaborative to address the dropout crisis in Philadelphia. As of 2011, Project U-Turn has representatives from over 50 organizations, including the school district, city agencies, foundations, youth-serving organizations, universities, parents, and young people. By identifying and examining the problem, promoting the crisis as a system-wide issue rather than an education issue, involving and sustaining a diverse array of partners, and working to both prevent students from dropping out as well as re-engage those who have already dropped out, the collaboration has achieved a number of key accomplishments and has been able to grow through its best practices and lessons learned.
Project U-Turn’s collaborative structure includes the following:
The collaboration’s best practices include:
The collaboration learned these lessons:
Additional key resources and information about the collaboration: Project U-Turn Resources
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