Stoneleigh Fellow Gregory Volz and his Fellowship are featured in Swarthmore’s The Daily Gazette.
Volz is an attorney and fellow at the Stoneleigh Foundation, which focuses developing new ideas and approaches for improving the lives of underserved young people. He has championed the program at the state level, taking Sanders and others to testify before the House Committee on Children and Youth. He has been working along Swarthmore students to develop the youth court since 2005.
In 2008, the youth court model was integrated into the Social Studies curriculum. Now, the program is taking off, with a grant from Chester High to lower truancy rates and to open branches at Science and Discovery and Allied Health high schools in Chester, as well as The Village Charter School, a middle school. He hopes to create a youth court statute for Pennsylvania using private and public funding to expand the system.
Boppana and others have been crucial to the development of the program, Volz says. “Were it not for the support for Swarthmore college students I would not be here.”
