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Summer of Joy: Leveraging Summer — Enrichment as a Pathway to Opportunity in Los Angeles

Leveraging Summer: Enrichment as a Pathway to Opportunity in Los Angeles

2025Expanded Learning & Student Supports

Summary

Leveraging Summer: Enrichment as a Pathway to Opportunity in Los Angeles highlights the impact of the Summer of Joy initiative over the past four years and the continued need for summer enrichment. The report shows how Summer of Joy evolved from a 2021 pandemic response into California's largest summer collaboration, providing free, in-person summer enrichment to tens of thousands of students across Los Angeles. For many students — especially those from low-income communities — summer opportunities are out of reach.

Key Findings

  • Impact Over Four Years: Summer of Joy has served 188,258 students, provided 14,066 enhanced program hours, offered 1,966 field trips, invested $15,900,000, and funded 125 nonprofits since inception.
  • Positive Student Outcomes: 93% of students report having fun, 87% feel the program helps them learn, and 91% feel like they belong.
  • School-Level Improvements: many sites show noteworthy outcomes in achievement, attendance, and sense of belonging.
  • Professional Development Success: 6,701 hours of PD delivered, with 99% of participants reporting they learned something applicable at their school.
  • Out-of-school programs lead to improved academic outcomes, particularly for high-attendance participants, and enhance attendance while reducing dropout rates.
  • Programs foster social skills, supportive relationships, self-esteem, and confidence, and reduce risky behaviors and disciplinary incidents.

Read the Full Report

Get the complete analysis, data, and sources in the full PDF.
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Report Highlights

The sections below pull out the major points from the full report — the data, the examples, and the context behind the findings.

Four Years of Impact

188,258
students served
$15.9M
invested
125
nonprofits funded
93%
of students report having fun

Why Summer Enrichment Matters

Too many students — especially those from low-income communities — lack access to summer enrichment. The pandemic widened this opportunity gap: families in the highest income bracket spend more than five times as much on out-of-school activities as those in the lowest ($3,600 versus $700 a year). Free, high-quality summer programs help bridge that gap — improving academic outcomes, attendance, and social-emotional development while fostering creativity and a love of learning.

On the Ground

Compton Elementary

Doubled the proportion of students meeting or exceeding math standards since 2018–19, surpassing pre-pandemic achievement on the Smarter Balanced Assessments.

2× math proficiency
Columbus Avenue Elementary

After chronic absenteeism nearly doubled in 2021–22, rates fell sharply the next year — recovering to within a percentage point of pre-pandemic levels, a trend uncommon among peer schools.

Absenteeism recovered
Main Street Elementary

Student sense of belonging rose from 69.8% (2020–21) to 76.6% (2023–24), bucking district trends, while maintaining near-zero single-student suspension rates from 2020–2024.

Belonging up 7 pts

Throughout Summer of Joy, we witnessed how providing opportunities outside the normal classroom supported our students in connecting, building friendships, developing social-emotional skills, and identifying new interests and motivations for learning.

LAUSD partnerSummer of Joy

Sustaining and Prioritizing Enrichment

  1. California must continue to prioritize and invest in enrichment as a valuable strategy for learners — and for the future of the state.
  2. Fund summer programs, prioritize access for students from low-income communities, and support districts with evidence-based resources and guidance.
  3. Sustain collaborations like Summer of Joy so that every student in Los Angeles has the opportunity to thrive.
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