LAUSD’s summer session will help struggling students and those arriving from Afghanistan, Ukraine

Up to about 100,000 students could participate in LAUSD’s 2022 summer programs, which will include help for struggling students, services for students arriving from Afghanistan and Ukraine and a new program for parents.

“We are going to literally double the number of offerings and the potential capacity of seats for students during the summer,” Alberto Carvalho, superintendent of Los Angeles Unified, told reporters during a visit Wednesday to Los Angeles High School of the Arts in the city’s Koreatown neighborhood. U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona was also visiting the school.

In addition to offering credit recovery for students struggling to graduate on time, there will also be opportunities such as “acceleration of learning” from students arriving in Los Angeles from Afghanistan and Ukraine, he said. The program for parents will be what Carvalho called a “new parent academy” that will include a number of offerings.

All of the programming will be paid for by federal relief funding that the district has received, Carvalho added.  He also said it will be important for the summer programs to provide not just academic help but social, emotional and mental health supports.

Cardona said LAUSD’s plans for summer programming align with the objectives of the Biden administration and encouraged schools across the country to offer summer sessions.

“Using American Rescue Plan funds, we want all children across the country to have access to some form of summer programming, summer enrichment. … All students deserve that. We have to make up for some of that lost time and give students the best opportunity to thrive,” he said.