L.A. Unified, where the cuts could affect more than 225,000 students and will save $34 million, is one of many districts throughout the state that have eliminated or reduced summer offerings, including Fresno, San Francisco, San Juan and Capistrano, O'Connell said. The program cuts were prompted by multibillion-dollar state funding reductions.
Other schools and nonprofit organizations are trying to pick up the slack. After L.A. Unified announced its summer school cuts, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles announced that L.A. Unified students could attend academic classes at Catholic schools. Parents would have to pay tuition, but the archdiocese pledged to work with parents who could not afford it.
Nonprofit organizations are already seeing increased enrollment. At the Variety Boys & Girls Club in Boyle Heights, the normal daily attendance of 270 children is expected to grow by 100.
Parents also are seeking alternatives in the suburbs.
Lois Borgogno of the Parks Junior High Parent Teacher Student Assn. in Fullerton said parents were upset when they learned that summer school for elementary and middle schools had been canceled.
"At the last minute, they had to find things for the children to do," such as tutoring and YMCA programs, she said.
Borgogno's sister, Lynn Gantner, is among the affected parents. She had enrolled her 9-year-old daughter in a program at Laguna Road Elementary that offered academics and the arts. Now Gantner is thinking about day camp.
"She wanted to put her in something so she's not sitting around all summer with nothing to do," Borgogno said.
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seema.mehta@latimes.com
