comet4children

summerLEAP - Joyous Optimism

28.01.20 02:40 PM By Samantha Lape

What a great mission for an organization.

Original Posting 16.03.17


We promise to instill in our students a belief in their abilities, an understanding of their potential for achievement, and a joyous spirit of optimism about the future.


The Greater Rochester Summer Learning Association (GRSLA), or summerLEAP, strives to transform the lives of Rochester City School District children by improving access to high-quality, tuition-free summer learning programs.  And they are doing just that.


summerLEAP programs have been recognized by the Anne E. Casey Foundation’s Campaign for Grade Level Reading as a national pacesetter community program. By the time they reach 3rd grade, summerLEAP scholars will have experienced four years of high-quality summer learning programming—programming that will help put a stop to the learning loss low-income children experience during the summer months, while simultaneously improving their math and reading skills.


The goal of summerLEAP is simple and measurable: by the time they reach 3rd grade, their scholars will be reading at level, meeting tough Core standards. summerLEAP kids learn to love reading, and summerLEAP wants to help them gain the literacy skills they need to build a strong foundation for high school, college, and beyond.


We at COMET and the Children’s Institute have been privileged to support the great work being done at SummerLEAP.  By capturing year-over-year program data from the partners within COMET’s database, evaluations are performed for both individual and group data. Evaluations are done for a given year and longitudinally. The data shows that the program is most effective over multiple years, and to have a lasting and positive impact on the students at least three summer sessions are required.  Our non-profit partner, Children’s Institute, functions as an independent evaluator for GRSLA programs. Not only having great data, but also understanding outcomes and demonstrating impact has taken summerLEAP to a whole new level.


Check out our summerLEAP COMET Case Study

Visit the summerLEAP website

Visit Children’s Institute website

Samantha Lape