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At LA’s BEST, we believe in this city. We believe in its people, its resilience and its capacity to do right by every Angeleno, including its youngest ones. And we believe that when the City of Los Angeles and its community partners work together, extraordinary things happen.

Then-Mayor Tom Bradley, in a move both practical and visionary, launched LA’s BEST in 1988, bringing together the City, the Los Angeles Unified School District, and the private sector together around a simple but powerful idea. Every child in Los Angeles deserves a safe, enriching place to be after school, regardless of their ZIP code or their family’s income. LA’s BEST started with 10 schools and a belief that this city could do better for its kids.

We now operate at 201 elementary school campuses across Los Angeles, providing before school, after-school and summer programming at no cost to families. We employ nearly 1,400 Angelenos and serve more than 24,000 children in the neighborhoods with the fewest resources and the greatest needs. There are no waitlists, no denials.

But the city’s investment — the public component of the public-private model — has not kept up.

That model was not incidental. It was intentional. From the very beginning, the idea was that the private sector doesn’t just write checks, it shows up as a partner. That means curating and convening businesses, organizations and community leaders to support what the public sector is working to achieve. That is the architecture of this partnership, and it is what makes it work.

The return on the investment is extraordinary. A Claremont Graduate University study showed that for every dollar invested in expanded learning, society receives an average of an $12.50 return for every $1 dollar invested. This is decades of rigorous economic research telling us that investing in children early is the smartest fiscal decision a city can make, for families, for communities and for the long-term health of our economy.

The families who rely on LA’s BEST make that case even more powerfully. In a parent survey for the 2023-24 academic year, 94% of parents say they are able to continue working because of LA’s BEST. Nearly half say they are able to continue their own education. About 85% say that without this program, they could not afford after-school care at all. 

When children have a safe place to go, parents can work. When parents can work, families can stay in Los Angeles. When families stay, communities grow stronger. That chain of impact is what LA’s BEST produces every single day.

Which is why this moment demands honesty. Through our work with the city Controller’s Office, we found that city funding for LA’s BEST is at an all-time low when adjusted for inflation, even as the program has grown from 10 sites to 201. This year, LA’s BEST continues to feel the impact of a $72,978 reduction from last year’s budget allocation, a cut that has carried us flat into the FY26-27 Mayor’s proposed budget with no restoration in sight. 

This number may look small in a multi-billion-dollar budget, but budget line items are a reflection of our values. And with nearly four decades of growth, of proving what this partnership can do, we are asking the city to look at that line and ask: Does this reflect what we say we believe about children, about families, about the future of this city?

Los Angeles is making bold investments in its future, with events like the World Cup and the 2028 Olympics, in infrastructure, and in the city’s place on the world stage. We celebrate that. But we also have to ask: Who are those investments for? They are for the next generation, the children in our program sites right now, who will grow up to be the Angelenos who inherit everything this city is building. If we want them to love this city, to stay in this city, to lead this city, we have to show them, right now, that this city loves them back.

The best chapter of this partnership is still ahead. LA’s BEST is ready to grow, ready to innovate, and ready to meet this moment. We are inviting the City of Los Angeles to grow with us, at a level that reflects both the scale of our impact and the promise of what we can still build together.

Michele Broadnax is president and CEO of LA’s BEST.