The schools have mostly reopened after prolonged closures, using temporary classrooms. But the fires, which killed dozens and left thousands homeless, have chopped enrollment by half at some of the affected schools.

“Families went with schools that weren’t impacted by the fires,” said Bonnie Brimecombe, principal of Odyssey Charter-South, which was destroyed in the Eaton blaze. “And then we have other people that are just nervous about coming back [because] it’s a lot to see and be a part of.”

Odyssey South, located in the Altadena area of Los Angeles, reopened on three temporary campuses from January to June of last year including a Boys and Girls Club, an office in Old Town Pasadena, and classrooms at the nearby ArtCenter College of Design.

By fall, the main campus reopened in a school building that was formerly used by another charter, but many families chose other schools or left the area, with enrollment falling to 183 from 375. 

Despite the trauma, students were resilient, improving test scores and good classroom behavior, said Brimecombe. 

“It’s just a complete surprise at how well the kids have gone through this process,” she  said. “The kids are happy, the kids are smiling, they are learning, they are fine. The kids are happy, happy to be back together.”

Still, enrollment challenges persist, and the school has had to let go of a handful of teachers and teaching assistants. The school’s original building felt more like home, Brimecombe said, but kids who have stayed at the school are thriving.

Odyssey South has put new supports in place for students’ including an on-site counseling team that was expanded this year to increase access for students.

The school also brought in art therapists to run a series of sessions with different grade levels, and a counseling team that visits classrooms for structured sessions on topics that surface for specific age groups.

Teachers have also increased the number of field trips at the school to give students “happy situations” and positive experiences away from the fire-affected environment, Brimecombe said.

Odyssey South was able to maintain its previous levels of programming this year but may have to make cuts next year if current funding levels don’t persist, Brimecombe said.

That’s largely a matter of enrollment, since Odyssey South, like other public schools in LA., receives its funding on a per-pupil basis. With half of the school’s students gone, the future is uncertain.

Still, the principal is hopeful.

“Families are coming back,” Brimecombe said. “They’re just not back yet.”Enrollment problems also persist in the Palisades, where three schools were burned, said LAUSD school board member Nick Melvoin, who represents the area.

Palisades Charter High is holding up the best, with about 2,500 students, down from about 2,900 pre-fire. Marquez Elementary has about 130 students, a little less than half of pre-fire enrollment. Palisades Elementary has about 300 students, down by about 100 from pre-fire levels.

Students returned to Marquez Elementary into portable, temporary buildings in the fall. Palisades High students are returning to their school building on Jan. 27, and Palisades Elementary students continue to attend school at their co-location site at Brentwood Science Magnet.

New, rebuilt facilities for all three schools should be completed by fall 2028, “but all three schools are kind of a slightly different journey from now until then,” said Melvoin.

“The families that have been displaced, that are in other parts of L.A. and the country, are either coming back eventually or not,” he said of enrollment drops. “Some families who were not satisfied with the co-located option or didn’t want to be back in the Palisades just yet because of environmental concerns, are still in other schools.”

The district is giving flexibility in where families choose to enroll, said Melvoin, who expects enrollment in the displaced schools to improve.

“We’re going to have some new enrollment for the coming months, as people realize like, ‘Oh, I’m moving back to my house,’ or ‘my insurance money ran out, and so now I’m back in the Palisades,’ and there’s only a few schools that are open,” said Melvoin.

Besides environmental concerns, Melvoin said, families that are staying away due to a lack of infrastructure in the fire-scorched area, and because of trauma.

“The burn scar is still there,” he said. “You’re still driving past a number of destroyed buildings and houses. There are just some families who aren’t ready to put their kids back there yet.”

Many families are hopeful because schools are returning, construction is visible, and some businesses are coming back, said Allison Holdorff Polhill, a district director who works in Melvoin’s office and longtime Palisades resident who lost her home in the fires.

Virtually all residents were under‑insured, and there is still a strong need for federal money, grants and loans to cover rebuilding gaps, said Holdorff Polhill, and people are frustrated by slow government planning and being scattered in rentals or forced into assisted living.

“Every single friend’s home burned to the ground,” said Holdorff Polhill. “People are still traumatized by what happened.”

LAUSD has set aside $604 million for the full rebuilding of the impacted areas in the Palisades, including the three burned schools, LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said.

The money will provide for the full rebuilding of Marquez Elementary, which was destroyed, plus new buildings and improvements to existing ones at Palisades Elementary, where about 60% of the campus was burned.

At Palisades High, about 30% of classrooms were destroyed and the remainder are being rebuilt. 

The school is famous for being a popular filming location for Hollywood movies such as Carrie, Freaky Friday, and Teen Wolf, and for notable alumni including J.J. Abrams and will.i.am.

Pali High students have been attending classes in a former Sears department store building while construction is underway to repair fire damage. 

The school’s campus is scheduled for reopening when work is completed later this month. 

Carvalho said the district is still working to recover about $500 million of the expected construction costs from insurance companies.

“The rest we will seek FEMA reimbursements, which we believe we are absolutely legally entitled to,” Carvalho said. “We hope that the federal government will not play games, political games as we seek these reimbursements.”

In addition to these investments, the district will spend in excess of a billion dollars, all funded through Measure US, a $9 billion bond referendum approved by voters in 2024, to build higher levels of fire resilience at schools across the district.

“That means anything from replacement of filtration systems, the acquisition of air purifiers, new filtration systems for schools, HVAC systems, and replacement of roofing structures and windows with materials that withstand fires,” Carvalho said.  

LAUSD has installed more than 230 air quality sensors on school buildings, covering every campus in the district, Carvalho said.

The sensors detect nauseous fumes, particulate matter in the air, and also measure temperature and wind speed, enabling school officials to make emergency decisions in case of fires, he said.

“Prevention is the best solution for fires,” said Carvalho. 

Avery Colvert was an eighth-grader when the Eaton Fire tore through Altadena, California, a year ago this month, reddening the sky and destroying nearly 10,000 structures. It was the second natural disaster she’d survived; she was just 14 years old. Her family had lost their home in Nashville, Tennessee, to a flash flood in 2021, before they moved west. 

This time, the catastrophe spared her house, but consumed her school. Familiar with the psychological toll such devastation can take, Avery posted an , which burned for over three weeks. She asked for items to help her “friends feel confident and like themselves again!” — “clothes, personal items, beauty and hair care — stuff WE need.”&�Բ�����;

The plea, posted just three days after the fire broke out on January 7, 2025, quickly went viral. It has since garnered over 28,000 likes; earned support from celebrities such as Paris Hilton, Charli XCX and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex; and led to the creation of the nonprofit, an organization that, Avery said, gives girls permission to ask for what they need without apology. 

“I always hear teenage girls say, ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ like they feel they need to apologize for asking for too much,” Avery, 15, now a ninth grader, said. “At the beginning [of recovery], there was a lot of stigma around asking for help. Girls, after they lost their homes, they felt like it was embarrassing.”

But they don’t need to apologize or feel embarrassed — for asking for help or stating their preferences, Avery said. “It’s OK to say, ‘I like this sweater instead of that one.’ Girls are allowed to have opinions.”

Avery founded Altadena Girls with her mother, Lauren Sandidge. Sandidge said that no one seemed to be focusing on the teen girl experience in the wake of the wildfire, which occurred in tandem with the massive Palisades Fire 30 miles away in Los Angeles. Through a pop-up boutique, Altadena Girls has supplied clothing, shoes, beauty products and hair care to more than 5,000 girls and their families. The organization has distributed more than a million items in total. Last year, it hosted a prom for over 300 girls, and it also provided back-to-school supplies and social-emotional support for 500 more. 

In October, Altadena Girls celebrated a major milestone: It opened an 11,000-square-foot community center offering free programming in nearby Old Town Pasadena. 

What began as a social media request for donations turned into a movement that revealed how inclusive disaster recovery can be when girls are centered rather than marginalized.

Avery didn’t write her viral post with an endgame in mind. 

“I don’t even know what I was thinking,” she said. “I was going through so many emotions at the time that my body just kind of went into fight-or-flight mode. It was like, ‘I’m just going to do this, and this needs to be done right now.’”

Twenty-four hours after her post appeared on Instagram, donations began pouring in, as well as offers for help from stylists, makeup artists and fashion designers. Many of these professionals didn’t just give away products. They also volunteered their time and labor to the fire-impacted girls. 

Sandidge recalled kneeling over, sorting through boxes of donations. “Every time I looked up, there was someone with more donations,” she said. “And then they would stay. They could tell I was overwhelmed, and they would just stay.”

Woven through Altadena Girls is this sense of community. The organization is more than just about distributing goods to teen girls in need. It’s about creating a space where they feel supported. Sandidge said her own family — she also has a son — felt stabilized by this as the wildfire left them uncertain.

“It got us through those moments where we didn’t know what was going to happen,” she said. “The fires were still burning. Everyone felt that way.”

Through its permanent brick-and-mortar space, which opened on October 11, 2025 — International Day of the Girl — the hope is that Altadena Girls can continue bringing the community together. 

“It was really cool, really exciting,” Avery said. “I still can’t believe we did it.”

The center includes music and podcast studios sponsored by Fender; quiet rooms for studying, journaling or one-on-one conversations; a free boutique offering hygiene products, clothing and school supplies; and a gathering area for community events.

The most popular space is the Sliving Lounge, a glittery pink room of nearly 1,000 square feet filled with collaging stations, Polaroid cameras, karaoke, movies, books and vision boards. The name of the space, sponsored by Paris Hilton and her nonprofit, 11:11 Media, is a portmanteau of the words “slay” and “living.”&�Բ�����; 

“It’s definitely our most popular thing,” Avery said. “Everyone ends up there.”

Avery wanted it “to feel like a girly explosion,” she said. “And they delivered.”

Journey Christine, a 12-year-old actress who lives a block away from the Altadena Girls community center, said she visits most weekends. She called the center “a blessing” to Altadena and Pasadena, parts of which the fire also ravaged. “It’s like my new home away from home,” she said. 

Altadena Girls’ dance workshops — run in partnership with Dance and Dialogue, a non-profit organization that provides intergenerational, multicultural programming — are especially meaningful to Avery. A dancer herself, she has watched girls return to dance night after night.

“I’ve seen them grow. They got really good,” she said. “Dancing is so healing for me, and I’m glad other people get to discover that.”

Youth are not required to participate in any activity to spend time at the community center. “You can come in and learn guitar,” Sandidge said, but the priority is that their basic needs are met —  they’re fed, they’re safe, they’re relaxed. “That’s when people can make good decisions.”

After the fire, Journey has grappled with having classmates, steady presences in her life, move to different neighborhoods and communities. At Altadena Girls, she has been able to catch up with peers who relocated. 

“There are still people who haven’t moved back yet,” Sandidge said. “There are emotional needs that don’t go away just because the headlines do.”

Avery believes the fire didn’t just create new needs. It exposed existing ones, such as a lack of “a third space” for teen girls to meet during the digital age, with phones and social media replacing physical gathering spaces. “For some teenagers, the internet is their third space,” she said. “But I think it’s important that we have a physical space that’s accessible to everyone.”

That Avery’s advocacy led to the center’s creation has felt empowering for Journey. “It’s really inspiring,” the seventh grader said. “It shows other kids that just because you’re young doesn’t mean you can’t make a difference.”

Avery’s belief that dignity is a core component of recovery has led to national recognition. She became the youngest winner of the , and Senate District 25 named Altadena Girls . At the 10th Hollywood Beauty Awards, which recognizes the artistry that influences beauty in film, television and on red carpets, she received . 

Avery’s request for beauty and hair care resonated on a profound level.

“She wanted to give something that wasn’t just socks and T-shirts,” said Pamela Price, the awards’ senior executive producer. “She wanted to give girls something that brought a little happiness during an uncertain time. People might think it’s superficial, but it’s not. Hair, makeup, skincare — those things affect how you feel. Avery was thinking about mental health.”

Journey said simple cosmetic items can make a world of difference for young girls. “People might think losing your favorite lipgloss, eye liner, pair of jeans or hoodie is petty, but it’s not because those things help boost confidence,” she said. “It’s how we represent ourselves. It’s our sense of style. Avery and Altadena Girls get it.”

Avery still remembers the discomfort she felt when she received gift cards in front of her classmates after the Tennessee flood that destroyed her home. “I felt embarrassed. Guilty.” That memory inspired her to prioritize the dignity of teen and tween girls in the wake of the Eaton Fire. 

A year later, her nonprofit isn’t attracting the same level of national attention it did immediately after the disaster. Sandidge said that she understands the waning focus, having lived through a similar dynamic after the Nashville flood. “It’s naturally what happens,” she said. “Everyone comes around. There are headlines. People want to help. And then the intensity dies down.”

But the long-term needs of disaster survivors related to mental health, stability and belonging don’t simply vanish, she said, a notion that research bears out. A in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that direct exposure to wildfires significantly raised the risk of PTSD and depression six months afterward.

As Altadena Girls enters its second year, maintaining its momentum and making it more accessible are top of mind. The center is currently open three evenings a week, with plans to expand to full-time hours. “We want to keep it free,” Sandidge said. “And it’s not free to run.”

The organization is also forming a teen advisory board, a critical step, according to Avery. “It has to be for girls, by girls,” she said. “We need their feedback.”

In time, Sandidge hopes the space allows girls to plan their futures without the shadow of the wildfire and the trauma that accompanied it. “I want them to make decisions based on who they are,” she said. “Not what they lost.”

was originally reported by Nadra Nittle of . .

As more people’s lives are upended each year due to climate disasters communities — and our political leaders at the local, state and federal levels — must do more to ensure the needs of children and families are met during these emergencies.

During wildfires and other disasters, we continually see the familiar pattern of school closures, child care disruption, families moving into temporary housing and routines essential to children’s sense of safety abruptly severed. Communities and political leaders at every level must confront a hard truth: Our emergency systems were not designed with children in mind. 

During wildfires, schools and child care systems are among the first institutions to fail. Children are displaced from classrooms, separated from trusted adults and thrust into shelters or hotel rooms never designed to support their physical, emotional or developmental needs. Studies show that stress brought on by exposure to natural disasters can have an outsized impact on children and lead to lifelong trauma. This trauma can lead to socio-emotional impairments; health-risk behaviors, such as alcohol and drug abuse; and even early death, according to the published in 2011 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Kaiser Permanente. 

This past year has made it clear that local jurisdictions can no longer rely on federal disaster systems to carry the full burden of recovery. As the future of entities such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency becomes more uncertain, states, cities and counties must assume greater responsibility for protecting their most vulnerable citizens. 

This starts with treating schools as critical infrastructure. While schools became formally recognized as part of critical infrastructure — specifically within the Education Facilities subsector in 2003 under Homeland Security Presidential Directive-7 (HSPD-7) — they are not allocated commensurate resources and protections for security as other designated critical infrastructure. 

The Covid-19 pandemic underscored the central role that schools play in economic stability, as widespread closures rapidly disrupted labor markets and productivity. Treating schools as critical infrastructure would align education with other essential public systems that underpin public health, safety and economic performance; as such, it merits long-term investment.

Second, schools need contingency plans that ensure continuity of in-person education when normal operations are disrupted. After the LA wildfires, many schools scrambled to set up alternate sites or transitioned to online learning. Students are still making up from the pandemic, and it is unclear whether those losses can be stemmed. Online learning should be used only when all other options have been exhausted, given the devastating impacts on student learning. The planning needs to begin now, not after disaster strikes.  

Third, practice is key to success. Emergency plans often fail children not because they are poorly written but because they are never written with children in mind. Children experience disasters differently than adults, and procedures designed without them can inadvertently heighten fear and trauma. Age-appropriate drills, school-based tabletop exercises and responder training in developmentally appropriate communication can dramatically improve outcomes. 

Local governments can formally integrate school districts, child care providers and pediatric health systems into emergency planning rather than treating them as afterthoughts once a crisis unfolds. Practicing with children builds familiarity, reduces panic and accelerates recovery — not just for young people, but for entire communities.

Finally, funding structures must reflect the realities families face after disasters. While billions are allocated for fire suppression and mitigation, far fewer resources are earmarked for sustaining schools, child care and pediatric mental health in the months and years that follow. Local and state governments should establish dedicated funding streams for child- and family-centered recovery — supporting school continuity, mental health care and family stabilization — since these investments can reduce long-term social and economic costs.

Implementing a family-centric disaster response model isn’t just a moral imperative. Adverse childhood experiences lead to an economic burden of  of dollars annually in the U.S, much of it absorbed by taxpayers through Medicaid and Medicare spending, special education, disability programs and lost lifetime tax revenue. When disaster responses destabilize children, short-term emergencies are converted into long-term public liabilities, driving government inefficiency and reactive spending. These failures also spill into insurance markets, increasing claims, and deepening reliance on federal backstops that distort risk pools and shift costs to the public.

In an era of escalating disasters and constrained budgets, policies that protect family stability during crises are not social add-ons but high-return investments: reducing future taxpayer exposure, stabilizing insurance systems and limiting the need for costly federal intervention after the fact.

The one-year mark of the Los Angeles wildfires should not serve as a memorial to what was lost, but as a reckoning with what must change. Disasters will continue to test our systems, but allowing children to bear the brunt of those failures is a policy choice, not an inevitability. Protecting children during emergencies necessitates radical change. If we fail to act, we are not merely accepting risk: We are knowingly passing preventable harm and long-term costs onto the next generation.

A year ago, Tanya Reyes watched in disbelief as the Eaton fire incinerated her Altadena home. As her three daughters listed everything they had lost in the days that followed, Reyes kept reminding them that what mattered most was that they still had each other. 

A year later, Reyes is struggling. The steadiness she once summoned for her children has been worn down by chronic back pain, brought on by the strain of moving every few months, and the emotional toll of rebuilding her family’s life while working her teaching job, supporting pregnant and parenting teens. 

Reyes is a teacher at McAlister High School in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and is among thousands of Los Angeles-area residents who watched their way of life destroyed as fires tore through neighborhoods and schools. Today, life is about finding equilibrium in a new normal, with many still putting the pieces of their old lives back together.

“I’m very much a go-getter and a doer,” she said. “And my body is saying, ‘No, you can’t.”&�Բ�����;

The 2025 fires cut a wide swath of destruction that the region is still grappling with. Thirty-one people died. Over 100,000 people were displaced.

School communities were hit particularly hard. More than 16,000 structures were destroyed, including eight school campuses in the Pasadena Unified School District and Los Angeles Unified. 

Evacuations put both districts on hold, temporarily halting instruction for roughly .

In the year since the fires, both districts have been on the road to recovery, making progress on plans to rebuild and renew their communities. They have also provided support to students during the year of upheaval.

“Over the past year, the school communities devastated by the January 2025 wildfires have demonstrated extraordinary resilience and strength,” Los Angeles County Superintendent of Schools Debra Duardo told EdSource. “While the Eaton and Palisades fires tragically claimed lives, destroyed homes, and disrupted the sense of security and daily routine that students depend on, we have come together to rebuild, support each other and heal.”&�Բ�����;

Reconstruction

Throughout the region, school sites are reminders of the fires’ destructive path. Tons of fire debris have been removed, and rebuilding efforts have started taking shape. In many respects, the two school districts have rebounded, but in different ways.

Los Angeles Unified has made headway in rebuilding Marquez Charter Elementary, Palisades Charter Elementary and Palisades Charter High School. 

Rebuilding the schools in LAUSD is estimated to cost up to $600 million. But the school district is able to count on rebuilding funds from a 2024  passed by voters. 

At Marquez Charter Elementary, enrollment is down to 130 students from 310 before the fires — some are attending other schools in the area or have left the region entirely. But in late September, those who remained were able to  to their original campus in portable classrooms. Their permanent campus is expected to be built by 2028, for $207 million.

Just over a mile away, nearly 3,000 Palisades Charter High School students will  to campus this month in portable classrooms after spending the past year attending classes in a renovated . Their new campus is expected to cost $267 million to rebuild and is slated to open by the end of 2029.

It’s a different story 35 miles away in the school communities of Pasadena Unified, where long-standing financial challenges compound fire recovery. District officials also look to a $900 million bond measure passed in 2024 to help restore its five campuses lost to the fire. But money is still tight. The district has struggled financially for years and has been  to avoid a county takeover. 

As the district recovers from the fire, its financial struggles have made recovery difficult. In November, the district  $24.5 million from next year’s budget as part of a larger $30.5 million reduction. Roughly $17.2 million of those cuts were in staffing, from teachers to gardeners and librarians — some of whom had been directly impacted by the fires. About 40 teachers were ultimately laid off. 

Compounded losses 

While both districts were able to relocate campuses — and keep students together in the same classes with the same teacher — within weeks of the fires, some students — particularly foster and homeless youth — struggled. 

In the Altadena area, about 225 children and youth in foster care were living in the region impacted by the Eaton fire, the majority of them school age. Some live in congregate care settings, such as group homes, while others stay with relatives.

Within three months of the fire, 36 students had relocated outside the area, moving an average of 16 miles away, according to an , a research center focusing on youth in the child welfare system.

As recovery continues, Taylor Dudley, the center’s executive director, noted that while some school-based services, such as support for students with disabilities, were initially delayed as schools took account of the losses, they were eventually provided more consistently as schools stabilized. But, she is concerned that students may begin to see other services “drop off” with time.

For example, if a student’s home is now safe to return to, the child might be reenrolled at the school they attended before the fire. Dudley noted that a transition of this nature raises many questions for a foster student, who may not have a constant advocate by their side: Who will ensure all their credits will transfer from their previous school? Will their transportation plan be upheld? Will their individualized education plan (IEP) transfer in full, with all services continuing? 

Meanwhile, the healing process has continued for students in the area who were homeless before the fires or who lost their homes. Nearly 300 homeless students in Pasadena Unified were enrolled by the first Wednesday in October, known as Census Day, during the 2024-25 school year, according to an EdSource analysis of the state’s most recently available data. About 10,800 were enrolled in the Los Angeles Unified School District. 

The state initially made it easier for families to enroll their children in new schools by removing the typically required documentation. Jennifer Kottke, the homeless liaison for the Los Angeles County Office of Education, spent months after the fires consulting with schools, working around processes to verify residency and determine which district a student belonged to. Students experiencing homelessness have the right to immediate enrollment at any moment at any school, she said. 

Some families who were suddenly homeless after the fires “were having a hard time because they’ve never seen themselves as being the ones in need,” Kottke said. “They’re the ones who provided for those who were in need.”&�Բ�����;

These families had previously been “the givers,” as Kottke noted. Some initially declined resources, from basic hygiene products to computers to food, because they believed other families might need them more, she said.

Meanwhile, as the year unfolded, some students in fire zones faced another crisis: immigration raids in the late spring. Both situations, one immediately after the other, targeted students’ sense of safety, said Lisa Fortuna, who chairs the Department of Psychiatry and Neurosciences at the University of California, Riverside.

“There’s so much threat to self and to one’s close loved ones, the people you’re dependent on, the places and things you depend on as your home, as your resources in the community,” said Fortuna. “It’s a cumulative loss.”

Adjusting to the new normal

Despite a quick surge in counseling and psychological support for students, the emotional fallout from the fires is ongoing. The occasional fire drill or nearby house fire can reignite feelings of fear and loss for students, said Gabriela Gualano, a teacher librarian at LAUSD’s Paul Revere Charter Middle School.

“We had to definitely front-load to the kids: ‘Hey, this is what’s happening. It’s just a drill. We know you’ve done this before. The district just wants to make sure that we’re able to do this in a timely manner, so we’re going to get through it,’” Gualano said. Some students have developed a dark humor around the fires, she said, while others avoid the topic altogether. 

How schools in the region will mark the Jan. 7 anniversary of the fires varies.

At Pasadena Unified schools, a moment of silence will usher in the anniversary. 

Some schools in the L.A. Unified area do not have elaborate plans to commemorate Jan. 7.

Some Los Angeles campuses might opt to plant a tree or take students on a walk, but only activities that heal, said Julianne Reynoso, Pasadena Unified’s assistant superintendent of Student Wellness and Support Services.

Meanwhile, Wendy Connor, a retired first grade teacher at Marquez Charter Elementary, said the school doesn’t plan to do anything on the anniversary. Maintaining a sense of normalcy is still the priority, she said. 

“It’s been a collaborative, iterative process,” said LAUSD school board member Nick Melvoin, who represents schools in the Palisades. “I think we’ve done a lot of right by our students, which is most important, but always, always more to do.”

The district is making “sure we keep our eye on the ball when it comes to the permanent rebuild,” he said.  

Meanwhile, teachers say they’ve had to grapple with decades of losses that can’t be replaced. Connor tries to remember what her room looked like, the place where she taught for 38 years when she and her students fled: “Somebody’s backpack is open on their desk; all the chairs are out or pushed around instead of just sitting all straight normal. It’s all wacky.”&�Բ�����;

The grieving continues for teachers, she said. “It’s not things that you can turn to the district and say, ‘Will you buy me this?’” she said. “You (used to) have samples of every art project all put together in a binder up on the shelf — and now you don’t have any of it.”

For teacher Tanya Reyes and her family, the past year’s struggles have made her reflect on how the community can best move forward after the devastation. Reyes stressed the importance of remembering “who the roots of Altadena were.”&�Բ�����;

She, her husband, and three children have moved three times — from one family or friend’s home to the next, and finally into a new rental home roughly 6 miles from Altadena in Sierra Madre. 

Reyes’ family is slowly coming to terms with what they lost this past year when their home burned, including a daughter’s stuffed tigress. Over the past year, the family’s pet bearded dragon died. But life moves on, and their new space is morphing into a semblance of home.

As the year progressed, Reyes learned that the recovery process means taking it slower.

“I feel humbled as someone who is a doer and a mover and a goer to really have to sit back and be still,” Reyes said. “There is a mourning or a grief in my body that I don’t even have awareness of, but it’s showing up.”

This  was originally published by EdSource.  for their daily newsletter.

On a sunny Tuesday morning, students, parents and community members walked atop the bluffs alongside charred foliage and barren lots, back to Marquez Charter Elementary — almost nine months after the Palisades fire ravaged the school site and surrounding region, sparing only three classrooms in its wake. 

For the remainder of the 2024-25 academic year, and for the initial period of this school year, the entire school shared a campus with Nora Sterry Elementary. Now, the roughly 130 children attending Marquez are the first public school students to return to a campus destroyed by the Palisades and Eaton fires in January. 

Even though students are returning to portable structures, the campus’s reopening marked a larger milestone for survivors of the fires. 

“It’s the first thing that’s back in a very serious way,” said Christopher Baffa, a community member whose children attended Marquez but now go to Palisades Charter High School. “We got excited when CVS opened. … It’s these little milestones along the way that really get us further and further from Jan. 7.”

Marquez’s recovery

Baffa and his wife tried to remember the lyrics to Marquez’s school song as they returned to the campus Tuesday morning to witness the progress being made. 

He recalled the words “there’s a school on a hill” — and texted his daughter, a first-year student at Palisades Charter High School, currently  to a former Sears building in Santa Monica, for the rest of the lyrics. Other parents in the crowd embraced as they listened to speakers at Tuesday’s press conference. Some held back tears. 

“Every day since, we’ve been writing new pages and chapters in the story of the Palisades’ recovery. Some days left us filled only with sorrow and loss,” said Los Angeles City Councilwoman Traci Park. “But others captured the strength and resilience that only a community like this can summon. And today, in particular, we’re writing a new page, a brighter one.”&�Բ�����;

Marquez’s temporary campus, along with the larger rebuild, will cost the district roughly $202.6 million and is slated to be completed by 2028. The rebuilding of all three campuses damaged or destroyed in the conflagration — including Palisades Charter Elementary and Palisades Charter High School — will likely cost around $600 million, and will be made possible by a  that was approved by voters in November. 

The temporary campus is home to 19 classrooms, as well as a kitchen, library and play areas. 

Marquez’s enrollment has declined roughly 58% since the fires — from about 310 to 130. And the Los Angeles Unified School District has estimated that three-quarters of the enrolled students are not currently living in the Palisades. 

“It’s not perfect. But, I think not perfect is the beginning of figuring all this out,” said Baffa, whose children attended Marquez. “[The district] figured out a way to get them into a place where they could socialize and see each other every day and have in-person learning, and let’s celebrate that.”&�Բ�����;

Beyond Marquez 

Marquez may have been the first to return — but it will be far from the last. 

The Palisades fire devastated roughly 70% of Palisades Charter Elementary and about 30% of the historic Palisades Charter High School. Meanwhile, the Eaton fire  five district-run schools in the Pasadena Unified School District and three of its charters. 

LAUSD’s decision to reopen Marquez, but not the other campuses, came in part from a parent survey, according to district officials, who also said Los Angeles Unified engaged families in multiple town hall meetings. 

Just over 45% of the 66 parents who responded to an April survey said they wanted to return to a temporary facility in the Palisades as soon as possible; 36.4% wanted to return by August. 

Meanwhile, just over a fifth of parents said they would not stay with Marquez if it remained at the Nora Sterry Elementary school campus. 

But David Levitus, the parent of a TK student at Marquez, said parents’ concerns — ranging from environmental risks to longer commutes for those no longer living in the area — seemed much more widespread; 52.4% of parents who participated in the survey noted that the availability of transportation was a factor in their decision-making, along with the timing of students’ relocating and other personal circumstances. 

“There is [nothing] resembling consensus in moving back right now,” he said. 

Parents of Palisades Charter Elementary students, on the other hand, opted to wait for a full return to permanent buildings, in part because their campus has less space to house both a temporary school and the ongoing construction of permanent buildings. 

District officials also said Marquez Elementary was home to more students whose families were returning to the Palisades and that Palisades Charter Elementary was closer to commercial properties that were further behind in their cleanup and demolition efforts. 

Uncertain future in Pasadena Unified

Pasadena Unified, the hardest hit district in the January blazes, has also installed portable structures at various campuses, including Allendale, McKinley, Don Benito, Audubon and Webster, according to spokesperson Hilda Ramirez Horvath. 

The district still does not have a timeline for any potential rebuilds, she added. Without the support of a construction bond, Pasadena Unified will rely on multiple sources of funding, including its insurance carrier, and will look into additional sources of public funding. 

“Everyone’s just so interested in what’s happened to us … and we’re just trying to survive,” said Julianne Reynoso, Pasadena Unified’s assistant superintendent of student wellness and support services. “I mean, we’re just still trying to do the job we’re supposed to do every day.”

Reynoso said, “People are coming to school. They feel connected, and that’s a really great opportunity for us to see the trust that people have, no matter what we’ve been through, that they’re willing to still show up.”

Several weeks after students returned to Canyon Charter Elementary School following the Los Angeles fires in January, a second grade student at the school cried as his teacher packed up an absent friend’s belongings.

“What are you doing with this stuff?” the student asked, his grief ongoing, and mounting.

Katje Davis said it was difficult to explain that his friend was displaced by the Palisades fire and had to move to another school.

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“This loss was hard,” Davis said. “But … we’re good teachers here. And we’ve figured out how to put the kids first.”

The second grader was one of hundreds who left the Los Angeles Unified School District, which lost two elementary schools to the fires, and the Pasadena Unified School District, which encompasses Altadena, and was the hardest hit.

And as the academic year comes to an end, teachers, administrators and experts have stressed that schools in areas affected by fires have remained a key source of stability, despite campuswide adjustments to a new normal and the ongoing grief expressed by students, many of whom lost their homes, pets and communities. Five months after the fires, students were back on track, making progress academically and emotionally.

“Schools provide a sense of continuity and safety for children,” said Pedro Noguera, the Emery Stoops and Joyce King Stoops Dean of USC’s Rossier School of Education. “And, that’s why it’s so important to be in school.”

‘Nothing like Covid’: Returning to normalcy

Despite losing some schools to the fire, Los Angeles Unified and Pasadena Unified were relatively quick to bring students back and resume classes at their new locations. Many students returned by the end of January.

The schools that burned down were relocated to new campuses, so students could stay with the same campus community, classroom, classmates and teachers.

Parents at Canyon Charter Elementary were concerned about environmental risks, according to Davis, and many kept their kids home until the district completed a Soil and Indoor Air Dust Report in late March.

In the months following the Eaton and Palisades fires, students who lived in impacted communities dealt with different circumstances and missed varying amounts of instruction. Some initially seemed happy to be back with their teacher and classmates; others struggled emotionally.

“This is nothing like Covid — because at Covid times, everybody was in the same boat,” Davis said. Her school was in a unique position — they were the closest to the burn zone but did not perish. They also didn’t have running water until mid-March.

Wendy Connor, a veteran first grade teacher at Marquez Charter Elementary School, which did burn down in Palisades, said the initial days and weeks after they resumed in January at Nora Sterry Elementary were geared toward students’ emotional well-being.

Teachers started marking tardies in mid-February, she said, and she tried to cover only the essential parts of each lesson.

“We’re reading a story. We’re writing. We’re practicing spelling and writing sentences and things like that,” Connor said in an interview with EdSource in February. “But, we’re just not doing it for as long as we normally would. If there’s five questions for them to answer, maybe I’ll just have them do three.”

As the weeks rolled on and students started to settle into their new environments, Connor said she felt she had been able to steer her first graders back into a more normal school day.

By May, most of the kids at Marquez Charter Elementary had settled down and were happy at their new location, Connor told EdSource.

“There’s been some stories of a few different students from different classrooms whose parents wanted them to go to a different school … and the kids just refused to go. They wanted to stay at Marquez.”

The efforts at Pasadena Unified have yielded some surprising results, according to Julianne Reynoso, Pasadena Unified’s assistant superintendent of student wellness and support services.

Although 10,000 of the district’s 14,000 students were evacuated from the Eaton fire, the district’s diagnostic assessments show that the number of students performing at or above grade level in math and reading across elementary and middle school has increased between the August/September and March/April assessment periods.

Specifically, the number of elementary students who performed at mid- or above-grade level rose 15 percentage points in math and 14 percentage points in reading.

Among middle schoolers, math scores rose by 11 percentage points and 6 percentage points in reading.

An LAUSD spokesperson said in an email to EdSource that they do not have any data measuring the impacts of the Palisades fire on students at Palisades Charter Elementary and Marquez Charter Elementary.

A changing landscape

In the final weeks of the spring semester, the school day looked similar to what it was before the fires, with one notable exception. Connor’s class is a lot smaller. Only 12 of her 20 students came back, and she made the most of the smaller class size.

“When you have 20, you have to run around to like six different kids that need your help. When it’s only 12, it’s like two kids,” Connor said. “And then we end up with extra time in the afternoon, and we’re starting to do some more coding activities … [and] other enrichment-type activities.”

At least 89 students left Los Angeles Unified due to the fires, according to a district spokesperson, while Pasadena Unified lost roughly 420 students.

“We did have families that left us,” Reynoso said. Other families maintained long-distance commutes to keep their kids in the same district school. “But what’s interesting about it is that they said, ‘We’ll be back. This is just temporary for us,’ I hope that’s true.”

But the fires, coupled with fears around immigration enforcement, also led to an uptick in the district’s rate of chronic absenteeism.

At the same time, Reynoso said Los Angeles Unified unexpectedly gained 263 students. She speculates that this could be the result of a California executive order allowing students who were affected by the fires to attend schools in other districts.

But every fire is different.

According to Noguera from USC, many communities in Santa Rosa and Paradise that suffered losses after fires returned and rebuilt. However, he cautioned that a large-scale return of families might be less likely in Los Angeles.

“Not everybody who was there will come back or can afford to come back,” he said. “It’s a process that’s going to take time, and we will only know, with time, how it all comes together.”

Following that heartbreaking tragedy, I saw the outline of an approach that has developed further since my time operating on the frontlines of trauma response and recovery. The steps we take to prevent violence and tragedy in schools matter. These steps matter because prevention makes terrible situations less likely to occur; and when they do happen, the prevention protocols in place minimize physical and psychological harm.

We call this planning “precovery,” which can be defined as strategies and actions to prevent and to limit harm to the school community. It has in the aftermath of disasters and mass violence that students and adults suffer from emotional distress, cognitive impairment, and a range of behavioral changes. In students, the reactions include school absence, emotional withdrawal, depression, and traumatic stress. In some cases, abusive, hostile, and aggressive behaviors develop after students are victim or witness to violence or the threat of violence.

This is no small problem. In 2020, the National Center for Education Statistics found that 77% of all schools in the U.S. grappled with at least one act of violence on the school campus. In addition, the rate of school shootings has risen over the past 20 years. Natural disasters like wildfires have increased in numbers and intensity, destroying homes, hospitals, churches, and schools as well as other vital institutions representing places of safety. As one of those institutions that function ‘in loco parentis’, schools must make precovery a watchword. 

Michelle Kefford, principal of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida, gave this sage advice after commemorating the seventh year after the massacre of students and staff in her high school: “Don’t wait until tragedy takes place. Take precovery seriously. Start now!”&�Բ�����;

Recognizing this, the policy and procedures bulletin for the LAUSD Crisis Intervention in Schools has been regularly revised and updated since originally written in 1984. Annual training of the crisis teams is based on the updated policy bulletin.����

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Any precovery work must have the following essential elements: a clear action plan shared with staff, a process to put policies and procedures in place to prevent harm, a review process to improve established procedures using lessons learned from schools that have suffered from mass violence or destructive natural disasters, and training for educators to prepare them to participate in the recovery process and maximize the return of all students to the classroom. 

A prominent survey in my field once asked educators about their school safety plans. At the administrative level, everything appeared to be in order: School leaders reported that the plans were in place, they were updated, and they were understood. The plan was located in a binder in the front office.

However, as researchers posed the same questions to faculty and other staff, massive gaps in communication became clear. Although staff members knew that there was a plan, somewhere out there, they did not know what it contained or what their role was should a shooting or disaster occur. Many indicated that in a widespread disaster they would be torn between their responsibility to the students in their classrooms and their responsibility to ensure the safety of their own children and families. 

Building and maintaining a strong foundation for precovery requires:

•  Establishing trusting relationships with all school stakeholders – students, educators, parents, and the community.
• Establishing open channels of calm and helpful communication.
•  Building and maintaining crisis response and recovery infrastructure with meaningful policies, roles and responsibility that are spelled out in advance, giving educators the opportunity to plan for both classroom and family safety.
• Expanding capacity to train staff in their individual roles as well as in a variety of prevention and intervention scenarios.
  

For students, open communication and meaningful connections are invitations to seek help when they’re in distress, reducing the feelings of isolation that can lead to harmful behaviors. Simultaneously, these relationships enhance an entire school community’s capacity for early intervention, as teachers and peers are more likely to recognize warning signs of trauma and to reach out to troubled students with help and support.

At a time when roughly are reporting at least one violent incident each school year and natural disasters are intensifying, we need more proactive safety measures in place. Precovery strategies offer schools the means to reduce or nullify potential threats and extreme anxiety, social and emotional pain before they escalate. 

Being able to navigate both personal and community crises with the support of a school system that protects all members of the learning community and plans ahead builds resilience in the face of future adversity. Over the past 40 years, the Los Angeles Unified School District has been exemplary in these efforts.

The most recent example of precovery can be seen in the many steps that the Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD) took in advance of the devastating Eaton Wildfire that destroyed homes, businesses, and schools. In the past three years, district leaders created and maintained effective school and district-level crisis teams. They implemented training for staff in that expanded knowledge about trauma recovery.

They provided training to staff in an evidence-based intervention designed to reduce the distress of students who have experienced a traumatic event and restore their ability to return to school in a safe and supportive environment. All of these actions created a comprehensive precovery action agenda that prepared the district and its educators to welcome 9,000 students who had experienced evacuations and, for some, the loss of their homes and schools.

We may not know how long recovery from this widespread disaster will take, but we do know that putting precovery into action not only prevents trauma from becoming worse, it also helps to heal it.

The 26-page document, “Looking Ahead as LAUSD Confronts Fire Recovery and Federal Policy Uncertainty,” found those twin events will place new “operational and financial pressures” on the nation’s second-largest district in 2025 and beyond.

The report, published earlier this month by the L.A.-based nonprofit education advocacy group , points out that LAUSD was already strained, with cratering enrollment, intense budget pressure and mixed marks on recent state and federal exams, although it is making progress compared to the rest of the state by some metrics. 

Other U.S. school districts are facing some similar post-pandemic headwinds and the second Trump administration, GPSN Executive Vice President Ana Teresa Dahan said in an interview, but the crisis at LA Unified is especially bad because of additional threats posed by the fires and years of plunging enrollment exacerbated by the pandemic.

“LAUSD was facing declining enrollment before these two crises occurred, and there’s a chance that this can make that worse,” said Dahan. “Between declining enrollment and delays in funding, LAUSD could find itself in a financial crisis.”

Morgan Polikoff, a professor of education at the University of Southern California, said the dangers to the district posed by the fires and the Trump administration are very serious.

“Those things are looming,” said Polikoff. “LAUSD would be a great target for the Trump administration if they want to put a trophy on the shelf.”&�Բ�����;

Drawing on academic research, news reporting and publicly available data, the GPSN report found the wildfires which ripped through Los Angeles in January affected more than 700,000 students and staff with school closures and displacements at the height of the disaster. 

Even schools that were spared by flames suffered smoke damage, debris, and environmental hazards, according to the report.

Ongoing hardships caused by the fires, such as financial uncertainty caused by job losses — estimated at 25,000-45,000 in the report — and the displacement of families from lost homes and neighborhoods, also compound LAUSD’s fire woes, said Dahan.

Meanwhile, LA school officials are preparing for the Trump administration to change, cut, or significantly diminish federal funding for public schools, which typically accounts for about 10% of the district’s budget.

Trump on Thursday issued an executive order to shut down the U.S. Department of Education. He has also threatened to withhold funding for districts that use race-based programming. 

LAUSD last year was forced to overhaul its signature program for Black students, the Black Student Achievement Plan, after a Virginia conservative group filed a civil rights complaint against the program. 

LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho has said he would fight to impose any restrictions placed on the district.

Merely the fear of federal immigration enforcement at LAUSD schools, and uncertainty about the status of federal funding, could be enough to depress attendance and cause budgeting troubles for the district, Polikoff said.

In a written response to the GPSN report, a district spokesperson acknowledged the dangers faced by LA Unified.

“As this report correctly indicates, these are challenging times,” a district spokesperson said in a statement. “Not only is our community still recovering from the impact of the Palisades and Eaton fires, but we are now facing an increasingly volatile economic and political landscape.”

The GPSN report gave LA Unified high marks for quickly relocating two schools that were destroyed in the fires, and formarshaling resources to provide food for families at LAUSD campuses while schools were closed. 

Dahan said she also found hope for LAUSD in the district’s state test scores, which show that it is closing the gap with the rest of California, in both reading and math.

To maximize its chances of mustering a strong recovery from the fires, and an effective response to the new federal landscape, Dahan said LA Unified needs to double down on social and academic services for students, and work with local community groups to bring those things directly to families.

“I think that they have demonstrated that they know how to respond to these crises,” Dahan said. “Now the real test will be, what does this mean for instruction and academics moving forward?”

Wildfires devastated the Los Angeles community of the Pacific Palisades that night, destroying homes and businesses, transforming a neighborhood forever. Palisades Charter Elementary was among three schools that burned there. 

Palisades Charter Elementary has since moved to a temporary home at a school in Brentwood, while L.A. Unified executes a multi-year plan to replace its ravaged Palisades campus. 

In an interview with LA School Report, Herman shares how she’s keeping her school community together amid the loss and trauma of the worst wildfires in the city’s history.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. 

What did the burning of your school community and your school’s campus in January mean for the individual members of the community?

I remember thinking on that night, ‘I don’t know how to be the principal of a school that’s burned down,’ because that’s not actually in the principal playbook anywhere. They don’t teach you that in principal preparation school. 

I don’t actually know how many members of my school lost their homes. However, anyone who lived up in the Palisades has been displaced, and their lives changed inexorably since that moment. 

It certainly has changed all of us and brought us together in a really unique way.

How are your students and staff reacting to life at Brentwood Science Magnet (school) where your school was relocated after your original campus burned? 

It’s been a really great place for us to land. The students are very happy to be together. They’re very happy to be with their teachers. That’s really critical. They’re having a lot of fun. 

We didn’t have tetherball at our old school, so tetherball is a big hit. And the fact that the students get to just enjoy this great space is kind of amazing. 

So it’s been really joyful to watch the students interact with one another and process what’s been going on, and be together. 

Immediately after the school burned down and you knew that students wouldn’t be able to return very soon, did they immediately go to Brentwood Science Magnet? Or was there a period of online school or other transition?

The school was lost on the evening of January 7, and by the Friday of that week, I knew that we were coming to the Brentwood Science Magnet school. 

We had Monday and Tuesday of the following week for teachers to prepare, and on Wednesday, March 15, we opened our doors for students. 

So there was no online school. There was no real loss in continuity. I knew that when we had a return, it would be a rolling return because families were trying to organize themselves.

Do you think that’s led to the community staying together more easily than if there were a period of online learning? 

I think it has had a hugely positive effect on our community, and it has really been instrumental in laying the foundation for the healing process. We are not suddenly all better, but I think in-person learning really did provide continuity for kids.

How do you keep displaced families from leaving the school?  

On January 6, our enrollment was, I think, 406 students. And as of today, it’s about 350 students. I know that we lost a good number of students who moved out of the area pretty immediately. 

Then, there were a number of families who were displaced and unable to return. 

And then there are some other families who we’re in conversation with regarding their personal situations, and providing them options. 

How are you addressing trauma?

Students are still experiencing trauma. Teachers are still experiencing it. For all of us, we lost our school. This is a very, very, very significant event.  

The district has been wonderful about providing mental health support. We have several partnerships that we are working on and extra personnel from the district who have that background that can really support students, not just in this moment, not just for the next few months, but in the years to come.

How has this whole ordeal of the fire and relocating impacted academics and attendance?

We don’t really know yet about the impact for students. We’re preparing to take state tests, and we’re monitoring students to ensure they have support. I have an amazing faculty, and they are adapting and adjusting their instructional practices. 

In terms of attendance, this is a moment, again, where our old playbook is not really applied any longer. I know the district has been very focused on making sure students come to school. 

We do pretty well. We’re at about a 90% daily attendance rate. Sometimes we’re super flexible about when students arrive, because they may be coming from one place last week and a different place this week. 

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

I’m super proud of the way that we have come together as a community. I’m super proud to work with Los Angeles Unified [School District] and have their support in addressing this crisis in a very thoughtful and careful and fast way to ensure that our students have a safe place to go to school. 

I’m happy to be at the Brentwood Science Magnet campus, and I look forward to whatever our next steps are. 

This article is part of a collaboration between ����Ӱ�� and the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

Bane, an English teacher at Alliance Susan & Eric Smidt Technology High School, drew from her deep belief in the power of reading to help students and teachers reclaim a sense of stability by launching a book drive to rebuild classroom and home libraries lost in the fires. 

Since her initial call for book donations on and only days after the wildfires started to spread, more than 14,000 new and gently used books have poured in from donors across the world. 

Teachers, parents and students can books with no set deadline or expiration date. 

The book initiative has also drawn widespread recognition, including from Congressman Jimmy Gomez, who Bane for her dedication to rebuilding affected classrooms. Gomez even joined volunteers in sorting and distributing books to impacted families at one of the local events. 

A longtime educator with nearly 20 years of experience, Bane has also been part of the literary world since 2019, first as a ghostwriter and now as a debut author with a YA novel, “,” set to release this summer. The writing community, which has long supported Bane’s work, quickly rallied behind her mission. Notable writers, including Veronica Roth, Emily A. Craig, Dahlia Adler and Julian Winters, contributed books and advanced copies to help restore classroom collections. 

Bane spoke with digital producer Trinity Alicia about the book drive initiative, the role of reading in times of natural disaster and how books can serve as powerful tools for healing and restoration.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

How did the book drive idea come to life? I’m curious about some of the conversations you may have had with others and even yourself — and how they shaped the idea.

My husband and I dropped off some necessities at different donation sites, and once those core essentials were taken care of, my mind immediately went to the teachers. I saw all these pictures of schools that had burned down … and now, those libraries are gone. I thought about my students, especially the kids who come into my classroom at lunch to read. Their books are their prized possessions, and I couldn’t help but wonder how they would feel if those sources of comfort were suddenly taken away.

While others were doing an amazing job meeting essential needs, I realized this could be a place where I could make a difference. I was about 2.8 miles from the nearest evacuation zone so beyond being nervous for our own home — there was a tense night where we thought we might need to evacuate — I knew that this was something I could do right now.

I posted my first initial post on Threads and Bluesky shortly after the wildfires started and said if anyone had lost books, we would get them books and to not worry because the offer didn’t expire. It started gaining some initial traction, and someone suggested creating a Google form. I thought, “as a teacher teacher, I love a Google form!” So, I made one and when I woke up, it had around 100,000 views. 

I nudged my husband and said, “Hey, so our house is about to become box city,” and he’s honestly been my first recruit in this process, helping me make deliveries, sort the books and even going with me to the post office to get book donations. 

When I needed a classroom library, I created a project on Donors Choose and the first person to donate was a young adult author. The writing and author community has been incredibly supportive of me … sending advance copies of books and whatever extra books they had around. It allowed me to build out a library for my students, giving them the resources they desperately needed. I knew that if I reached out this time, this community would show up for these teachers and readers, just as they have for me and my students for years.

How has the process been since receiving book donations?

The response has been quite a far reach, much farther than I was expecting. I’ve gotten multiple books and boxes from overseas like Australia, so that’s been really cool. It’s been quite a far reach, way farther than I was expecting. I thought only a handful of LA authors I knew would show up, but they came in a big way. I didn’t expect my P.O. box to be literally overrun, but I’m very happy that it is. I’ve been trying to manage the volume as best as I can.

Some teachers … have told me they’re retiring in June and asked if they could give their classroom libraries to someone when they retire. So far, we’ve distributed over 14,000 book donations.

We’ve been accepting books for all ages. For example, there was a preschool that burned down, and we dropped off three big boxes just to get them started, with plans to bring more. Those boxes primarily contained picture books and early chapter books. 

I believe so strongly in literacy and in getting kids a variety of books — whether it’s a portal into a different world or a character going through tough times like they are. 

When I first started teaching, I’d get boxes of classic literature, and while I love the classics, I know that handing a kid a book like “War and Peace” won’t help them love reading. I wanted students to have books that made them say, “Yeah, this is something I can do.” This was the same route I took with curating donations for teachers and classrooms across LA.

In your experience, how do books and reading provide stability and normalcy during chaotic times, especially for young people who may feel displaced due to the fires?

I remember looking at the books I read when my mom passed away. I’ve held onto some of the books in my personal library because there are memories attached to books. A book is a small yet significant thing that serve as anchors of what your life had before then you get to then rebuild around. It’s not going to feel normal for a long time, but I hope we’re giving people those anchors through these books. It’s not about the material things; it’s about giving them that comfort and sense of normalcy.

What has been the most rewarding part of running this book drive? Have you connected with any specific individuals or families that made this experience feel particularly impactful?

One of the best things has been seeing how many people are willing to come together and support each other … I knew I wouldn’t fully understand the grief that others were experiencing … I hadn’t lost my home or my school, but I knew I could be there for them … to help them get through it. Whether I’m sending one book for comfort or three boxes of books, I just want them to know this is one thing they don’t have to worry about and that we’ll take care of it.

There was one teacher I dropped off boxes for, and she just asked if she could hug me. Then she gave me cookies, and I thought, “That’s such a teacher thing to do.” She was taking the cookies to families in the neighborhood, and it made me feel grateful to be a teacher and to be in education. 

The idea of “resilience” often comes up in disaster recovery. How do you see literacy and books playing a role in building resilience for young readers in these communities? 

I teach in an area where over 90% of my students qualify for free or reduced lunch, and many of them are going to be the first in their families to go to college. The topic of resilience comes up a lot, and I’ve often been asked how I teach my students resilience and grit. The truth is, my students don’t need to be taught resilience. They have been resilient their entire lives and have faced challenges I can’t even imagine. 

If anything, they’ve taught me resilience, and I’m in awe of how they continue to persevere. When this situation happened I thought of the students in my classroom reading books after everything they’ve gone through, finding an escape. Some of my kids don’t get enough sleep because they don’t have a bedroom, and some work multiple jobs late into the night before coming to a full school schedule. These are the kids who disappear into books. 

Congratulations on your debut novel coming out! How do you balance civic duties as an author and a teacher?

Everything that had seemed so important with the book just didn’t feel as important anymore in light of everything else going on. It’s not that the book isn’t important to me — I’m incredibly excited and proud of it, but it’s had to take a backseat to this work because … this is the most vital and urgent. I’m so grateful for the way people have been responding, and it’s been overwhelming in the best way.

What does teaching reading in Los Angeles mean to you? 

One of my proudest moments came when a former student messaged me after seeing someone post about the book drive. They wanted to donate, saying, “Your class is the one that made me love reading, so I want to pass this on.” I was so happy. But I know that wouldn’t have happened without a library, without books to choose from. If they don’t have access to those books, they don’t build that confidence. 

Located in the San Gabriel Valley of Los Angeles. was one of about a dozen Armenian schools in L.A. offering a faith-based education. Founded in 1980 by the Altadena’s Armenian evangelical community, the school serves more than 180 students from preschool through middle school. 

It was one of the L.A. across the city over in what experts said could be . 

Hovhannes Halladjian, a local pastor, said when the school burned it was like losing a member of the family. But, he said, the community is determined to rebuild in a new location. 

“Sahag-Mesrob Christian School was one of those schools that tried to do its best to teach the Christian and Armenian tradition and Christian values,” he said.���� 

On the day the Sahag-Mesrob burned, Halladjian said he was in the area helping friends and relatives evacuate when he saw the school engulfed in flames. 

Before he knew it, everything was gone.

Students in preschool through first grade have relocated to a nearby church, while second through eighth graders are temporarily holding classes at an Armenian cultural center in Pasadena. 

and fundraisers have been launched to support the school’s relocation effort, but rebuilding will be a long, difficult road. 

Ed Haroutonian, whose children attend Sahag-Mesrob, called the loss of the school heartbreaking.����

Haroutonian, who serves on the school’s board of directors, said Sahag-Mesrob was a center of culture and religious faith for Altadena’s Armenian community. 

“Having two kids in private school is a big sacrifice for us, but it’s worth every penny to have our kids in,” a place, Haroutonian said, where students “learn what our faith is about and our culture.”

Although it is Christian, Sahag-Mesrob is a non-denominational school with no affiliation to any church. Its mission is to provide an education within an Armenian heritage and cultural setting.

Vania Agojian, whose daughter Zoey attends Sahag-Mesrob, said she decided to send her daughter to the school because of its legacy, community, and religious foundation. 

“A lot of these public schools, when there’s like so many students, sometimes they lose touch with the kids,” Agojian said.

She said Sahag-Mesrob is more than just a school, but a place where generations of Armenians have built a community.

“In Zoey’s class right now…I knew their parents when (they) were that young,” Agojian said. “It’s just really neat to see generations of students that have come through.”

She said the fact that Armenians have experienced genocide because of their religious beliefs has strengthened their commitment to preserving their faith, traditions and religious-based education.

The community has suffered more than just the loss of its school. The wildfires destroyed vast swaths of Altadena, including residential blocks where many Armenian families lived, Agojian said. 

“I know at least a dozen families at Sahag-Mesrob, if not more, [that] have lost their homes,” she said. “We have students who have lost not only their school, but their homes, their safe havens.”

This article is part of a collaboration between ����Ӱ�� and the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

But that hasn’t stopped the school’s student choir from making music. In fact, they just sang at the show last month, with Stevie Wonder and Herbie Hancock.

Classes are still virtual for students of after wildfires scorched the school’s campus in January. The student choir meets virtually for rehearsals, and occasionally in person. 

Recovering from the fires that burned the school and destroyed homes and buildings in the surrounding community has been difficult, said choir director Allison Cheng. 

Students and staff are still reeling from the losses, she said, but singing helps transform the trauma from the disaster into a healing experience.

“It was something that the whole community could look forward to that was positive,” said Cheng of the Grammy appearance. 

See the Palisades High School choir at the one minute mark:

Stevie Wonder performs “We Are The World Michael Jackson at the Grammy Awards

Pali High, as the school is called by students and staff, is known for famous alumni such as will.i.am and J.J. Abrams, as well as for being the filming location for movies such as Freaky Friday and Teen Wolf.����

Cheng said the choir’s journey to the Grammy Awards began on January 17, when she got a text out of the blue from the event’s organizers, asking if she would be interested in working on a performance at the televised award show. 

The choir’s performance, which was kept under wraps until the award show took place, aimed to highlight students from schools affected by the recent LA wildfires, such as Pali High. 

Working with the show’s organizers, Cheng reached out to a friend at the Pasadena Waldorf School, and asked that school’s choir to join for the show. 

“I don’t even know how many emails I sent back and forth with production to make sure we had everything,” said Cheng. “It was a lot of work, but I think it was worth it.”&�Բ�����;

The two schools’ choirs finally met for an in-person rehearsal on Saturday, Feb. 1 with country singer Lamont Van Hook to record a backing track for the performance. 

Their shining moment came the next day during the Grammys when both of the student choirs joined Stevie Wonder and Herbie Hancock at the star-studded award show for a rendition of “We are the World” as part of the ceremony’s tribute to Quincy Jones. 

Joining the musical legends onstage, the students wore shirts that read “I Love LA” as they sang backup accompanied by a jazz ensemble. 

Another high point for the students came when they got to meet some of their idols backstage at the event, including Beyoncé and Sabrina Carpenter, Cheng said.

The experience lifted kids’ spirits at a tough time for them at school, Cheng said. Online learning is tough, she explained, especially in music programs like hers. 

“Because I’m not in the room, we can’t physically hand them something to show me,” said Cheng. “It’s really difficult.”

Many Pali High students use music as a safe outlet for expression, Cheng said, and the trauma of the fires has only heightened the importance of artistic education in their lives. 

That’s why singing at the Grammys was so sweet for the students, she said. 

“These are kids that not only sing in choir, but they dance, they produce music, that’s what they want to do,” said Cheng. “So this experience was priceless for them.”

This article is part of a collaboration between ����Ӱ�� and the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

The world is a messy place. Most of us figure this out by the time we hit adulthood: However compelling our convictions, however good our intentions, humans are constantly tripping into one another. What looks like virtuous, upstanding behavior through our eyes — always looks different to others. Worse yet, sometimes the Good Thing to Do in a moment can be all but impossible to discern. Do you tell the truth now, even if that causes your friend pain? Do you tell them later, even if your delay hurts many more people? Do you turn to violence to stop the violence of others — and if so, how much? 

Pretty much every moral tradition is clear that harm to children is among the gravest misdeeds. This isn’t complicated. Children merit unique protective cushions because of their enormous potential. How they develop now will shape their — and our — future. Further, children cannot deserve harm. They’re morally blameless — . As messy as the world is, it’s obvious that adults shouldn’t hurt children. Further, systems that are somehow violating this — bombing them, shooting them, starving them, injuring them — are also fundamentally wrong. There are no legitimate excuses. End of discussion. 

Hold that close to your heart as you reflect on the Trump administration’s recent decision to open K–12 campuses to armed enforcement actions. For 14 years, the U.S. federal government had recommended that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents should steer clear of “” like schools, but also churches, hospitals and other community centers. Immediately after taking power, , opening schools across the country to immigration raids. 

To understand the behind this change, it’s worth understanding why officials ever avoided conducting enforcement at these locations. It’s not that federal leaders were reluctant to carry out U.S. laws, rather, it’s that they wanted to separate the potentially dangerous, complex work of immigration enforcement activity from disrupting children’s daily lives. 

As , “We can accomplish our law enforcement mission without denying individuals access to needed medical care, children access to their schools, the displaced access to food and shelter, people of faith access to their places of worship, and more. Adherence to this principle is a bedrock of our stature as public servants.”

Again: Protecting kids is a paramount moral concern. And in 2025, it’s clear that U.S. adults have collectively failed in that task. Today’s K–12 students have weathered the academic and social strains of a deadly global pandemic. They attend school in an era when campus shootings are regularly in the news and natural disasters amplified by climate change have decimated their communities and shuttered their classrooms in places like , and . They’ve watched violent assaults on representative government being not just normalized as part of U.S. politics — but excused and even celebrated by the leaders of one of our major political parties. Is it any wonder that children’s mental health ?

The kids are not all right. This is a terrible moment to introduce more uncertainty and instability into their lives. At least one major district is pushing back. Denver Public Schools this week to keep ICE agents out of schools, with the school board president noting, “Scared children can’t learn.”

Obviously, the Trump administration’s new ICE-in-Your- Classrooms policy could be stressful for children of immigrants, who are uniquely sensitive to the possible consequences of these raids. Research has that increased immigration enforcement activity around children of immigrants . In the weeks since Trump’s order, , regardless of the specific state of their family’s documentation, . 

And yet, this new policy affects all children. , “This administration is breaking with the idea that schools should be an accepting and reassuring space for young people.” Children don’t have to have an immigrant parent to struggle with this moment. It’s hard to imagine how armed law enforcement activity on campus could help them feel safer or help them learn more, especially as the most recent round of math and reading scores have confirmed that the country’s students are falling further off pace, academically speaking. 

Of course, that’s perhaps the point. The new administration’s K–12 education plans are thin (at best) when it comes to proposals for improving how schools support children’s academic achievement. , Trump and his deputies are and . 

This won’t make communities safer or improve kids’ academic performance. Research , shows that are major to their . It also has found that culturally and linguistically diverse kids are some of U.S. schools’ best students, whose presence appears to academic achievement . 

If this debate still seems complicated: remember that the world’s messy. U.S. immigration laws, , should be enforced. Meanwhile, our kids — currently overcoming generationally awful obstacles — deserve to feel safe and secure enough to focus on learning. 

But anyone who reflects on those two public priorities and concludes that children’s well-being is of secondary importance is betraying the depravity of their moral compass. They are showing that they do not, however much they protest, understand what it means to put students first. 

Conor P. Williams is a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, a Founding Partner at the Children’s Equity Project, and a father to three public school students. These views are his alone and do not reflect his employers or any organizations with which he may be affiliated. 

It’ll be a while before Los Angeles can fully assess the damage to its schools from this recent spate of fires, but a few things already seem certain: rebuilding will take a long time, it will be expensive, and it may sap the statewide fund for school repairs.

At least a dozen schools in the Los Angeles area have been damaged in the fires, including at least five that were destroyed completely. Thousands of students and school staff have lost their homes, and countless families are grappling with major disruptions to their day-to-day lives. 

“The pain of being evacuated, losing your home, or having family and friends who have been impacted. … it’s just so devastating,” said Debra Duardo, Los Angeles County Superintendent of Schools. “At so many districts in our county, the superintendent themselves has been evacuated, or 50% of the staff has been evacuated. And meanwhile they’re all trying to help their students.”

In Pacific Palisades, fires destroyed two elementary schools and extensively damaged Palisades Charter High School. Fires in Pasadena and Altadena destroyed three elementary schools. Several others in greater Los Angeles remain closed because they’re in evacuation zones or have been damaged.

Students at those schools have been reassigned to other campuses, are learning online or are waiting for conditions to improve so they can return to class.

For many students, it will be a long wait. Even with loosened regulations, rebuilding a school could take years as officials piece together a hodgepodge of funding sources: insurance money, private grants and donations, local bonds, lawsuit settlement money and state and federal funds. Some districts will have plenty of funding options, while others will struggle to find enough revenue.

In the meantime, some will have immediate expenses such as procuring portable classrooms and hiring mental health counselors to help students, staff and families cope with trauma. Large districts such as Los Angeles Unified can reallocate resources quickly, but smaller districts and charter and private schools face more obstacles.

Big demand for Prop. 2 funds

Proposition 2, the $10 billion school construction bond approved by voters in November, will be a big help for schools that need to rebuild or make costly repairs, or even buy portables. 

The state allocates the money to schools with the highest need, and then on a first-come, first-served basis. There’s already a big backlog of schools that have applied for money, and it’s likely that schools gutted by fire will get priority over those with less urgent needs, said Rebekah Kalleen, a legislative advocate for the Coalition for Adequate School Housing. 

That means some schools will miss out. Because California’s fund for school repairs had been empty for a while, there’s a long list of schools with critical repair needs. Throughout the state, students are attending schools with leaky roofs, lead pipes, unsafe electrical systems and broken air conditioning. Schools in low-income and rural areas are most affected, because they have less ability to raise money through local bonds.

Helio Brasil, superintendent of Keyes Union School District south of Modesto, said he has empathy for those dealing with buildings destroyed or damaged by the fires in Los Angeles, but he worries about . The 1,000-student district, which primarily serves low-income students whose parents work in the nearby agricultural fields, desperately needs money to replace the 40-year-old roof, upgrade the electric wiring and make other safety improvements.

“There is a growing concern that Prop. 2 funds will be quickly depleted, leaving smaller districts like Keyes struggling to address our own long-term facility needs,” Brasil wrote in an email. “We understand the moral imperative to support the devastated districts first, but the reality is that districts like ours cannot be left behind in the process.”

Brasil and other superintendents are asking for the state to balance the needs of schools affected by fires with those that aren’t, and provide extra money if possible. Gov. Gavin Newsom last week promised to chip in an extra $1 million from the state’s general fund for schools damaged by fire.  

‘Like a bomb had gone off’

The post-fire experience in Sonoma and Butte counties provides a preview of what lies ahead in Los Angeles. Thousands of homes and numerous schools were destroyed in a spate of fires from 2017-20, leaving residents to resurrect entire communities.

“Those first few weeks were surreal, almost primordial. It was like a bomb had gone off,” said Andrew Bailey, head of Anova Center for Education, a private school in Sonoma County that serves special education students enrolled in public schools. Anova was destroyed in the 2017 Tubbs Fire, leaving its 125 students without a campus.

There was no school at all for three weeks while staff hunted for classroom space at other locations. Eventually they brought in portables and launched an ambitious fundraising campaign to pay for a new school. Last week, the new school finally opened — more than seven years after the fire.

“It was miraculous that we were able to do this,” Bailey said. “It was incredibly hard work, but now the headwinds have dissipated and our kids now have a great new school.”

Attending school at a hardware store

In Paradise, a Butte County town which was nearly entirely destroyed in the 2018 Camp Fire, the school district is still recovering. Four school sites were destroyed and nine were extensively damaged. A big obstacle in rebuilding, school officials said, was not knowing how many students to expect. More than 80% of the town burned down, and it was unclear how many residents planned to move back. Enrollment in Paradise Unified dropped from 3,500 before the fire to 1,500 in 2019. It’s now up to 1,700. 

Although the state was helpful, the paperwork and funding process took time, Superintendent Tom Taylor said. Meanwhile, students attended school any place officials could find space: other school districts, some 20 miles away; warehouses; even a hardware store. (The store was cleared of merchandise. Students ate lunch at the check-out counter.)

The district has so far spent $155 million to rebuild campuses, but needs $150 million more to fix everything that needs fixing, Taylor said. The district is hoping to break ground on Paradise Elementary School, one of the schools that was completely destroyed.

“There were a few years where all staff worked harder than we ever have. Long days, seven days a week, no time off,” Taylor said. “We’re still not done. … But our staff understands that schools are the center of a community, and we want our schools to help lead the return of the town.”

Prioritizing mental health

In some ways, Los Angeles schools will have it a bit easier than those in Sonoma and Butte. The state now has well-established disaster relief protocols, and there are plenty of experts who can advise. Because of COVID-19, most schools already have distance learning systems in place and robust social-emotional support for students. 

Support for mental health – for staff as well as students – is a crucial piece of recovery, school officials in Sonoma and Butte said.

In Sonoma County, schools learned early on how to screen students for anxiety. They also created partnerships with local nonprofits and health clinics, and the County Office of Education trained teachers to lead class discussions and otherwise support students who felt traumatized by the fires.

“In situations like this, you’re never going to have enough money for one-to-one counseling for everyone who needs it,” said Mary Champion, a school psychologist with the Sonoma County Office of Education. “That’s why it’s so important to train educators, to take some of the pressure off clinicians.”

Tyson Dickinson, director of the office’s Department of Behavioral Health and Well-Being, said districts in Los Angeles should expect the recovery process — beyond the replacement of buildings — to take a long time. Sonoma County’s last major fire was in 2020, and it’s still never far from residents’ minds.

“Any time it’s windy, warm and dry, any time there’s smoke, you can see the stress building,” Dickinson said. “From August through January everyone is on edge. It’s just a different world now.”

This was originally published on .

When she got the news, Bonnie Brimecombe was standing on a sidewalk outside her in-laws’ house in Monrovia, where she had evacuated amid the chaos of last week’s fires. It was a video, sent by a colleague, showing the charred remnants of Odyssey South Charter School, where Brimecombe has been principal for three years.

Classrooms, desks, books, the owl murals, the fourth-graders’ quilt project, the newly planted native plant garden — all scorched by the Eaton Fire. Flames still lapped at one building, as the rest of the campus smouldered.

“It was gone,” Brimecombe said, choking back tears as she recounted the moment. “And then all the text messages from families started coming in. You’re just getting message after message, ‘My home is lost, I have nothing.’ The school didn’t even matter at that point. You just think about the families.”

Odyssey South, a popular TK-8 charter school in Altadena, was among the dozen or so schools destroyed in the Los Angeles fires. At least 40% of the school’s families and 10 staff members lost their homes. As of Friday, 5% of families were still unaccounted for.

Like at all the damaged schools, staff are navigating their own fire hardships while frantically scouring the city for new classroom space. Even as the fires continue to burn, the most important thing, they said, is to bring an element of normalcy to children whose lives have been upended.

Searching for a new school

As soon as she saw the video, Brimecombe and her staff “grieved for a few minutes” and then got to work looking for a new school. They’ve toured other school sites, churches, office buildings, even a vacant Bed Bath & Beyond. They’ve talked to real estate agents and countless property owners who’ve offered to help. 

But it’s not easy to find space for 375 students. The first hurdle is enrollment — Brimecome isn’t sure how many students will actually be returning to school once it reopens. Some evacuated to other counties or even other states, and it’s unclear how many will return, or when.

Another challenge is competition. There aren’t that many vacant spaces in the Pasadena area suitable for a school, yet there are at least five schools looking for space. Not all have the same needs, and they’re cooperating when they can, but there’s still not enough space for all the schools who need it.

The next obstacle is more practical. A vacant office building seemed perfect, but where would Brimecombe and her staff find hundreds of school desks and chairs? A nearby school offered to share its campus, but there wasn’t enough space for the entire student body so they’d have to split up — not a desirable option when students need continuity and to be with their friends, Brimecombe said.

And the final obstacle is money. Like many charter schools, Odyssey leases its campus from a school district. The school has insurance, but no control over the district’s plans to rebuild the site. The state and federal governments will provide some funding, but as an independent charter organization Odyssey is mostly on its own. It can’t raise money through a bond, and it lacks the staff to navigate the labyrinth of grants, permits and other paperwork. Although the school has launched an , staff aren’t sure how much money they’ll need or how much they can expect from various sources.

Odyssey isn’t alone. Los Angeles County has a high concentration of charter schools, and at least a half dozen were damaged or destroyed by the fires. Two charters near Odyssey – Pasadena Rosebud Academy and Aveson Charter School – not only burned down, but the principals also lost their homes.

Charter schools have a long road ahead as they wrangle with school districts and patch together money for rebuilding, said Keith Dell’Aquila, an advocate with the California Charter Schools Association who focuses on greater Los Angeles.

“For some schools, it’s total devastation,” Dell’Aquila said. “People who are leaders in their school communities also have no place to go at the end of the day, no place to put their kids to bed. It’s been unimaginable.”

His group is asking Pasadena Unified, which leases space to several damaged charter schools, to help find new space for those schools and to share funds from a recently passed pair of measures that are slated to bring in nearly $1 billion to district schools.

Pasadena Unified did not immediately respond to an email from CalMatters.

A ‘heartbreaking’ reality

Stacy Connor, head of Odyssey’s parent association, said the Eaton fire was the most terrifying experience of her life.  She and her family had to evacuate their home in Pasadena at 4 a.m., as 100 mph winds howled and flames roared a block away.

She and her husband and two children spent a few days at a church in Glendale before moving in with family for 10 days. Their house survived, but barely. Half the roof burned off, the siding was scorched and nearly all the contents were destroyed by smoke and ash.

Now, she’s spending her days haggling with the insurance company and replacing items lost to the fire. She’s also facing the “heartbreaking” reality that she may have to find a new school for her 9-year-old daughter. 

“Every single staff member at that school knew every single child. They truly loved children,” said Connor, who spent countless hours volunteering at Odyssey. “It was such an inclusive community where everyone felt welcome. I don’t know if we can replace that.”

Doubling down on mental health

Founded in 1999, not long after California legalized charter schools, Odyssey serves about 850 students on two campuses. (The other campus was not damaged in the fire). Odyssey South is ethnically diverse, reflecting the demographics of Altadena – about 30% Latino, 45% white and the rest a mix of Black, Asian and people who identify as more than one race. About a third are low-income. Students perform well above the state average in math and reading, and there’s typically a waiting list for enrollment. 

The school has a strong focus on social-emotional learning, an approach that will help students and staff recover from the trauma of the fires, Brimecombe said. Students are used to talking about their feelings, listening to their classmates and supporting each other. 

“In a way, we are ready for this kind of a situation. Resiliency is already built into our core values; we know how to come back,” Brimecombe said. “But it’s going to be tough. We’re going to need to double down to provide all the mental health support our students will need.”

The most immediate need was finding a place for students to go now. A few days after the fire, the local Boys & Girls Club offered to provide all-day care for the students, where they’ve been playing and talking and spending time together in a low-stress atmosphere. More importantly, parents can return to work and tend to insurance and rebuilding efforts.   

Within a week, the school planned a community event for families in San Gabriel, which is about 10 miles away but was less affected by wildfire smoke.

“We wanted to get everybody back to see each other’s faces. Have a minute to cry together,” Brimecombe said. “Some kids may have lost everything, but they could say, ‘My friend is still here, their mom is still here, my teachers are still here.’ It helps to understand, it’s not all gone.”

It was such a success the school is planning a second event, this time with resources like therapy dogs for students, mental health counselors, meditation sessions and representatives from the Red Cross, insurance companies and FEMA.

Meanwhile, Brimecombe and her colleagues hope to find a temporary campus and reopen within the next few weeks. The sooner students can get into a routine and resume learning, the faster their recovery will be, she said. She and her staff have been working 18-hour days, toiling through exhaustion and stress. 

“It’s just been full force forward ever since the fire, but it’s up to us, right?” she said. “We need to do it for the kids, because they can’t do it for themselves. They need to see our faces. They need to know that beyond this awful thing they’re going through, we know them and we’re there for them.”

This was originally published on .

In an instant, Blanca Carrillo and her daughter Aurys Hernandez lost everything.

Their home in Altadena was also the place they’d built a thriving daycare for young children. So when it burned in the , they were left homeless and without work all at the same time.

“Overnight our home and our livelihood is gone,” Carrillo said through a translator from a family member’s apartment in Arcadia.

It’s a disaster replicated thousands of times over, as many in L.A. County begin to confront how they’ll rebuild their lives after the fires. For childcare providers, this feeling is particularly acute: Many say they know that their work is critical to allowing families to find new housing or return to work.

But they’re also trying to figure out how they themselves will recover, or stay afloat at all.

“What we want is [to] continue working,” Hernandez said. “I need just a house … where I can have our daycare again.”

Crisis on top of crisis

More than 500 childcare spaces were in areas affected by the Palisades, Eaton and Hurst fires, . That’s almost 7% of all licensed childcare facilities in the county.

Some have already reopened, others await clean-up to clear all the debris, and some are gone entirely — refuges and second homes for some of the county’s youngest Angelenos turned to ash overnight.

Debra Colman, director of the L.A. County Office for the Advancement of Early Care and Education, said this comes as the childcare system in Los Angeles was already in crisis, with too few providers .

“We don’t have nearly enough licensed programs for all of the families in need,” Colman said, stating there are just under 8,000 facilities for more than 750,000 young children. (That’s almost 94 kids per facility.)

Homes and livelihoods lost

There is no one central childcare system. Instead it’s a patchwork of centers in living rooms, places of worship, educational centers and other spaces.

And all types of childcare have felt the effects of the fires. B’nai Simcha Jewish Community Preschool on the site of the . So did Altadena Children’s Center, which operated out of the now lost Altadena Baptist Church. Those centers both said that rebuilding will take time.

Shonna Clark, director of the Altadena Children’s Center, said around a dozen families with children at the center had also lost their homes.

“ So many of our kids have lost their home and their school. It’s absolutely terrible,” Clark said. “ We need safe places for these kids to be, and that’s all I’m concentrating on right now.”

B’nai director Carina Hu said that as families find new childcare, many are mourning the loss of the preschool’s strong community.

“ It’s really heartbreaking for the families,” Hu said. “It’s a catastrophe, and we’re just kind of spread out to the wind.”

What providers need now

Leslie Carmell with Options for Learning, an agency that works with childcare providers, said that the first priority in fire recovery is getting childcare providers into new homes.

“They need affordable housing. And as we all know, especially in SoCal, you know, ,” Carmell said.

Other questions about licensing, emergency financial support and other COVID-style aid all still lie ahead, according to multiple childcare experts.

“ Most of these programs operate on a razor-thin budget,” said Toni Boucher, the former director of Altadena Children’s Center. “Just like the government stepped in during COVID to provide relief funds for childcare programs to get them up and running again, we’re going to need that in a very big way with this effort as well to restore the number of spaces that have been lost across the community.”

The COVID-19 pandemic had a silver lining for childcare providers facing this current crisis: They are more connected now than they were before.

Susan Wood, the executive director of the Children’s Center at Caltech, said she and Boucher were part of a group that met weekly via Zoom during the pandemic. In the aftermath of the fires, they have implemented regular online meetings again.

Back at work

While some providers look toward rebuilding, others are focused on expanding capacity for families who need help as soon as possible.

Jodi Mason, who runs a daycare in her home in Pasadena, had to evacuate last week with some of the children she cares for in tow. But by Monday, she was back in her home, and her daycare was open. She has four new kids signed up because they’d lost their childcare to the fires.

“ It’s really been challenging because they’re out of their comfort zone. They love their childcare providers. They’ve been with them for years,” Mason said. “ Being taken out of your environment as a child is really devastating. … So I just try and give them as much love and attention that I can.”

K-12 senior reporter  contributed to this story.

With at least seven school buildings reduced to rubble, Los Angeles Unified School District is scrambling to relocate displaced students.

The work of photojournalists who braved the fires and their aftermath captures haunting images of what was left behind — the charred frame of a school bus, precious preschoolers’ artwork — and what has been lost forever. 

His neighbors said his house was burning down in the wildfires – along with his entire Altadena neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Aveson School of Leaders, which McFeat runs and where his kids attended school just three blocks from his house, was also burning.

Unable to sleep, Mcfeat drove away from his in-law’s house that he’d been evacuated to and made the drive back to Altadena.

He drove through the fire lines and into his neighborhood to see if he could salvage anything, save anyone, or put out the fires that had raged on the east side for more than 48 hours straight, and decimated the Palisades in the west. 

He was greeted with a scene out of a horror movie. Fueled by a violent windstorm and piles of brush left from a particularly wet winter last year, the firestorm was like a tornado shooting flames, blasting through his neighborhood.

“It was like driving through a bomb scene,” said Mcfeat. “There were homes exploding. I probably shouldn’t have been there.”&�Բ�����;

Despite the devastating losses, Mcfeat can’t imagine not rebuilding his home and school right where they were in Altadena. But the road to recovery will be a long and painful one.

“No doubt about it. We are going to rebuild,” said Mcfeat. Aveson . At this point, a new site for the school has not been identified. The district hasn’t been able to help them yet.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” said Mcfeat.

The wildfires that burned Los Angeles this month are , displacing more than 150,000 residents and killing at least 25 people. Two massive blazes fed by windstorms, the Palisades Fire and the Eaton Fire, simultaneously scorched the city from the sea to the mountains, filling the air with vast plumes of ash and smoke.

As the wind and flames began to retreat last week, and firefighters gained control of the fires, schools began to reopen. And the kids began to return to class.

The Los Angeles Unified School District, which is by far the largest district of about 80 in Los Angeles County,  after being totally closed since last Thursday. Seven schools remain shut because they’re located in evacuation zones. Another three won’t reopen because their buildings were badly burned or destroyed in the fires.  

Dozens of much smaller districts in Los Angeles County also reopened this week, with the exceptions of two districts, , which encompasses Altadena, and , which neighbors Altadena to the west. 

The Eaton fire has destroyed at least five schools but was mostly contained by Friday. 

Kids from two of the LAUSD schools that burned in the Palisades, Marquez Charter Elementary School and Palisades Charter Elementary School, were placed, with intact school rosters, in close-ish LAUSD school buildings that already had other schools in them.

The students who attended the burned schools were given their own entrances, classrooms and courtyards for kids to play. When parents dropped them off at class this week, there were a lot of tearful reunions.

Families from Palisades Charter were somber, but excited to return to normalcy with their new space located inside of Brentwood Science Magnet School.  

Joseph Koshki, a parent from the Palisades whose son attends third grade at Palisades Charter, walked holding hands with his son to their new classroom at Brentwood Science, which had been stacked with balloons.

“When he saw his school burned on the news he was crying for days,” Koshki said of his child. “But when he heard that he was going to his new school with his old friends, he was so happy”.

Nina Belden, a parent of a Palisades Charter student who had made an emergency evacuation from her house in the Palisades with her family, said it was important for the students at her daughter’s school to stay together and receive in-person instruction.

“We were worried they were going to do something like remote learning,” said Beldon.

, which also burned in the Palisades fire, has a long history in the community, having opened in 1955 when the Palisades still had a frontier feel, before the neighborhood became a favorite of Hollywood stars and media execs.

For Victoria Flores, who works as a paraeducator at Marquez, the school is part of her family. Flores went to Marquez when she was in elementary school, and her mother works in the cafeteria.

“It was my home away from home. We are devastated by what happened,” Flores said.

But Flores said she and the rest of the staff were glad to be relocated together at a LAUSD school called Nora Sterry, about ten miles from the burned Marquez campus.

“We are a really close family,” said Flores. “That’s helped us a lot.”

Upstairs at Nora Sterry, Clare Gardner’s class had about eight of twenty students show up on the first day of relocation.

Her third-grade class was playing with clay and Mrs. Gardner, who is a twenty-seven-year veteran of Marquez, held back her tears as she helped students arrive into class.

“We always call it the Marquez family,” Gardner said as the children greeted each other.

One boy in Mrs. Gardner’s class said he was happy to be around his friends and teacher but sad about his classroom fish and books, which were lost in the fire.

Later in the morning, LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho went to visit parents at Nora Sterry.

After nearly a week off school, Carvalho says attendance is still below normal.

“I think where that attendance is lacking is in schools that were directly affected” by the fires, Carvalho said.

Also hurting attendance, Carvalho said, is the fact that many families are enduring temporary relocations, while others lack stable housing entirely.

LAUSD staff attendance is back to normal, he said, while student attendance is about 88% — down , representing about 10,000 fewer students than normal.

 “As conditions of the families begin to normalize and stabilize, those [attendance] numbers will rise,” said Carvalho.

For other schools in other areas of Los Angeles, recovery may be longer in the making. 

Bonnie Brinecomb, principal of  in Altadena, which burned to the ground in the Eaton Fire, estimates that the homes of 40% of the students enrolled in the school also burned.

Families and school staffers are scrambling to ensure displaced families have food, shelter and clothing, Brinecomb said. Some students are turning up for daycare at a nearby Boys and Girls Club that offered to take them in.  

Brinecomb said Odyssey has partnered with McFeat’s school Aveson to search for new facilities. But the double loss of students’ homes and the schools’ campuses is a gutpunch.  

“It’s just heartbreak. Pure shock,” she said. “You don’t even process how bad of a situation just happened.”

Like Aveson, Odyssey has  and Brinecomb says the school will rebuild. How long that will take, though, remains an open question.  

From the perspective of displaced children and families, the faster things return to normal, the better, said Dr. Frank Manis, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Southern California. 

The experience of trauma can intensify if routines are disrupted for longer periods, and the intensity of the disruption matters as well, said Manis. Kids who lost their homes to fires may have a harder time bouncing back than those who only lost their schools, he said.    

“It’s sort of on that spectrum of wartime PTSD, but not as bad,” said Manis. “So what it could lead to is nightmares, difficulty sleeping, and emotional or behavior problems that can last for quite a while.”

Children fighting post-traumatic stress from the fires may become withdrawn, or act out in class, said Manis. But mostly, he said, the  shows that even children badly impacted by the fires may begin to feel normal within a few months. 

“Kids are pretty resilient,” said Manis. “But trauma can disappear for a while, and then it can resurface later. When everyone’s forgotten how bad it was, it can resurface.”&�Բ�����;

Carlos Garcia Saldaña drove past block after block of homes, businesses, and churches “wiped off the face of the earth.” The Eaton fire that had consumed large parts of Altadena was still burning in the San Gabriel Mountains. The charter network leader needed to see what remained of his schools.

As Garcia Saldaña approached Odyssey Charter School South, the facade and main entrance appeared intact. But as he looked left and up the hill, he saw a heap of twisted metal and charred rubble where, two days earlier, there had been classrooms, offices, lunch tables, play structures, and an after-school clubhouse. The tree stumps where students used to sit and eat and dream were still smoldering.

“It’s just jarring and heartbreaking,” Garcia Saldaña said.

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Over the past week, wind-whipped wildfires reshaped wide swaths of Los Angeles, and destroying more than 12,000 structures. A dozen or more . The danger is not yet past, with fires only partially contained and high winds forecast through Wednesday.

Hundreds of thousands of students were out of school last week as more than announced temporary closures due to poor air quality, shifting evacuation orders, and the many , , and who had lost their homes.

On Tuesday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued suspending many state rules governing schools to make it easier for schools to operate in temporary buildings and for students to enroll across district lines, as well as waiving requirements about instructional days.

In the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest, a handful of schools in areas still under evacuation orders, including three that were neighborhood, remained closed early this week. The district announced that students from two ravaged Palisades elementary schools Wednesday from other district buildings on the city’s west side.

Santa Monica-Malibu Unified opened its Santa Monica campuses on Tuesday but kept schools in Malibu closed through Wednesday due to road closures and power and gas outages. Many local families have had to evacuate because of the proximity to the , and the district for affected families. Santa Monica-Malibu Unified also said it was monitoring air quality and that its facilities had air filtration systems in place.

In Pasadena Unified, the Eaton Fire, which started on Jan. 7, badly damaged five of its Altadena campuses, which housed a district middle school (whose student-led ), a defunct elementary school, and three charters, including Odyssey South, known as OCS South. Pasadena Unified said its schools will remain closed through this week but that it will offer self-directed online learning and grab-and-go meal service.

Close-knit community faces widespread losses

Now Garcia Saldaña’s days are consumed with checking on the many families and staff who lost their homes and looking for a space where students could return to school as soon as possible.

Odyssey operates two Altadena charter schools, OCS South and Odyssey Charter, the network’s original school, which sustained minimal damage — some downed trees and smoke residue. The charter network, founded in 1999, now serves a total of 830 students in transitional kindergarten through 8th grade.

OCS South opened its doors in 2018 and relocated to its current location, on the grounds of the former Edison Elementary School, three years ago. Since then, the Odyssey community has set out to make the campus its own — painting murals, planting gardens, and replacing old play structures.

Over the weekend, Garcia Saldaña sent a video message to families describing the damage to buildings at the two campuses. Odyssey Charter will require a major clean-up; the OCS South location was a near-total loss. But Odyssey isn’t about buildings, he said in the video, but about “the community that makes us such a special and unique place that we all love so much.”

Emmanuel Barragan, a father of three OCS South students, echoed that point as he dropped off his daughter and two sons at the Boys & Girls Club of Pasadena on Monday. School leaders know the name of every single child and what they need, he said, noting, “Sometimes, it almost feels like the school is a co-parent.”

Odyssey partnered with the Boys & Girls Club to offer free child care this week. The club also alerted other local schools that its doors would be open this week to any school-age child in need of a safe place to be. The clubhouse was providing all-day programming, including arts and crafts, sports, and educational games, and waiving its drop-in fee.

More than 200 students had arrived by mid-morning on Monday. Garcia Saldaña, better known to students as Dr. Carlos, was at the door to greet Odyssey families. He offered hugs as students made their way inside, and he checked in with caregivers about their housing status.

A survey of Odyssey’s roughly 650 families had yielded more than 300 responses, with 83 student households reporting “full loss of home & belongings.” Others said they didn’t yet know the condition of their home. Four Odyssey employees, including the Odyssey Charter principal, also lost homes in the fire, Garcia Saldaña said.

Altadena native Marcellus Nunley evacuated with his family around 3:45 a.m. on Jan. 8. Within hours, their home was gone. “Everything melted” was how his 5-year-old son, an Odyssey Charter kindergartener, put it. Nunley dropped off his son at the Boys & Girls Club so he could spend the day managing the logistics of a family displaced by fire: calling the mortgage company, reaching out to the county tax assessor, and procuring all of the little life necessities he hadn’t given much thought to until they went up in flames.

The losses are exacerbated by Altadena residents’ love for their neighborhood, with its charming bungalows and craftsman homes, picturesque hiking trails, and beloved local businesses. “Altadena is a diverse community, which is wonderful. It’s a walking community, it’s a dog walking community, it’s town and country,” Nunley said. “It’s a great melting pot of society.”

Before the Eaton Fire, about 42,000 people resided in Altadena. Many Black families who faced housing discrimination in other Los Angeles neighborhoods in the 1960s. Today, Black residents make up about 18% of the population. Roughly a third of Altadena residents are Hispanic, about 40% are white, and there are many Asian American and biracial families.

The Odyssey student body reflects the community’s racial diversity. It’s also economically diverse, with about 30% qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch, according to Garcia Saldaña.

Caitlin Reilly’s two sons, 10-year-old Townes and 8-year-old Ellar, are students at OCS South. When the Eaton Fire forced another Odyssey family to evacuate early on Jan. 8, they drove to the house Reilly shares with her partner and kids, located in a section of Pasadena outside of an evacuation zone.

For the next four days, the four adults and four children huddled together in the two-bedroom, one-bathroom home. The kids had an epic sleepover, and the parents stared at their devices, searching for the latest news about the fires engulfing Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, Odyssey families connected on social media and text chains, offering up what they could and asking for what they needed, Reilly said. They arranged indoor playdates so kids could be together without breathing the smoke-filled air. They replaced baseball bats and gloves for Little League players who had lost theirs to fire, and they organized backpack and supply drives. The school launched a to support recovery efforts.

Fire’s devastation leaves uncertainty about next steps

The evacuated family’s Altadena house is still standing, but their badly damaged neighborhood remained under evacuation orders this week. They secured a temporary rental, but Reilly fears that many local families who lost homes will have a hard time finding a place to stay.

“The fear is that it will be like Katrina,” she said. The 2005 hurricane devastated New Orleans, damaged or destroyed , and . “We’re worried that we’ll lose so many families that are part of the community because there is nowhere to house them.”

That would hit Odyssey hard, given the closeness of its community and the fact that its funding is tied to its enrollment numbers.

“There’s been cheerleading about cleaning up and rebuilding, but as far as logistically what comes next, I don’t think anyone knows yet,” said Reilly, who serves on the Odyssey Charter Schools board.

Mary Scott, whose 10-year-old son, Charlie, attends OCS South, also fears dwindling enrollment at Odyssey. “The reality is, these aren’t all well-off families, and now they have to find a place to rent and rebuild while also having to pay their mortgages,” she said. “I do worry about the families that have to relocate. It would be a tremendous loss.”

Odyssey leadership acknowledges how much remains unknown: when schools will reopen in person, where classes will be held, how many families will stay local and how many will resettle elsewhere, and the extent to which the network will need to rely on remote learning.

Scott, for one, said she’s hoping to avoid remote learning because it was so difficult during COVID school closures when her son was in kindergarten and first grade. But if she had to choose between online schooling and leaving OCS South, she said would likely stay put because “I don’t want to abandon our community.”

Garcia Saldaña said the COVID years taught him a lot about what works for online learning (shorter lessons, movement breaks) and what doesn’t (asking kids to sit still for two to three hours at a time). But he’s mostly focused on finding a temporary physical location so students can return in person as soon as possible.

At the same time, he’s still figuring out the availability of Odyssey’s 115 employees, many of whom remain displaced, and asking teachers to reach out to each of their students.

“It’s about having a familiar voice on the other end of the line saying, ‘What do you need? How is your family?’” he said. “We are all human, first and foremost.”

This was originally published by . Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. . 

LAUSD officials the nation’s second-largest district will reopen all but seven schools that were destroyed, badly damaged or immediately threatened by flames. 

Questions about the district’s reopening remain, including unresolved challenges about where displaced students will attend school, how they will get there, and whether remote learning will be offered.

Dozens of smaller districts within Los Angeles County also reopened, with the , where the Eaton fire has destroyed at least five campuses and remains mostly uncontained. 

At a , LAUSD superintendent Alberto Carvalho said the schools slated to reopen are safe to resume instruction after the district last week closed all campuses amid the largest and most destructive fires in LA history.���� 

LAUSD schools will operate on modified schedules without extracurricular activities, he said, and special allowances will be made for students and staff who miss classes.

“Students and our workforce will come back having witnessed and experienced a level of disruption not paralleled in the history of our community,” said Carvalho. “We will embrace our work with empathy, flexibility and patience.”  

The historic L.A. area fires that began last week have killed at least 25 people and destroyed or damaged more than 12,000 buildings. LAUSD began closing schools last Wednesday as fires in the city intensified, fueled by strong Santa Ana winds. At least 340 district staff have so far lost their homes in the blazes, Carvalho said.

As of Monday, the had burned nearly 24,000 acres, destroying many homes and businesses in iconic Los Angeles neighborhoods, including Pacific Palisades and Malibu. The , located on the city’s east side, had burned more than 14,000 acres in the neighborhoods of Pasadena and Altadena, and is only 33% contained.����

on Monday, bringing the possibility of renewed growth of existing fires and the creation of new ones as local and out-of-town firefighters battle the deadly blazes.

Famed Palisades High School, which was also badly damaged in the fires, will not reopen this week, Carvalho said. Two additional schools in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood that have been completely burned, Palisades Charter Elementary and Marquez Charter Elementary, will be relocated to other campuses later this week. In all, more than 2,000 students enrolled at the three schools have been displaced, he said. 

Carvalho said the district is still working out logistics, such as the possibility of providing transportation for displaced students.����

Marquez Charter Elementary will be relocated to Nora Sterry Elementary, about nine miles away. Palisades Charter Elementary will be relocated to Brentwood Science Magnet, about five miles away. 

Four other LAUSD schools located in areas that were under mandatory evacuation orders Monday remain closed. Those schools include Canyon Charter Elementary, Kenter Canyon Charter Elementary, Topanga Charter Elementary, Lanai Road Elementary and Paul Revere Middle School. 

Carvalho said those schools would reopen as soon as fire conditions allowed. He did not say where or if those students will report to class in the meantime.����  

Two additional LAUSD schools that were also threatened by fires could also be closed if conditions worsen, officials said. 

On Monday morning, blue skies overlooked Nora Sterry Elementary, which is preparing to welcome displaced students from Marquez Charter Elementary later this week, as teachers and staff scrambled to get ready for the first school day there.

As cars pulled up to drop off students, teachers and staff ran into the building to prepare for a busy week. A school nurse held onto her lunch as two district employees loudly backed up a truck to unload supplies.

One mom, walking with her hand tightly clenched to her son, expressed gratitude that the school was reopening. “We live in the neighborhood. It helps that he has something to do,” she said.

David Tokofsky, a former LAUSD educator and board member turned consultant, said the district’s response to the fires is a work in progress. He said district officials should have notified families sooner of last week’s school closures and of the plan to reopen Monday. 

“Normally, the district is at its absolute best operationally in crisis,” said Tokofsky, who counts fires, earthquakes, floods, the coronavirus and the AIDS epidemic among the disasters he’s experienced while working in the district.  

Still, the district’s performance in the face of the ongoing fires can’t really be assessed so soon, Tokofsky said. Challenges facing LAUSD, including trauma, lost instructional time and logistical matters such as student transportation are still ongoing, he said, and the fires that have already engulfed the city may flare up again and bring even more unprecedented destruction.����   

“Nothing compares to this,” said Tokofsky. “We need teamwork and real, concrete action.”

The California Department of Education is partnering with  Disaster Relief Fund to provide assistance for students, teachers, and school staff impacted by the devastating fires blazing through Southern California. 

The wildfires, which have burned nearly 27,000 acres, killed five people and destroyed at least a thousand structures, have also closed 335 schools in Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside, Ventura and San Diego counties and impacted at least 211,000 students, according to the CDE. 

Three schools in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood in Los Angeles have had significant damage, according to CNN Weather.

“Our school communities desperately need our assistance as these horrific wildfires rage across Southern California,” said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond. “In times of crisis, Californians consistently demonstrate their resilience and generosity as we continue to deal with the effects of climate change. Let’s continue to unite and support those in need as they work to stay safe and rebuild.”

The California Department of Education will work with the disaster-relief fund to distribute resources to school communities impacted by the wildfires, according to a press release from the department. Donations are tax-deductible. 

School leaders at schools that had to close because of wildfires can submit J to the CDE that will allow them to continue to collect attendance-based funding. 

The CDE released  last year to help school district and charter school leaders navigate decisions about whether to close schools or remain open. The department also has additional resources for emergencies on its .  

School districts across Los Angeles County have announced plans to close all or some schools as multiple fires spread across the Los Angeles area.

In total, nearly two dozen school districts have announced full or partial closures. However, some that had closed Wednesday announced that they’d be able to reopen on Thursday, in spite of bad air quality.

Alhambra Unified

All schools remain closed Thursday, Jan. 9.

Superintendent Denise Jaramillo  that district staff need more time to inspect schools for safety.

“While our campuses have fared relatively well thus far, the air quality is expected to remain poor due to excessive dust from the winds and smoke from the fires,” Jaramillio wrote.

The statement also said “a significant number of our staff members are currently under evacuation orders, which will impact school operations and staffing levels.”

Families are advised to limit outdoor activities and keep phones and other devices charged in case of power outages.

Arcadia Unified

All schools remain closed Thursday, Jan. 9.

All district events and services will continue to be closed and canceled, including athletics, and after-school programs.

“Our maintenance, facilities and operations departments, and district staff continue to work to secure campuses as much as possible and do everything they can, but at this time, campuses are not safe to resume school activities,” the district 

The district asked families not to call schools and “inundate phone lines that need to be clear for communications with local authorities.”

The district will continue to post updates online,  and in a recorded message on the emergency phone hotline—(626) 821-1783.

Azusa Unified

Schools will reopen Thursday, Jan. 9.

“After thoroughly assessing all school sites, we can confirm that our campuses are safe for students and staff to return,” the district said  on its website. “The high winds caused several downed trees across our school sites and a large amount of dust, debris, and foliage. Crews are currently addressing these issues and will continue this work. Please be assured that safety is our top priority, and our school sites are safe and ready for students and staff to return.”

Baldwin Park Unified

Schools will reopen Thursday, Jan. 9.

“Power has been restored across all BPUSD campuses, and our teams have conducted safety assessments to ensure a safe environment for students and staff,” wrote Superintendent Froilan N. Mendoza .

Outdoor activities will be limited, however.

Bonita Unified School District

Most schools will reopen Thursday, Jan. 9.

In a statement posted to social media, the district said power had been restored at all but three campuses: Ekstrand Elementary, La Verne Heights Elementary, and Oak Mesa Elementary, which will remain closed.

Burbank Unified

All schools remain closed through Friday, Jan. 10.

The district, which is close to the Eaton Fire, said  that it would not offer childcare or after-school activities.

Charter schools

Various closures Thursday, Jan. 9.

The California Charter School Association announced that  in the area are closed including all campuses of:

Green Dot Public Schools announced the closure of four campuses on :

• Animo Ellen Ochoa Charter Middle School
• Animo Jackie Robinson Charter High School
• Animo Ralph Bunche Charter High School
• Animo Jefferson Charter Middle School

Duarte Unified

All schools remain closed Thursday, Jan. 9.

In , the district cited concerns about fires, poor air quality, hazardous travel conditions, and power outages in Duarte in deciding to keep schools closed.

El Monte City School District

Schools will reopen Thursday, Jan. 9.

“Outside of losing a couple of small trees, minor damages, and some power issues, all schools are secure and ready for students and staff to return,” the district said .

Garvey School District

All schools remain closed Thursday, Jan. 9.

Superintendent Anita Chu said  that it plans to re-open Friday.

Glendale Unified

All schools remain closed through Friday, Jan. 10.

Child care and district offices . The district offers tips for helping families cope with the fires and stay safe.

The district  the accessibility of roadways and air quality in its decision to close schools.

Glendora Unified

Schools remain closed Thursday, Jan. 9.

While the district had anticipated reopening schools Thursday, “unfortunately, power remains down at four sites and internet and communication services are unavailable throughout the district,” it .

The school will provide grab-and-go lunches from 11 a.m. to noon at:

• Glendora High School: 1600 E Foothill Blvd., Glendora
• Stanton Elementary School: 725 S Vecino Dr., Glendora

La Cañada Unified

All schools remain closed through Friday, Jan. 10.

“The devastating wildfires and winds are tragically impacting our community,” the district . “Please remain safe and connected. We will work together as a strong and loving community to build back and support each other.”

Las Virgenes Unified

All schools remain closed Thursday, Jan. 9.

In a  posted to the district’s Facebook page earlier this week, Superintendent Dan Stepenosky said that Southern California Edison had turned off the power at a number of schools.

Los Angeles Unified

All schools will be closed on Thursday, Jan. 9.

The district  that all schools and offices will be closed Thursday, while some essential employees will report to work.

Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said in a press conference that unpredictable winds and ongoing fires prompted the shutdown.

“A number of clouds of smoke, dust, have permeated into our communities, making conditions less than desirable, and in some instances, downright dangerous,” Carvalho said.

The district is preparing for the possibility of online learning Friday, Jan. 10 and will announce a decision about whether to extend school closures by 4 p.m. Thursday afternoon.

Resources

The district will distribute meals to LAUSD students from 8–10 a.m. Thursday at:

• Mulholland Middle School— 
• Sepulveda Middle School— 
• Hollenbeck Middle School— 
• South Gate High School— 
• Fremont High School— 
• Harry Bridges Span School— 
• Marina Del Rey Middle School— 
• Sonia Sotomayor Arts and Sciences and Magnet-— 

Families may receive two meals per student.

Students can find academic support through LAUSD’s .

Mental health

• For students and families: Student and Family Wellness Resource Line, (213) 241-3840, from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday.
• District employees:  and a 24/7 support line at 800-882-1341

The Palisades fire reached the campuses of three LAUSD schools.

Palisades Charter Elementary School and Marquez Charter Elementary School were destroyed.

“ We were on site and could not believe what we were witnessing,” Carvalho said. He said the school’s 700 students will be relocated.

In addition, Carvalho said that a large portion of Palisades High, which is not currently in session, was destroyed.

Monrovia Unified

All schools remain closed Thursday, Jan. 9.

Superintendent Paula Hart Rodas cited high winds and power outages in .

“Our team is continuing to assess the damage caused by the windstorm and will provide an update on the status of our schools tomorrow,” Rodas wrote.

Mountain View School District

Schools will reopen Thursday, Jan. 9.

“Though we experienced some damage, including downed trees, limbs, canopy failures, and fencing displacement, our facilities have held up well overall,” the district .

It did warn of air quality problems, however. “We may be in the unhealthy range. Therefore, we will continue to assess the situation and take appropriate measures to ensure the safety of our students and staff, including providing indoor locations for students to remain during breaks,” the statement said.

Pasadena Unified

All schools remain closed through Friday, Jan. 10. 

As the  the district announced school closures would extend through the end of the week.

“This allows our teams time to assess the conditions of our facilities and for our employees, students, and families to begin reestablishing some normalcy,” Superintendent Elizabeth Blanco 

The district is also suspending grab-and-go meals because the facility where the food is stored is within a mandatory evacuation zone.

Rosemead School District

Schools will reopen Thursday, Jan. 9.

The district said in an  that air quality would be monitored.

“Air filtration systems will be running in all classrooms throughout the day, and masks will be available to any student or staff member who wishes to use one,” the statement said. “All schools will also follow ‘rainy day schedules,’ which will limit outdoor activities. Activities during recess and lunch will be adjusted accordingly to ensure student safety.”

San Gabriel Unified

All schools remain closed Thursday, Jan. 9.

Superintendent Jim Symonds that high winds are forecasted through Wednesday evening and poor air quality is expected from smoke, ash and dust.

“We will continue to monitor conditions and hope to return all students and staff to campuses on Friday, January 10 so long as conditions improve,” Symonds wrote.

He said while campuses have “fared well thus far,” staff need time to inspect facilities.

San Marino Unified

Schools remain closed Thursday, Jan. 9.

Despite hopes to reopen, Superintendent Linda de la Torre said in a  that in addition to safety concerns, “approximately 60% of our workforce live near or in areas currently under evacuation orders due to fires exacerbated by the windstorm. Many of our valued employees have been evacuated or are otherwise dealing with significant challenges, and our thoughts are with them and their families during this difficult time.”

Santa Monica-Malibu Unified

All schools remain closed Thursday, Jan. 9.

Santa Monica-Malibu USD announced late Wednesday afternoon that that all schools will remain closed Thursday because of ongoing safety concerns and poor air quality.

“We watch with all of you in disbelief the devastation and displacement caused by the Palisades fire, which continues to grow and evade containment,” Superintendent Antonio Shelton wrote in a statement.

The district has collected  and is offering grab-and-go meals for students on Thursday from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. at:

• Lincoln Middle School— . (drop-off area on California Avenue)
• JAMS Clubhouse Boys and Girls Club Of Santa Monica— . (off 17th Street)
• Santa Monica High School– .  (7th and Michigan)
• Malibu High School— . (admin building parking area)

The district anticipates deciding by Thursday afternoon whether schools will remain closed through the end of the week.

South Pasadena Unified

All schools remain closed Thursday, Jan. 8.

The closure includes the district office, before- and after-school programs and activities.

“A significant percentage of our employees and neighbors are under evacuation orders, evacuation warnings, or have lost their homes,” Superintendent Geoff Yantz .

“Our hearts go out to everyone who has experienced hardships.”

Yantz said it is difficult to safely operate schools without enough staff.

The decision to close schools was made in consultation with neighboring districts and the Los Angeles County Office of Education.

Temple City Unified

All schools remain closed Thursday, Jan. 9.

“Thank you again for your patience as we prioritize the health and safety of our school community,” the district .

It has not yet made a determination about Friday.

Valle Lindo

Schools will reopen Thursday, Jan. 9.

In a , Superintendent Elizabeth Evans alluded to the poor air quality.

“In light of the ongoing fires and air quality concerns,” she said, the district will put several safety measures in place:

• Outdoor activities, including physical education classes, will take place indoors.
• Nutrition, recess, and lunch periods will also be held indoors.
• Masks will be available upon request at school offices.
• Student services staff will be available to support students who have concerns.

More fire coverage

These fires are fast-moving and straight up frightening. For the most up-to-date information about the fire you can check:

Palisades Fire

Eaton Fire

Hurst Fire

School districts across Los Angeles County have announced plans to close all or some schools as multiple fires spread across the Los Angeles area.

In total, at least  have announced full or partial closures, according to the L.A. County Office of Education.

Alhambra Unified

All schools closed Wednesday, Jan. 8.

In a , Superintendent Denise Jaramillo said before- and after-school programs and activities are also canceled. 

“We will continue to monitor weather conditions and provide further updates as they become available,” she added, noting the district has not made a decision about Thursday.

Arcadia Unified

All schools closed Wednesday, Jan. 8. 

“All district events and services will also be closed and canceled, including athletics, and after-school program,” the district . 

The district also said it has not made a determination about the rest of the week.

Azusa Unified

All schools closed Wednesday, Jan. 8.

“This closure will allow District staff to thoroughly assess any potential damage to school sites and ensure that schools are safe for students and staff to return,” per a . 

The district said it would keep families updated through email, the website, and social media.

Burbank Unified

All schools closed Wednesday, Jan. 8th.

The  it will not provide child care and that all after-school activities are canceled.

Schools are expected to reopen on Jan. 9.

Duarte Unified

All schools closed Wednesday, Jan. 8.

In a , the district noted that its office and schools lost power on Tuesday.

El Monte City School District

All schools closed Wednesday, Jan. 8. 

Head Start will also be closed. 

The district said  that it expects schools to reopen on Thursday. But a science camp trip for 6th grade students at Cherrylee and Cleminson will be postponed.

Garvey School District

All schools closed Wednesday, January 8.

In a statement on X, State Senator Sasha Renée Pérez announced the closure. The school district was not immediately available for comment.

Glendale Unified

All schools closed Wednesday, Jan. 8.

“This decision was made to prioritize the safety of our students, employees, and families, as wind and fires have significantly impacted the accessibility of roadways and the air quality in our area,” the district .

The district said it would make a determination Wednesday afternoon about whether schools will remain closed Thursday.

La Cañada Unified

All schools closed Wednesday, Jan. 8. 

In a , the district said it anticipates reopening on Thursday, Jan. 9.

Las Virgenes Unified

All schools closed Wednesday, Jan. 8. 

In a statement posted to the district’s Facebook page, Superintendent Dan Stepenosky said that Southern California Edison had turned off the power at a number of schools. The district hopes to reopen Thursday, he said.

Los Angeles Unified

Los Angeles Unified School District announced a growing list of school closures for Wednesday, Jan. 8.

Superintendent Alberto Carvalho described a challenging day ahead for the district at an 8 a.m. press conference Wednesday. He said a number of schools are closed down, and further decisions for school closures for tomorrow will be made by 4 p.m.

For schools that are open today, he said the district will be flexible with its attendance policies.

“We know today is not going to be a perfect day,”&�Բ�����;he said. “We will utilize grace and discretion.”

All athletic activities, games, and practices are cancelled for Wednesday.

The following schools are closed:

• Kenter Canyon Charter Elementary
• Canyon Charter Elementary School
• Marquez Charter Elementary School
• Palisades Charter Elementary School 
• Paul Revere Charter Middle School
• Topanga Elementary Charter School
• The Zoo Magnet at North Hollywood High School will not have classes at the Los Angeles Zoo. Students and staff will report to the North Hollywood High School main campus.

In addition, more schools in the central and eastern part of the district (north of Manchester Boulevard/Firestone Boulevard, East of 10th Avenue, West of Interstate 710, and South of Highway 134) will be closed due to hazardous air quality conditions.

LAUSD officials said Wednesday morning that they would release a full list shortly.

Students will have online learning resources made available through the district’s .

, an independent school located on district property, but the campus is currently not in session. On Wednesday morning, Carvalho said the high school had “significant damage” from the fire. 

LAUSD “will also work with the appropriate agencies to secure funding relief for Palisades Charter High School, Palisades Charter Elementary School, and any school impacted by the extreme weather,” the district said in a statement late Tuesday night.

Monrovia Unified

All schools closed Wednesday, Jan. 8.

In a , Superintendent Paula Hart Rodas said the rest of the week is up in the air.

“Our district teams will be on-site tomorrow to assess any damages caused by the wind and ensure the safety and security of all school facilities,” she said. “We will provide an update on our school schedule for Thursday, Jan. 9, once the assessment is complete.”

Mountain View School District

All schools closed Wednesday, Jan. 8. 

“This decision was made to prioritize the safety of our school communities as this wind storm event has significantly impacted the accessibility of roadways, causing potential hazards as our families and staff make their way to and from school,” wrote Superintendent Raymond A. Andry in . 

District staff will assess campuses Wednesday and provide an update on whether schools will reopen.

Pasadena Unified

All schools closed Wednesday, Jan. 8.

Meals: Grab & Go meals will be available for pick-up at 10 a.m. and noon at: 

• Madison Elementary (515 E Ashtabula St.)
• McKinley School (325 S Oak Knoll Ave.)
• Willard Elementary (301 Madre St.)

, Superintendent Elizabeth Blanco said the district would make an announcement Wednesday about whether schools will reopen Thursday.

Rosemead School District

All schools closed Wednesday, Jan. 8. 

The district  and cited the high winds. The district will assess any damage to campuses Wednesday and plans to reopen schools Thursday, Jan. 9.

San Gabriel Unified

All schools closed Wednesday, Jan. 8. 

The school district cited the ongoing fires and “associated safety concerns” as the reason for the closures. The closure affects both students and employees. 

San Marino Unified

All schools closed Wednesday, Jan. 8. 

The power went out at all four of the San Gabriel Valley district’s schools and there was widespread debris, Superintendent Linda de la Torre . 

“This decision was not made lightly,” de la Torre wrote. “After consulting with the fire and police chiefs, neighboring superintendents, as well as with our Board President, we believe this is the safest course of action for our students, staff, and families given the ongoing hazardous conditions.” 

The district plans to reopen schools Thursday, Jan. 9.

Santa Monica-Malibu Unified

All schools closed Wednesday, Jan. 8.

Santa Monica-Malibu USD  that all schools will be closed on Wednesday and staff would work from home. 

“Essential emergency staff and maintenance and operations staff should report for duty and check in with their supervisors,” the district statement said.

South Pasadena Unified

All schools closed Wednesday, Jan. 8. 

Superintendent Geoff Yantz  that the decision to close schools was made in consultation with the South Pasadena Police and Fire Departments and the school board president. 

“SPUSD schools and many areas within South Pasadena do not have power due to the ongoing wind storms and fire activity,” Yantz wrote. 

The district plans to reopen schools on Thursday, Jan. 9.

Temple City Unified

All schools closed Wednesday, Jan. 8.

The district cited power outages, downed trees and damage to several campuses in .

The district plans to assess damages before determining whether to open schools Thursday, Jan. 9. A previously planned “student free day” on January 29 will now be a regular school day.

Valle Lindo

All schools closed Wednesday, Jan. 8. 

Superintendent Paula Hart Rodas  that the decision to close was made to “prioritize the safety of our students, staff, and community members.” 

District staff will assess campuses Wednesday and then provide an update on Thursday’s school schedule.

Caltech

Caltech announced that its campus in Pasadena will be closed for “all nonessential operations” on Wednesday. For more information, visit .

More fire coverage

For the most up-to-date information about the fire, you can check:

Palisades Fire

Eaton Fire

Hurst Fire

This was originally published on .

Teacher retention and student safety are top of mind for West Maui families and school and union leaders as an academic year marked by deadly wildfires comes to a close. 

Since August, enrollment at Lahaina’s four public schools has dropped by roughly 1,000 students. Some families are still hesitant to return their children to the campuses next year, citing concerns around emergency preparedness and the mental health toll of attending classes near the burn zone.

In addition to a declining student population, the teachers’ union predicts that Lahaina schools may face greater challenges recruiting and retaining educators next year. Some teachers say the Hawaii Department of Education has failed to support its employees after the fires by not offering additional leave and flexibility for teachers who needed to find housing and move out of West Maui. 

Lahaina teachers are also asking for more counselors and mental health support for students next school year. 

The union is now mobilizing to push the superintendent and Hawaii Board of Education to fulfill educators’ requests, including pay raises for Lahaina teachers and expanded paid leave benefits.   

DOE had already designated Lahaina as a hard-to-staff location in 2020 due to the area’s high number of teacher vacancies and emergency hires. 

“It’s just incredibly stressful for so many people,” said Jarrett Chapin, an English teacher at Lahainaluna High. 

Staffing Challenges

Even before the fires, hiring teachers in Lahaina was difficult, Chapin said. Housing was scarce, and the cost of living was high — even with the annual $5,000 bonus Lahaina teachers have received since 2020 due to severe staffing shortages in the area. 

The union has asked DOE to raise the annual bonus to $8,000 in response to the rising cost of living on Maui. The department said in March it would not fulfill the request, although superintendent Keith Hayashi said Thursday that it’s an option he’s now willing to consider. 

Hayashi added that the department has provided mental health support to students and teachers through staff trainings, partnerships with the Department of Health, online platforms and more. 

Earlier this month, the department was hiring for five teaching positions at Princess Nahienaena Elementary, King Kamehameha III Elementary and Lahainaluna High School. The department said funding for Lahaina schools will not drastically decline next year but did not specify if it will be hiring fewer teachers than usual because of reduced student enrollment. 

In Wailuku, Iao Intermediate is currently hiring seven teachers for next year, while Wailuku Elementary is hiring four teachers. Schools in other parts of Maui are facing similar hiring needs. 

Andrea Eshelman, deputy director and chief negotiator for HSTA, said she’s concerned more teachers will leave their jobs at the end of the year because of severe housing shortages in West Maui and DOE’s lackluster response to supporting faculty after the fires. HSTA previously asked DOE to provide post-disaster leave or mileage reimbursement to teachers who lost their homes in the fires and relocated from West Maui, but the department rejected the requests. 

In response, HSTA has begun a petition asking DOE to initiate a program that would allow teachers to donate their sick days to Maui teachers affected by the fires. As of Thursday, the petition received over 600 signatures from union members across the state, and over 20 teachers testified at Thursday’s BOE meeting asking the department to establish the leave bank and provide additional support for educators. 

The bank would allow Maui teachers to take paid time off to address the aftermath of the fires. 

During Thursday’s meeting, Lahainaluna teacher Michelle Abad Brummel said she lost her home in the fires and is temporarily living in South Maui. Her family spends nearly $500 each month on gas, and she’s resorted to using sick days to visit her home in the burn zone since DOE didn’t offer additional leave to teachers affected by the fires. 

“There will be one less good teacher in a school already in need,” Abad Brummel said.

Ashley Olson, a teacher at Lahainaluna, said DOE should also provide more mental health support to staff and students. DOE has made crisis counseling and mental health providers available to Lahaina staff, but Olson said she would like professionals to consistently check in with teachers and proactively offer their help.

“I’m pretty unimpressed with the progress we’ve made,” Olson said. “Do better by all of Maui.”

BOE members agreed with teachers’ requests on Thursday and said they would offer more support in the next school year. 

“We heard you loud and clear,” said board member Makana McClellan. 

Alternative Learning Options

Before the August fires, the four Lahaina public schools served around 3,000 students. Next year, their combined enrollment is expected to drop to roughly 2,000. 

In November, DOE estimated that most of the students who had not yet returned to Lahaina campuses had enrolled in other public schools on Maui. A smaller percentage of students had moved out of state or enrolled in Hawaii schools outside of the DOE. 

Rita McClintock, who lives in Kaanapali, has no plans to return her daughter to Lahaina Intermediate in the fall. In September, McClintock enrolled her daughter in Hawaii Technology Academy, a charter school that began offering hybrid classes in West Maui within a month of the fires.

The school initially offered instruction out of the Door of Faith Church in Lahaina but moved into the space formerly occupied by Kapalua’s Pineapple Grill restaurant in March.

McClintock said she believed DOE campuses had safe water and air quality after the Department of Health completed extensive testing on the schools in the fall. But she worried about whether DOE had adequate safety plans in place if another fire began near the schools. 

“I trusted the science, but I didn’t necessarily trust they had a plan in place if they got bad news,” McClintock said. 

Now, McClintock said, she plans on keeping her daughter at HTA until eighth grade. She doesn’t want to disrupt her daughter’s education, she added, and she’s found a place that offers her family stability. 

Ginny Kamohalii-Dew, community coordinator for HTA’s Lahaina campus, said they expect approximately 60% of students to return to the school next year. Many families are moving out of West Maui, she added, and can no longer make the commute to campus. The school enrolls roughly 115 students. 

The charter school placed a strong emphasis on children’s mental health and recovery this year, she said, adding that she’s especially proud of students’ end-of-year projects that reimagined what Lahaina could look like once it’s fully rebuilt.  

“If our kids leave happy this year, we’ve done enough,” Kamohalii-Dew said. 

Other families are still unsure about their children’s futures. 

Before the fires, Miriam Keo’s two children attended the Hawaiian immersion program offered at Lahaina Intermediate. Since March, Lahaina’s Hawaiian immersion students have attended classes at the temporary campus for King Kamehameha III Elementary. 

The department hasn’t decided if Hawaiian immersion students can remain on the temporary campus next year, and Keo said she’s still considering her family’s options for next year. Like McClintock, she’s not convinced students would be able to evacuate safely during emergencies but wants her children to remain in the same school as their peers. 

“I just want to keep my keiki wherever the majority goes,” Keo said.

This was originally published on .