Eaton fire upends the education of thousands of students whose schooling is jolted again
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- The Pasadena Unified School District is in emergency mode with five school sites severely damaged or destroyed.
- The school district is set to announce a reopening plan Thursday.
- Families and teachers are loath to return to online learning and schools want to relocate.
Kira Weibel was in eighth grade when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the student’s Altadena charter school, cutting off critical community connections. As the weeks and months of online learning and isolation dragged on, Weibel spiraled into a deep depression.
That changed when the school, Aveson Global Leadership Academy, reopened a year later and brought back the social interaction. But now Weibel and thousands of other students who weathered the pandemic are struggling with another historic calamity: the Eaton and Palisades fires. The ferocious flames that tore through the foothill community of Altadena and the coastal enclave of Pacific Palisades have upended their lives, with homes lost, schooling disrupted, extracurricular activities canceled and close-knit school communities scattered.
“The pandemic took a really hard toll on my mental health, and getting back into a regular schedule and going to a campus and seeing everybody there was really healing,” said Weibel, an Aveson senior. “And now all of it’s gone.... Everything is gone.”
The Pasadena Unified School District of 14,000 students is in emergency mode with five school sites severely damaged or destroyed, all of the district’s 24 campuses closed since Jan. 8, and staff, students and parent reeling from the trauma of profound losses. The school district is set to announce a reopening plan Thursday.
But concern is mounting as the education of thousands of children is once again in disarray.
The district rented space at three campuses to charter schools — Aveson, Odyssey and Pasadena Rosebud Academy. District-run Eliot Arts Magnet school was also damaged, possibly beyond repair, as was Franklin Elementary, which closed in 2020. Collectively, those schools educate about 1,500 students. In addition, at least two private schools were destroyed, St. Mark’s School in Altadena and Pasadena Waldorf School.
Nearly half of Pasadena school district employees lived in the evacuation zone and officials are still trying to assess how many families and school staff have lost their homes. Many have left the area to stay with relatives or friends in the San Francisco Bay Area, Joshua Tree, Oxnard and Fullerton. At this time it is uncertain how many will have the bandwidth to teach, to counsel or run a school — even remotely.
The district began offering self-directed, online learning options Monday that will continue through at least Friday as the community awaits reopening plans. Crews have been removing more than 10 tons of debris and sanitizing campuses. School staff and volunteers have handed out hundreds of daily grab-and-go meals while the district and its partners are providing housing assistance, child care, mental health resources and other support.
“We are deeply aware of the profound impact this disaster has had on our community,” District Supt. Elizabeth Blanco said in a statement. “We recognize the critical role that schools play in all of Pasadena’s neighborhoods, not only to educate our children, but to connect and support our community. We are committed to coming together, rebuilding, and ensuring the well-being and success of our students and families.”
Yet some educators want quick action. In a letter Wednesday to Blanco, the heads of Aveson, Odyssey, Rosebud and Alma Fuerte said that state law requires public school districts to offer the independent charter schools available space. They asked for more timely and transparent communication, collaboration in recovery efforts and immediate support to find temporary facilities for their students. More than 200 of the schools’ families and staff have lost their homes, including leaders of both Pasadena Rosebud and Aveson, the letter said.
Pasadena district officials did not respond Wednesday to a request for comment on the letter.
School communities reeling
In interviews this week, students described the terror of fleeing flames, frantically grabbing their cats, dogs, guitars and other most cherished possessions and then realizing their homes had been lost forever.
Brayden Funes, an Aveson senior, saw videos of where his house once stood, where only piles of black and gray ash remain. He did not cry. But he lay on the floor for an hour, dazed.
“I just didn’t know what to do. I didn’t really comprehend it,” he said in a group interview this week with 10 Aveson seniors, part of 500 or so students who attend separate campuses for grades K-5 and 6-12. “Like, I feel like I could wake up in my bed at any moment and this is just all a dream.”
Sally Spangler, an Aveson counselor, reminded the students what the firestorm could not destroy. “We have each other. And that’s the most important thing... We have each other. So it’s not all gone.”
Odyssey Charter School South emphasized that same message at a gathering this week at Victor Lugo Park in San Gabriel.
The Altadena school’s campus burned, displacing 372 students from transitional kindergarten through eighth grade. Another campus in Altadena survived.
The search is on for a temporary home for fire-damaged Palisades Charter High School as school leaders grapple with ramping up an interim online program.
On Tuesday, about 100 families, staff and faculty met 10 miles south of its destroyed West Palm Street campus for the first time since departing for winter break last month. Dozens of schoolmates chattered happily under the pines, kicking a soccer ball on sun-streaked grass, climbing a play structure and scarfing down pizza.
But Principal Bonnie Brimecombe said: “It doesn’t feel good.” Through tears, she noted the incongruity of the moment. “It is so good to see them smiling, but this isn’t what we are supposed to be doing today. This is not why we are supposed to come together.”
Overall, about 40% of families who answered a survey sent by the school said that their homes had been destroyed, Brimecombe said. Across both campuses, four faculty members lost their houses, including the principal of the other facility, known as Odyssey Charter School and home to more than 450 students.
For the children, the gathering at the park was a welcome diversion.
“I feel really good since I haven’t seen kids in a month,” said third-grader Audrey Whitesides, 9, who lives in Tujunga. She explained, wryly, that she’d spent the previous weeks arguing with her two siblings, so she relished the chance to reconnect with school staff member Mejia Orozco.
Orozco, who lives in Pasadena, said the gathering was reminder that “this is temporary and we are going to get through this as a community.”
Uncertainties over reopening
A key question is when destroyed schools can reopen — and how. Campus leaders have been scouring the community for space.
Pasadena Rosebud Academy Charter School has settled on a unique return-to-school plan: a series of field trips lasting through the week beginning Jan. 21. Potential trips could include visits to the Orange County Zoo and Aquarium of the Pacific.
Shawn Brown, founder and executive director of the school, said her hope is that the week of field trips will to “buy us more time” as administrators work to find a new location.
The Altadena school, which educates 175 students from transitional kindergarten to eighth grade, had been leasing space at the district’s former Loma Alta Elementary since 2014. About 35 Rosebud families lost their homes and an additional 20 or so have been displaced by evacuations and the loss of power. Brown lost her home, as did five other staff members.
“Even in the [next] morning, when the sun rose and the light came, our school was still on fire,” Brown said.
She and her colleagues initially considered shifting to an online program but are now trying to find a physical space — churches, for instance, or portable classrooms. “There are a lot of parents who really need in-person [school] right away and we really wanted to get kids back and try to help parents as much as possible,” she said.
Firefighters continued their battle against the devastating fires burning in L.A. County Wednesday. But as dangerous fire weather subsided, there was growing despair and frustration among residents desperate to see what’s left of their homes.
If Aveson can’t find a facility large enough for both the lower and upper schools, it might reopen a hybrid program, with each group of students attending in person two days and everyone meeting on Fridays for a day of community service, said Maryam Hadjian, an English teacher. But it might take a few weeks for that to happen, Hadjian said.
Another major loss was the private Pasadena Waldorf School in Altadena. The school’s Scripps Hall, a landmark Craftsman-style house built in 1904 by a member of the Scripps newspaper-publishing family, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was the centerpiece of the school’s K-8 campus for just under 200 students. Among families, staff and faculty, 35 lost their homes.
“There was a feeling at that campus that you were on a very special piece of land,” said Stuart Brawley, the school’s donor and annual fund officer, who lost his home. “It was like a woodland forest with classrooms interspersed all around it.
“We are not going away, but it is going to be a long haul, for sure,” said Brawley, who also teaches at the high school and has organized an online fundraiser for the Waldorf School. “Who is going to want to live in a town that has burned down? You open your front door and stare across wreckage.”
An additional 100 Waldorf students attended a separate high school and preschool at separate campus, which survived the fire.
Although that campus was saved, Brawley said, it is unclear when students will be able to attend class there again. “It is dependent on air quality, water quality” and other factors, he said.
He said that the private school’s administration is canvassing churches and other sites for a new location. As of now, he said, the school is not considering switching to online learning. “Many of the staff and faculty and families that would have to be online don’t have safe and quiet places to do that,” he said.
Odyssey, founded in 1999, is also focused on finding a new campus and hopes to find a property for reopening on Jan. 21. It does not intend to reconvene online for virtual school.
Brimecombe said she had been hopeful at first that students from the South campus could migrate to Odyssey’s K-8 facility on West Altadena Drive. But the property may not be usable for as many as two months due to tainted water and other issues.
“You’re sad because we just lost our campus, but when you look all around you — that’s where our students live ... and it’s just rubble,” Brimecombe said.
Although Alma Fuerte charter school was not damaged or placed under evacuation orders, it has been closed by the district and school leaders are pressing for permission to reopen from Pasadena Unified, which owns the building.
Sofia Virgena-Avila, a third-grader, said she missed her teachers and classmates as she and her mother, sister and pet Chihuahua, Mia, drove up to one of the Pasadena district’s food distribution stations at Madison Elementary School on Tuesday for bags of turkey sandwiches, carrots, cereal, oranges and chocolate milk.
“I love learning and we do fun things,” Sofia said, showing off a colorful bracelet she made at school with beads spelling out the word “kind.”
At Eliot Arts, “all things are up in the air,” said Victoria Knapp, Altadena Town Council chair, whose son, Grayson, attends the school of about 400 students in grades six to eight. The original middle school, founded nearly a century ago, became an arts magnet in 2013. The school had just completed a new federally funded pavilion for its conservancy, which offered free after-school classes in visual art, dance, theater and music. Now it’s gone, along with a treasure trove of student art and a 400-seat state-of-the-art auditorium, Knapp said.
Her family lost their home and most everything they owned — including a lifetime of Lego projects her 17-year-old son Hendrick, had built. Shell-shocked, he suffered panic attacks and crying jags but seems to have settled down after a sleepover with a friend. Knapp said social and emotional support will be critical for the students, although their digital connections have helped them retain their sense of community.
“The kids are very resilient and they’re fairly nimble and they’re very technical,” Knapp said. “So I think that if they knew it was going to be short-term, I think it would be OK.”
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