The fires in Los Angeles closed school for more than 600,000 students : NPR

More than 600,000 students in and around Los Angeles have had their schooling disrupted by the historic fires this week.

School districts across the region started announcing school closures on Tuesday and Wednesday. That includes the second-largest school district in the nation, Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), which serves more than 500,000 students.

The Pacific Palisades neighborhood is part of LAUSD, and saw significant damage from the fires. LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho told NPR two elementary schools in the area were feared lost and a high school, Palisades Charter High School, was badly damaged.

Northeast of Los Angeles, near the Eaton fire, the Pasadena Unified School District announced it has “confirmed damage to five campuses in Altadena.”

Many districts are still assessing the destruction as the fires continue to burn.

For much of the region’s students, it’s unclear when schooling will get back to normal.

LAUSD officials said they will take the weekend to determine whether schools will open on Monday, while Pasadena Unified has decided to keep them closed through next week.

In the meantime, district officials from LAUSD tell NPR they’re doing what they can to help children and families cope. Those efforts include setting up several food distribution sites for the district’s students, a resource other impacted districts are also providing.

Making up for missed meals at school

Beneath orange skies and raining ash, families trickled into one of LAUSD’s distribution sites at Hollenbeck Middle School in the Boyle Heights neighborhood on Thursday morning. Students belonging to the district could get two free meals each.

Workers assemble bags for families to pick up. Each one includes breakfast and lunch.

Jireh Deng for NPR

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Jireh Deng for NPR

Ten-year old Miah Garcia and her mother, Silvia Garcia, walked out with four bags—one for each of Silvia’s daughters, who attend LAUSD schools.

“I’ve lived here 43 years,” Silvia said, “and I’ve never experienced anything like [these fires].” Her family considered evacuating, and had bags packed in case they had to escape. “It’s scary to feel like you could lose everything in a blink of an eye.“

So far, they and their home have been spared. But with schools closed, Silvia hasn’t just had to care for her own children – she’s also been helping friends in the community who have to go to work.

“They’re struggling right now …and day care is so expensive.”

Crates of milk cartons are rolled through the halls of Hollenbeck Middle School. LAUSD is providing two meals per student, per day.

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Jireh Deng for NPR

Garcia had to stop working as a medical assistant over a year ago to care for one of her children who has medical needs, so the family has to rely on her husband’s income as a house painter. She said these last few days have been difficult, and she appreciates that LAUSD is thinking about the food kids would normally be getting in school.

With campuses shuttered, “It’s a whole ‘nother two extra meals we have to give them at home,” Silvia said.

LAUSD has made online resources available for virtual learning while schools are closed, but with widespread power outages and spotty internet, Garcia said it’s been a challenge. On Thursday, she had to set up virtual learning stations for six children, including her own daughters, in her three-bedroom apartment.

“I put some kids in the living room, some kids, I have an attached garage, so I put them there.”

Her daughter Miah, who has spent a considerable portion of her young life doing virtual schooling, said she prefers being in school with her friends.

For Garcia, school isn’t just a place for her kids to get an education, she said it’s like a second home. She wishes schools that weren’t directly affected by the fires—like the ones her kids go to—could have remained open. “I thought the safest place where they could be would be in school.”

Rocio Manzo and her 1-year-old daughter, Jaliy, grab some bananas at Hollenbeck Middle School on Friday, Jan. 10. Hollenbeck has become a designated grab-and-go meal location for LAUSD students, along with 15 other sites across the district.

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Two other parents at the meal-pickup site told NPR they were scrambling to handle child care, but said they felt – because of the bad air quality and unpredictability of the ongoing fires – it was best to keep their students at home.

Like nothing Los Angeles schools have seen before

LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho visited the same meal distribution site in Boyle Heights on Thursday. He acknowledged that the decision to close down all schools in his district puts immense pressure on families at an already difficult time.

“Many of these families have been evacuated. A number of them have lost their homes,” he said. But the volatility of fires and winds made it, “nearly impossible for us to be able to predict or isolate certain swaths of the community, saying, ‘In this area, we keep schools open, versus this area.’ “

NPR spoke to multiple LAUSD parents at the distribution site who were frustrated that the decision to close schools on Wednesday, the day after the fires started, didn’t come until shortly after their students arrived at school that morning. In an emailed statement, the local teachers union, United Teachers Los Angeles, also criticized the timing of the district’s decision to close its campuses.

Carvalho has led this district through the tail end of the pandemic, and before that he led Miami-Dade County Public Schools through hurricanes, but he said he has never navigated a challenge like these fires.

“I hope the nation understands how different this is from anything that we’ve ever experienced before.”

He said the district is doing its best to handle an unprecedented set of circumstances.

While schools remain closed, LAUSD has provided a list of resources to families, including childcare and mental health and wellness services.

In the meantime, families like Silvia Garcia’s are doing what they can to help each other through this crisis.

“You have to depend on your friends,” she said. “You have to depend on your neighbors. You have to depend on whatever help you have around.”

Carvalho, Garcia and everyone NPR spoke to for this story, expressed hope that conditions would improve as soon as possible, so schools can return to some form of normalcy.

Edited by: Nicole Cohen
Visual design and development by: Mhari Shaw