Palisades, Pasadena schools suffer major damage amid closures; UCLA moves classes online
- Hundreds of schools are closed in fire-stricken areas.
- Palisades Charter High School is badly damaged.
- Two other Palisades schools are feared to be total losses: Palisades Charter Elementary and Marquez Charter Elementary.
Los Angeles schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho arrived at Palisades Charter High School on Wednesday morning to find flames still ablaze atop a classroom building in the back of the historic campus.
Joined by school board member Nick Melvoin, he walked up concrete steps that now abruptly ended at nothing, only a view of rubble, smoke and a charred structural skeleton twisted by extreme heat.
At that moment at least, 70% of the campus had survived.
The picture was worse at two nearby elementary schools that the superintendent sadly predicted would be total losses. There are about 1,000 Los Angeles Unified campuses.
“This building is now standing at the moment,” Carvalho said at a later stop, describing what appeared to be the Marquez Charter Elementary School auditorium, “but it’s probably not going to be standing for too much longer, because fire is burning behind it. There’s nobody here to put this fire out.”
“What once was the mountain filled with vegetation, beautiful houses — everything is gone,” Carvalho said. “It’s heartbreaking.”
Given its relative size, the Pasadena school system suffered significantly more damage than L.A. Unified.
Five Pasadena-area campuses suffered major damage from the Eaton Canyon fire, a district spokesperson said. One was a closed school used for other purposes, three are locations being used by privately operated charter schools, and the last is the Eliot Arts Magnet Academy, a middle school.
Pasadena Unified Supt. Elizabeth Blano said Wednesday afternoon that some schools remain in the path of the uncontrolled blaze.
Across Southern California — even for schools undamaged by flames — Tuesday and Wednesday marked a period of disruption, danger and fear.
New UCLA Chancellor Julio Frend announced Wednesday night that “after careful consideration, we have made the decision to curtail campus operations, cancel undergraduate classes and move graduate courses to remote instruction for the next two days.... While there remains no immediate fire danger to our campus, given an expected change in wind patterns in the hours ahead, it is likely that the air quality in Westwood will worsen.”
L.A. Unified officials also acknowledged this reality late Wednesday afternoon and announced all schools and offices would be closed on Thursday — a decision some criticized as late in coming. The district also announced sites for food distribution to students.
Extreme fire danger, poor air quality and other hazards shut down hundreds of schools across about two dozen Los Angeles-area districts on Wednesday and for many through Friday — as school officials scrambled to assess fire damage in the Pacific Palisades, Sylmar, Altadena and Pasadena areas.
Five people have died, more than 2,000 structures have burned and at least 130,000 residents are under evacuation orders because of the wildfires burning across Los Angeles County. “We are absolutely not out of danger yet,” Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley said.
Some teachers in still-open schools stayed home; some parents kept kids home and principals grappled with unstable campus electricity. Several schools that seem a safe distance from the flames opened on schedule only to then announce early closures.
A smoky, troubling Palisades journey
Carvalho and his delegation left Pali High, driving a little more than a mile west around fallen trees, skirting burning rubble and surrounded by acrid smoke before making it to Marquez Elementary. Unlike the high school, about half of this campus was wiped out — with its grounds still burning, the flames taking indifferent, steady aim at the rest of the building.
“It’s a matter of time.... Marquez, unfortunately, is going to be a total loss,” Carvalho said.
The 63-year-old Pali High gained fame as a setting for films that include “Carrie,” but its civic importance has been to provide a nurturing environment for the aspiring middle class and, more recently, those from prosperous families who seek a high-quality public school education — up the hill from the Pacific Ocean, in an environment that was both exclusive and neighborly.
The main structure at the 3,000-student school had survived as of midday Wednesday. But there was substantial damage in the back of the campus, where the Palisades fire burned some of the school’s athletic facilities and bungalow structures to the ground.
Notably absent late Wednesday morning were firefighters to snuff out the remaining flames at Marquez and Pali High.
Carvalho and Melvoin said they had been told that firefighters had to prioritize life-threatening situations over empty buildings.
The historic administration building of Palisades Charter Elementary was largely standing, but the entirety of the school behind it was smoking rubble. The grass in front of the school and the sculpture of the school’s signature dolphin were intact while a house was burning across the street late Wednesday morning.
Carvalho said it would be impossible for instruction to resume at either of the two elementary schools. The district will develop plans to reassign displaced students to nearby campuses.
The Eaton fire is burning near Altadena and Pasadena. Here are evacuation areas and school closures as of Tuesday night.
Large swath of school closures
The closures across Southern California included more than 200 schools in L.A. Unified, all schools in the Santa Monica-Malibu school system, Pasadena Unified, Arcadia Unified and numerous private schools, including Harvard-Westlake. More than 70 charter schools also closed across the region, including all in the Alliance, Bright Star, Fenton and ISANA networks and PUC schools in the San Fernando Valley.
Near the Eaton fire, officials said Pasadena Unified schools would be closed for the remainder of the week, while at least 19 additional districts — including Alhambra, Glendale and La Cañada — said they were considering further shutdowns.
Across the broader region, there were at least 335 schools in Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside, Ventura and San Diego counties closed, the state Department of Education said Wednesday afternoon. It said the closures affected 210,000 students.
LAUSD announced the closure of about 100 schools at 7:41 a.m., well after staff and many students would be on site. In a news release, officials acknowledged they did not yet have a list of all the affected campuses.
Maria Nichols, president of Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, criticized the handling of closures in Los Angeles Unified.
“The district’s slow and inconsistent response — only closing schools after staff and students had already arrived — has caused unnecessary confusion and disruption, further stressing our members and the families we serve. It is unconscionable that, despite knowing the dangers posed by toxic and hazardous air quality, the district required employees to report to work and students to attend school.”
The L.A. teachers union, which also chastised district officials over the delay in closing campuses, is calling for schools to be shuttered for the remainder of the week.
Officials are often reluctant to close campuses because parents rely on schools for child care while they work and schools also provide breakfast and lunch — and sometimes dinner — for children in low-income families. The district also is trying to bolster class time in its efforts to recover from the pandemic.
The Palisades fire has burned more than 17,000 acres and 1,000 structures, including many homes, while five people have died in the Eaton fire. At least 130,000 residents are under evacuation orders.
“We know today is not going to be a perfect day,” Carvalho said. “It won’t be a typical day. We need flexibility, patience and grace.”
School officials closer to the flames in the western and eastern regions of the county sounded alarms.
“It’s been a terrible day for many of our staff who have lost their homes and are evacuated,” said a statement from Arcadia Unified, which will remain closed on Thursday to “give people time and peace of mind” and “relieve some stress if possible.”
Hopeful at Pali High
At Palisades high, Principal Pam Magee grieved losses in a message to parents and students but said about 70% of the campus structures may have survived.
The school was not scheduled to begin its spring semester until Monday. The status of that schedule is under review.
“Our school is still standing, and we will reopen this semester, although possibly in a manner other than originally planned,” Magee wrote.
Firefighters are battling the fast-moving, destructive Palisades fire. Here are details on evacuations, road closures, shelters.
The Los Angeles district posted a list of LAUSD closures online, and the L.A. County Office of Education posted information on closures across the county.
Times staff writer James Rainey contributed to this report.
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