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.

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

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.聽

鈥淚t’s just a complete surprise at how well the kids have gone through this process,鈥� she  said. 鈥淭he kids are happy, the kids are smiling, they are learning, they are fine. The kids are happy, happy to be back together.鈥�

Still, enrollment challenges persist, and the school has had to let go of a handful of teachers and teaching assistants. The school鈥檚 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鈥� 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 鈥渉appy situations鈥� 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鈥檛 persist, Brimecombe said.

That鈥檚 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鈥檚 students gone, the future is uncertain.

Still, the principal is hopeful.

鈥淔amilies are coming back,鈥� Brimecombe said. 鈥淭hey’re just not back yet.鈥滶nrollment 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, 鈥渂ut all three schools are kind of a slightly different journey from now until then,鈥� said Melvoin.

鈥淭he families that have been displaced, that are in other parts of L.A. and the country, are either coming back eventually or not,鈥� he said of enrollment drops. 鈥淪ome 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.鈥�

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

鈥淲e’re going to have some new enrollment for the coming months, as people realize like, 鈥極h, I’m moving back to my house,鈥� or 鈥榤y insurance money ran out, and so now I’m back in the Palisades,鈥� and there’s only a few schools that are open,鈥� 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.

鈥淭he burn scar is still there,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou’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.鈥�

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鈥檚 office and longtime Palisades resident who lost her home in the fires.

Virtually all residents were under鈥慽nsured, 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.

鈥淓very single friend’s home burned to the ground,鈥� said Holdorff Polhill. 鈥淧eople are still traumatized by what happened.鈥�

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鈥檚 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.

鈥淭he rest we will seek FEMA reimbursements, which we believe we are absolutely legally entitled to,鈥� Carvalho said. 鈥淲e hope that the federal government will not play games, political games as we seek these reimbursements.鈥�

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.

鈥淭hat 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,鈥� 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.

鈥淧revention is the best solution for fires,鈥� said Carvalho. 

His neighbors said his house was burning down in the wildfires 鈥� 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鈥檚 house that he鈥檇 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.

鈥淚t was like driving through a bomb scene,鈥� said Mcfeat. 鈥淭here were homes exploding. I probably shouldn鈥檛 have been there.鈥� 

Despite the devastating losses, Mcfeat can鈥檛 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.

鈥淣o doubt about it. We are going to rebuild,鈥� said Mcfeat. Aveson . At this point, a new site for the school has not been identified. The district hasn鈥檛 been able to help them yet.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 know what we鈥檙e going to do,鈥� 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鈥檙e located in evacuation zones. Another three won鈥檛 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.

鈥淲hen he saw his school burned on the news he was crying for days,鈥� Koshki said of his child. 鈥淏ut when he heard that he was going to his new school with his old friends, he was so happy鈥�.

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鈥檚 school to stay together and receive in-person instruction.

鈥淲e were worried they were going to do something like remote learning,鈥� 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.

鈥淚t was my home away from home. We are devastated by what happened,鈥� 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.

鈥淲e are a really close family,鈥� said Flores. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 helped us a lot.鈥�

Upstairs at Nora Sterry, Clare Gardner鈥檚 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.

鈥淲e always call it the Marquez family,鈥� Gardner said as the children greeted each other.

One boy in Mrs. Gardner鈥檚 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.

鈥淚 think where that attendance is lacking is in schools that were directly affected鈥� 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% 鈥� down , representing about 10,000 fewer students than normal.

 鈥淎s conditions of the families begin to normalize and stabilize, those [attendance] numbers will rise,鈥� 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鈥檚 school Aveson to search for new facilities. But the double loss of students鈥� homes and the schools鈥� campuses is a gutpunch.  

鈥淚t鈥檚 just heartbreak. Pure shock,鈥� she said. 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 even process how bad of a situation just happened.鈥�

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.    

鈥淚t鈥檚 sort of on that spectrum of wartime PTSD, but not as bad,鈥� said Manis. 鈥淪o what it could lead to is nightmares, difficulty sleeping, and emotional or behavior problems that can last for quite a while.鈥�

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. 

鈥淜ids are pretty resilient,鈥� said Manis. 鈥淏ut trauma can disappear for a while, and then it can resurface later. When everyone鈥檚 forgotten how bad it was, it can resurface.鈥� 

All Los Angeles Unified School District campuses were closed Thursday after four historic blazes engulfed the city earlier in the week, killing at least five people and injuring many others. 

At least three LA Unified schools, including the famed in the Pacific Palisades, as well as Marquez Charter School and Palisades Charter Elementary School, which are all in the same area, were completely destroyed, said LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho. 

Schools in other districts in LA county . 

At a visit to a school food pantry where workers and volunteers were providing meals to displaced children in Glassell Park, ashes blanketed the ground and smoke covered the sky, Carvalho said the nation鈥檚 second largest district would remain closed through the end of the week.

He did not say when schools would reopen.

鈥淭he entire community is still under red alert,鈥� Carvalho told reporters during the visit to Sonia Sotomayor Art & Sciences Magnet school. 鈥淪chools are shut down. There are absolutely no activities.鈥�

More than 600,000 students across Los Angeles were without classes due to the closure of LAUSD and at least two dozen other smaller districts in LA county because of the fires. 

Carvalho said LA Unified officials were working to provide and printed lessons to families but widespread power outages and poor air quality continued to hamper distribution efforts.聽聽

It was unclear if the district planned to offer remote classes such as those during the pandemic.  

LAUSD was for students who depended on school meals at eight campuses across the city on Thursday and officials planned to double the number of sites offering free food on Friday.  

The district was also offering access to mental health services for , families and students in need of support.  

As fires continued to burn across LA, many families were evacuated from their homes. Others faced hardships including dangerous levels of smoke that contributed to toxic air quality. Piles of ash and debris still covered many streets and buildings, while burnt and abandoned cars choked roads in some of the city鈥檚 hardest-hit areas.    

Residents who visited the food pantry at Sonia Sotomayor said they were grateful for the meals provided there by LAUSD. Parents there also expressed appreciation for online learning materials provided by the district. 

But Leni Lam, a mother of three from Atwater Village who visited the pantry Thursday, said the emotional fallout from the fires would be more difficult to overcome. 

As power outages continued and Lam worked to clean ash and debris from her home while caring for her children and her disabled husband, she hoped LAUSD would reopen schools as quickly as possible. 

Lam said her children were still recovering from the 鈥渘ightmare鈥� of online learning during the pandemic and that LAUSD should resume in-person instruction as soon as it鈥檚 safe.   

鈥淢y kids are pretty resilient, and they’re really strong,鈥� said Lam. 鈥淏ut emotionally and socially, like they’ve been set back.鈥�