Los Angeles fires could deplete California’s school repair fund

It will be some time before Los Angeles can fully assess the damage to its schools from this recent wave of fires, but a few things already seem certain: rebuilding will take a long time, be expensive and could drain the entire state’s repair fund. school.

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

“The pain of being evacuated, losing your home, or having family and friends that have been affected. … it’s just so devastating,” said Debra Duardo, Los Angeles County Schools Superintendent. “In so many areas in our county, the superintendent himself was evacuated or 50 percent of the staff was evacuated. And in the meantime, they all try to help their students.

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

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

For many students, this will be a long wait. Even with loosened regulations, rebuilding a school can take years as officials raise a mix of funding sources: insurance money, private grants and donations, local bonds, money to settle lawsuits and state and federal funds. Some areas will have plenty of funding opportunities, while others will struggle to find enough revenue.

Meanwhile, some will have immediate costs such as providing portable classrooms and hiring mental health counselors to help students, staff and families deal with trauma. Large districts like Los Angeles Unified can reallocate resources quickly, but smaller districts and charter and private schools face more obstacles.

High demand for Prop. 2 means

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 expensive repairs or even buy laptops.

The state distributes the money to the neediest schools and then on a first-come, first-served basis. There is already a large backlog of schools that have applied for the money, and it’s likely that fire-ravaged schools will get priority over those with less urgent needs, said Rebecca Kaleen, legislative advocate for the Coalition for Adequate School Accommodation.

This means some schools will miss out. Because California’s school repair fund has been empty for some time, there is a long list of schools in critical need of repair. Across the state, students attend schools with leaky roofs, lead pipes, unsafe electrical systems and broken air conditioning. Schools in poor and rural areas are most affected because they have fewer opportunities to raise money through local bonds.

Helio Brasil, superintendent of the Keyes Union School District south of Modesto, said he sympathizes with those dealing with buildings destroyed or damaged by the Los Angeles fires, but he worries about the needs of his own area. The 1,000-student district, which serves mostly low-income students whose parents work in the nearby farm fields, is in desperate need of money to replace its 40-year-old roof, upgrade its electrical wiring and make other safety improvements.

“We understand the moral imperative to support devastated areas first, but the reality is that areas like ours cannot be left behind in the process.”

Helio Brazile, superintendent of the Keyes Union School District

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

Brazile and other superintendents are urging the state to balance the needs of schools affected by fires with those that are not, and to provide additional money if possible. Gov. Gavin Newsom last week pledged an additional $1 million from the state’s general fund for fire-damaged schools.

“Like a bomb had gone off”

The post-fire experience in Sonoma and Butte counties provides a preview of what’s to come in Los Angeles. Thousands of homes and scores of schools were destroyed in a series of fires from 2017-20, leaving residents to rebuild entire communities.

“Those first weeks were surreal, almost primal. It was like a bomb had gone off,” said Andrew Bailey, head of the 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 looked for classroom space elsewhere. Eventually, they brought portables and began an ambitious fundraising campaign to pay for a new school. Last week, the new school finally opened its doors – more than seven years after the fire.

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

Attending a hardware school

In Paradise, a Butte County town that was almost completely destroyed in the 2018 fire, the school district is still rebuilding. Four school sites were destroyed and nine were seriously damaged. A big hurdle in rebuilding, school officials said, is not knowing how many students to expect. More than 80 percent of the city has burned, and it’s unclear how many residents plan to return. Enrollment at Paradise Unified dropped from 3,500 before the fire to 1,500 in 2019. It’s up to 1700 now.

While the state was helpful, the paperwork and funding process took time, Superintendent Tom Taylor said. Meanwhile, students attended school wherever officials could find space: other school districts, about 20 miles away; warehouses; even a hardware store. (The store was cleared of merchandise. The students were having lunch at the cash register.)

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

“There were a few years where all the staff were working harder than ever. Long days, seven days a week, no rest,” Taylor said. “We’re not done yet. … But our staff understands that schools are the center of the community, and we want our schools to help bring the city back.”

Mental health priority

In some ways, schools in Los Angeles will be a little easier than those in Sonoma and Butte. The state already has well-established disaster relief protocols and there are many experts who can provide advice. Due to COVID-19, most schools now have remote learning systems in place and robust social-emotional support for students.

Mental health support — for both staff and students — is a critical part of recovery, Sonoma and Butte school officials said.

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

“In situations like this, you’re never going to have enough money for individual 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 relieve some of the pressure on clinicians.”

Tyson Dickinson, director of the office’s behavioral health and wellness division, said Los Angeles neighborhoods should expect the recovery process — beyond replacing buildings — to take a long time. The last major fire in Sonoma County was in 2020. and it is still not far from the minds of the inhabitants.

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