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This story was originally published on EdSource.

On a sunny Tuesday morning, students, parents and community members walked atop the bluffs alongside charred foliage and barren lots, back to Marquez Charter Elementary — almost nine months after the Palisades fire ravaged the school site and surrounding region, sparing only three classrooms in its wake. 

For the remainder of the 2024-25 academic year, and for the initial period of this school year, the entire school shared a campus with Nora Sterry Elementary. Now, the roughly 130 children attending Marquez are the first public school students to return to a campus destroyed by the Palisades and Eaton fires in January. 

Even though students are returning to portable structures, the campus’s reopening marked a larger milestone for survivors of the fires. 

“It’s the first thing that’s back in a very serious way,” said Christopher Baffa, a community member whose children attended Marquez but now go to Palisades Charter High School. “We got excited when CVS opened. … It’s these little milestones along the way that really get us further and further from Jan. 7.”

Marquez’s recovery 

Baffa and his wife tried to remember the lyrics to Marquez’s school song as they returned to the campus Tuesday morning to witness the progress being made. 

He recalled the words “there’s a school on a hill” — and texted his daughter, a first-year student at Palisades Charter High School, currently relocated to a former Sears building in Santa Monica, for the rest of the lyrics. Other parents in the crowd embraced as they listened to speakers at Tuesday’s press conference. Some held back tears. 

“Every day since, we’ve been writing new pages and chapters in the story of the Palisades’ recovery. Some days left us filled only with sorrow and loss,” said Los Angeles City Councilwoman Traci Park. “But others captured the strength and resilience that only a community like this can summon. And today, in particular, we’re writing a new page, a brighter one.” 

Marquez’s temporary campus, along with the larger rebuild, will cost the district roughly $202.6 million and is slated to be completed by 2028. The rebuilding of all three campuses damaged or destroyed in the conflagration — including Palisades Charter Elementary and Palisades Charter High School — will likely cost around $600 million, and will be made possible by a $9 billion construction bond that was approved by voters in November. 

The temporary campus is home to 19 classrooms, as well as a kitchen, library and play areas. 

Marquez’s enrollment has declined roughly 58% since the fires — from about 310 to 130. And the Los Angeles Unified School District has estimated that three-quarters of the enrolled students are not currently living in the Palisades. 

“It’s not perfect. But, I think not perfect is the beginning of figuring all this out,” said Baffa, whose children attended Marquez. “[The district] figured out a way to get them into a place where they could socialize and see each other every day and have in-person learning, and let’s celebrate that.” 

Beyond Marquez 

Marquez may have been the first to return — but it will be far from the last. 

The Palisades fire devastated roughly 70% of Palisades Charter Elementary and about 30% of the historic Palisades Charter High School. Meanwhile, the Eaton fire damaged or destroyed five district-run schools in the Pasadena Unified School District and three of its charters. 

LAUSD’s decision to reopen Marquez, but not the other campuses, came in part from a parent survey, according to district officials, who also said Los Angeles Unified engaged families in multiple town hall meetings. 

Just over 45% of the 66 parents who responded to an April survey said they wanted to return to a temporary facility in the Palisades as soon as possible; 36.4% wanted to return by August. 

Meanwhile, just over a fifth of parents said they would not stay with Marquez if it remained at the Nora Sterry Elementary school campus. 

But David Levitus, the parent of a TK student at Marquez, said parents’ concerns — ranging from environmental risks to longer commutes for those no longer living in the area — seemed much more widespread; 52.4% of parents who participated in the survey noted that the availability of transportation was a factor in their decision-making, along with the timing of students’ relocating and other personal circumstances. 

“There is [nothing] resembling consensus in moving back right now,” he said. 

Parents of Palisades Charter Elementary students, on the other hand, opted to wait for a full return to permanent buildings, in part because their campus has less space to house both a temporary school and the ongoing construction of permanent buildings. 

District officials also said Marquez Elementary was home to more students whose families were returning to the Palisades and that Palisades Charter Elementary was closer to commercial properties that were further behind in their cleanup and demolition efforts. 

Uncertain future in Pasadena Unified 

Pasadena Unified, the hardest hit district in the January blazes, has also installed portable structures at various campuses, including Allendale, McKinley, Don Benito, Audubon and Webster, according to spokesperson Hilda Ramirez Horvath. 

The district still does not have a timeline for any potential rebuilds, she added. Without the support of a construction bond, Pasadena Unified will rely on multiple sources of funding, including its insurance carrier, and will look into additional sources of public funding. 

“Everyone’s just so interested in what’s happened to us … and we’re just trying to survive,” said Julianne Reynoso, Pasadena Unified’s assistant superintendent of student wellness and support services. “I mean, we’re just still trying to do the job we’re supposed to do every day.”

Reynoso said, “People are coming to school. They feel connected, and that’s a really great opportunity for us to see the trust that people have, no matter what we’ve been through, that they’re willing to still show up.”