When Kids Lose Their School To FIre

[seashoreCM]

What Happens When Kids Lose Their School To Fire
(headline from Vox magazine).

My ideas follow:

Have them resume their education at some later date, say a month to a year later. Pick up where they left off.

High schoolers and maybe some junior high schoolers may have been mobilized to help the community in various ways following the disaster, and there would be a longer time span before they resume their educations.

Restart date might not be the students' choices because course offerings won't be custom timed to pick up exactly when each student is ready to return. There might be "group home schooling" where large numbers of cjhildren had their study interrupted in the same place in the syllabus. In some cases students would join the next year's graduating class,

 

[QueenIsabella]

What Happens When Kids Lose Their School To Fire
(headline from Vox magazine).

My ideas follow:

Have them resume their education at some later date, say a month to a year later. Pick up where they left off.

High schoolers and maybe some junior high schoolers may have been mobilized to help the community in various ways following the disaster, and there would be a longer time span before they resume their educations.

Restart date might not be the students' choices because course offerings won't be custom timed to pick up exactly when each student is ready to return. There might be "group home schooling" where large numbers of cjhildren had their study interrupted in the same place in the syllabus. In some cases students would join the next year's graduating class,

My husband was called to serve at the Lahaina rebuild--he went out in November, 2023 (and may go back--or he may go to Asheville, or LA...).

In Lahaina, the kids lost their school. They were literally teaching the classes on the beach--they had no other space. The FEMA workers (and others--DH works for the Army Corps of Engineers) were completely focused on getting the new school up and running by February of last year. It was a pretty bare bones structure, but it served.

I can't speak to uninterrupted learning and all, but I know that the entire community was committed to getting those kids back a little bit of what they lost.

 

[China Expat]

What Happens When Kids Lose Their School To Fire
(headline from Vox magazine).
My ideas follow:
Have them resume their education at some later date, say a month to a year later. Pick up where they left off.
High schoolers and maybe some junior high schoolers may have been mobilized to help the community in various ways following the disaster, and there would be a longer time span before they resume their educations.
Restart date might not be the students' choices because course offerings won't be custom timed to pick up exactly when each student is ready to return. There might be "group home schooling" where large numbers of cjhildren had their study interrupted in the same place in the syllabus. In some cases students would join the next year's graduating class,

 

[sam_gordon]

I don't think having kids miss school is a good solution. Look at what happened during Covid. Kids are still recovering.

How about finding SOMEWHERE else to go? It might be another school, a church (some churches use school grounds for Sunday services, this could the reverse), a convention center, temporary classrooms (thinking trailers), somewhere.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I think it depends on when in the school year it happened for realistic and reasonable solutions.

When Greensburg was basically wiped out by an F5 tornado it was early May with only several weeks left of school. I believe they were given an exemption from the state for the number of required hours to be completed. But this was early January when fires occurred in CA so that's an entire semester's worth of lost classes if you don't have students resuming and that was also when winter break was occurring so already several weeks prior to that for many of them.

Around here when enrollment is too high they move to trailers located on school grounds, the trailers are mobile while I didn't have that at my high school my husband did at his for a while and other schools in my district had them. That in some ways depending on the area around them could be done for those in CA, much depends on the exact devastation if there is even land to be in.

As far as mobilization of school age kids you're speaking mostly about minors here which I doubt are going to be required to help out. There's a lot of liability involved there outside of volunteer work (which often has liability in mind anyhow).

 

[RangerPooh]

School brings a sense of normalcy when life is disrupted. Following the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 our school closed for 1.5 weeks. We were close to the epicenter, but thankfully had minimal damage to our home or school. Some homes and structures across town had damage, others none. But to a kid this coupled with aftershocks can be scary.

Returning to school even for a few days before our track went on break was important. You saw classmates, expressed feelings, and had normalcy. By the time our track went on our month long break (year around school) the after shocks subsided. But for a lot of us latch key kids home alone it was good to see others.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

School brings a sense of normalcy when life is disrupted. Following the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 our school closed for 1.5 weeks. We were close to the epicenter, but thankfully had minimal damage to our home or school. Some homes and structures across town had damage, others none. But to a kid this coupled with aftershocks can be scary.

Returning to school even for a few days before our track went on break was important. You saw classmates, expressed feelings, and had normalcy. By the time our track went on our month long break (year around school) the after shocks subsided. But for a lot of us latch key kids home alone it was good to see others.

I agree about normalcy but I think if you're speaking logistically if your school is destroyed by a natural disaster (earthquake, fire, tornado, etc) it's just harder to figure out what to do with everyone especially if you're talking about schools that had 1-2,000 students times that by however many schools may now be inoperable. There are options usually available but they are probably not really going to give a sense of normalcy. Kids in trailers are used in places, like mine and others, trying out pods like what was done in the pandemic, using non-traditional places if ones are still good enough to be used, etc but it's more about keeping the educational gap to a minimum rather than giving kids the opportunity to see their classmates (in trailers you're split up anyhow) so less about "getting back to it" and more about trying not to have a slew of kids educationally left behind.

 

[Disneylover99]

I think school should be online for the rest of the school year.

Many families are displaced by the fires and many kids may be temporarily staying with families/friends out of the city or out of State at this point.

 

[Bad Pink Tink 2.0]

Update from Eaton Fire - Virtual Community Meeting Sunday 19 January 2025 at 4pm
Superintendent of the Pasadena Unified School District gave the following information:

• 10,000 students in the Pasadena Unified school district have been affected by the Eaton fire
• 1400 employees in the Pasadena Unified school district have been affected by the Eaton fire
• 5 out of 24 schools were lost
• Schools lost were Eliot Arts Magnet Middle School, three charter schools Edison, Loma Alta and Noyes and Franklin Elementary, which closed in 2020, which was in the process of being ready for use in the summer.
• Every other school not damaged by fire will be open by Thursday January 30th
• First wave of school reopenings start on Thursday 23rd January. These are the schools farthest from the fire.
• Every child who attended one of the destroyed schools, no matter the type of school they previously went to, will have a place in a school on January 30th
• Before the schools can be reopened, each building has to have a total deep clean, including the HVAC systems. Environmental scientists from insurance companies are co ordinating the deep cleans.
• 4 school buildings have already passed the environmental testing and ready to reopen.
• They are not going to online learning as they do not know how many teachers and students lost devices. They are going back to in school learning as a way of making sure all children have access to education.
• They have ordered 5,000 chrome books as part of the reopening process
• Wednesday 22 January is an all staff professional development day. After that everyone will be ready to go with 24 hour notice. The teachers will be prepared to deal with the social and emotional needs of the students. Social workers and other mental health support staff are being brought in for both .students and staff.
• They are working with The Boys and Girls Club, YMCA in relation to after school programs and day care facilities.
• Through their meal program, which is Monday to Friday, they have served 5000 meals to families that are in need.

 

[fla4fun]

I think in person learning is best, but it would be nice to have an online option for those people who have taken shelter outside of the school district. When you have lost everything you don’t always have a choice about where to stay, especially if you stay with friends or family. I would hate to see kids penalized because the only place their parents could afford to stay was with their cousins 200 miles away or they were living a couple of weeks with one family and a couple of weeks with another, having to move around constantly.

 

[Bad Pink Tink 2.0]

I think in person learning is best, but it would be nice to have an online option for those people who have taken shelter outside of the school district. When you have lost everything you don’t always have a choice about where to stay, especially if you stay with friends or family. I would hate to see kids penalized because the only place their parents could afford to stay was with their cousins 200 miles away or they were living a couple of weeks with one family and a couple of weeks with another, having to move around constantly.

What is nice may not be actually workable. Having watched the whole 2 hour live stream, and heard direct from the school superintendent, they have worked incredibly hard to get their school district back to inperson learning in a proper school building. This is the plan that the Pasadena School District have made and this is what the children of Pasadena and Altadena will be doing.

These are her direct words which I have transcribed from the video.

"The reason we have not gone to online learning is we don't know how many teachers and students lost devices. I have the same 10 people who are planning the reopening of a school that would have to divert their attention to gearing up for online learning and it might create complete chaos because of the loss of devices. We have ordered 5,000 chromebooks the day after it happened. We are going to have a deployment for that. We have prioritized with the stock that we had, we want to make sure that our teachers have devices to teach. So after the professional development day, everybody will be ready to go within 24 hours notice. "

 

[Allison]

There is no way it is productive for children to be out of school for a year or more.

 

[monsterkitty]

First, we have to remember that many of these students are now displaced and are no longer living in the area. They will now be going to schools that are in the attendance area of where they are now residing. After Katrina, we received many displaced students in our area a bit north of Denver. Students and families will move at least temporarily until rebuilding begins.

For those who are still in the area and not displaced, they will now share classroom space in schools that were unaffected by the fires and have been deemed safe to return to. The schedules may be split schedules with the regular school population as in the original students will have school from 7:30-1:30 and the displaced students will go from 2-6.

There is a middle school in Colorado Springs that was closed last Friday due to structural damage and deemed no longer safe. Those 900 students in grades 6-8 have been divided between one other middle school and the high school. Students were told last week which school they would be attending and given new schedules. (If anyone is wondering why the school was closed, the school has had issues for several years. Last year, the majority of the school board came out against the bond issue that would have repaired the structural issues, and the bond failed. This same board is voting this Wednesday to use 2.5 million dollars to build a new charter school that will only house 100 students)

 

[Bad Pink Tink 2.0]

First, we have to remember that many of these students are now displaced and are no longer living in the area. They will now be going to schools that are in the attendance area of where they are now residing. After Katrina, we received many displaced students in our area a bit north of Denver. Students and families will move at least temporarily until rebuilding begins.

For those who are still in the area and not displaced, they will now share classroom space in schools that were unaffected by the fires and have been deemed safe to return to. The schedules may be split schedules with the regular school population as in the original students will have school from 7:30-1:30 and the displaced students will go from 2-6.

There is a middle school in Colorado Springs that was closed last Friday due to structural damage and deemed no longer safe. Those 900 students in grades 6-8 have been divided between one other middle school and the high school. Students were told last week which school they would be attending and given new schedules. (If anyone is wondering why the school was closed, the school has had issues for several years. Last year, the majority of the school board came out against the bond issue that would have repaired the structural issues, and the bond failed. This same board is voting this Wednesday to use 2.5 million dollars to build a new charter school that will only house 100 students)

Exactly this. The superintendent of Pasadena Unified school district said that when a school will be reopened, all parents will be notified in advance. So if a student is now not in the area for whatever reason, the parents will be able to communicate with the school and inform them that the child or children have now been enrolled in XYZ school in 123 area.

 

[GreatLakes]

There is a big difference between a school burning to the ground and the school being one of many buildings lost in an area due to a natural disaster. We had a catholic K-8 school catch fire here and it was closed for at least one year, maybe two. Kids were spread around different catholic schools in the area or went to public schools. No one really missed anything and since the fire happened in the summer there was plenty of time to plan.

Had many of those school also been damaged, or had the students also had homes lost, I'm really not sure what you can do. Schools should be a high priority and large, unused buildings that are undamaged can be converted but no matter what you do you'll have disruption. I agree with others that say school is normalizing and the longer the delay in returning to something the harder it will be for these kids to move on with life and their education.

 

[Lumpy1106]

I think school should be online for the rest of the school year.

Many families are displaced by the fires and many kids may be temporarily staying with families/friends out of the city or out of State at this point.

This is a terrible idea. Kids haven't recovered, and may never recover, from the "asynchronous learning" debacle from the COVID shutdowns. Kids, especially high school kids, need other kids, and there is no substitute. Screen time was the major concern for kids' mental health just before COVID and still is. No, just no.

My first choice, assuming everything is possible, would be to clear the existing grounds and roll in portable trailer classrooms. Do this even at the expense of delaying the actual school reconstruction. Failing this, second choice would be school choice. Get them back in person wherever they can find a classroom. Public, private, somewhere else, it does not matter. There is no third, choice, they have to be in person, and there can be no delay.

 

[Genie+]

I have no clue. My instinct says get a rough count of students who expect to stay in the area, expect to leave, or are unsure. From there see what is in place that can absorb extra students, and how many students. Then try to put temporary facilities that logistically work for remaining students. Evolve from there.

 

[Bad Pink Tink 2.0]

hmmm , Im posting the actual real information direct from the press conference of what will be happening to the students and schools in Altadena who have been affected by the fire and its all being ignored... I guess those posters have me on ignore, as why continue posting hypothetical opinions when the real re opening plan has been posted????

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

hmmm , Im posting the actual real information direct from the press conference of what will be happening to the students and schools in Altadena who have been affected by the fire and its all being ignored... I guess those posters have me on ignore, as why continue posting hypothetical opinions when the real re opening plan has been posted????

Because the OP isn't completely directed to just the present CA wildfires or at the very least it's replicable information if you just insert X disaster and then people talk about it.

When I mentioned Greensburg that occurred in 2007 before online learning was even really done, besides it's against the law in my state to utilize remote learning beyond 40 hours (a product of covid) without going to the state board of education to request an exemption due to disaster.

For the discussion if thinking about CA it's not going to be the last time this happens either.

So you might be posting from across the globe what you're reading but it doesn't mean people are not allowed to discuss their opinions or ideas.

 

[Disneylover99]

This is a terrible idea. Kids haven't recovered, and may never recover, from the "asynchronous learning" debacle from the COVID shutdowns. Kids, especially high school kids, need other kids, and there is no substitute. Screen time was the major concern for kids' mental health just before COVID and still is. No, just no.

My first choice, assuming everything is possible, would be to clear the existing grounds and roll in portable trailer classrooms. Do this even at the expense of delaying the actual school reconstruction. Failing this, second choice would be school choice. Get them back in person wherever they can find a classroom. Public, private, somewhere else, it does not matter. There is no third, choice, they have to be in person, and there can be no delay.

Ideal? No. A preferred mode of teaching? No.
But I see it as a quick, temporary solution to get kids back on track and together.

Entire communities have been ripped apart. At least students can see their friends online and be with their teachers, no matter where they are living at the moment.
There could be many students who will be living nomadic lifestyles between relatives at the moment. At least this brings a sense of normalcy to them for the next few months while their families figure out what to do and where they’ll live.