In the Altadena area, the Eaton Fire has damaged or destroyed four elementary schools, one middle school, and several private schools including Saint Mark's School and the Pasadena Waldorf. In the Palisades, the fire there leveled two public elementaries, the Village School, and the Westside Waldorf. Palisades Charter High sustained damage to about 40% of its facilities. The destruction is leaving students and parents wondering what’s next.
Darby Rastegar, a senior student at Palisades High and evacuee, tells KCRW, “My neighborhood, which was once filled with so much life and tradition, it's so upsetting to see it filled with homes burned to the ground, and all of my friends who have lost their homes as well. … It's just a huge disruption to the way of life that we've previously been living.”
For Rastegar, school will restart online on January 20. She says it’s a flashback to COVID learning. “It's just a full circle moment to be introduced into high school in a time where COVID has just ended, and then finish it out online as well. So it is bittersweet. It's going to bring back a lot of memories from the isolation we faced during COVID, but I think it's going to be a source of rebuilding a sense of connection and normalcy.”
Still, she says she hopes her school will resume in-person instruction or find a temporary learning space as she finishes her tenure there.
Just two miles away from Palisades High, the Westside Waldorf School lost its campuses for grades one through eight, and its Early Childhood Center was smoldering at last report, according to Anjum Mir, a coordinator at the Westside Waldorf.
Fortunately, she says, they have a satellite campus in Santa Monica, where this Monday, instruction resumed for kids in early childhood and grades one through three. The Westside Waldorf received another location from a family — where they will accommodate grades four through seven.
“The teachers, really, all of us feel that school at this moment is a service to the community in bringing back some safety and normalcy for the children,” Mir says.
So how is the staff conducting classes? “What our teachers have really been striving to do is to go back to where children have muscle memory — the rhythms, the routines, the sounds, the being together, because it allows children to regulate and come out of that fight-or-flight that many of them have been in, just even being around their parents, who are dealing with the adult concerns and their own trauma.”
Mir continues, “For the parents, it's being able to connect with other parents, and then have a moment, a few hours in their day, where they can take care of the practical needs of displacement or the loss of a home, and also deal with their own emotional needs without having to fall apart around their children all the time. And to create spaciousness and to get out of fight-or-flight themselves.”
Some of the Waldorf’s umbrella organizations have been helping them too, offering tuition-free spaces for kids until their Palisades-based campus is up and running again.
As for Rastegar, what support does she want from her school’s leaders, teachers, and fellow students? “Friends who reach out and give you addresses for clothing drives, and people who are offering to have our voices heard on news stations like this, and even just fighting for temporary spaces at other schools — is what really makes a difference,” she says.