Students will return Tuesday morning to a temporary campus at the site of Marquez Elementary, about nine months after it burned to the ground in the devastating Palisades fire — prompting celebration and some concerns as the school and the surrounding community struggle to recover.
For the Los Angeles Unified School District, the quick return marked a signature accomplishment.
“We had a total loss of an elementary school that had been the foundation of a very engaged community,” Deputy Supt. Pedro Salcido said in a Monday media briefing. “We can reassure the community that it’s a safe environment for them to return to.”
“We’re excited,” he added, “because it’s a culmination of several months of rapid engagement and execution to really build a full campus for students.”
Tiffany Ashrafi, the co-president of Friends of Marquez, which raises money for school activities, said she and others are “excited to come home” to the campus. “We had over 20 parents volunteering to help as we return to school.”
The upheaval of the school community is reflected in its enrollment.
Before the fire, the school had about 310 students. The current enrollment is 130, a drop of 58%. Before the fire, about 85% of students lived in the school’s attendance zone in Pacific Palisades. Now about 75% of the original enrollment is dispersed elsewhere, per the district’s estimate.
A fast turnaround
The school district is offering bus transportation to Marquez from two other campuses — Brentwood Science Magnet in Brentwood and Nora Sterry Elementary in Sawtelle. Providing this busing was one of many elements considered in the complex project.
What made the temporary campus possible is the size of the Marquez property — about 7.75 acres. Portable bungalows now sit on the lower yard, leaving the upper yard as a construction zone for the permanent buildings, which are slated to be completed in the 2028-29 school year. And, in the meantime, there’s still room for student play areas.
The cost of the temporary campus — about $19 million — made up about 9% of the the $202.6 million reconstruction project.
Officials said a survey shortly after the fire indicated that parents favored a quick return, even in temporaryedld just as many students as former campus — just in case families are willing and able to return.
The Palisades fire put three campuses out of commission in the nation’s second-largest school system. Marquez will be the first operating out of its original site even though it was the only one that completely burned to the ground.
Palisades Elementary was 70% destroyed and sits on a much smaller property. The historic portion that survived needed remediation and there isn’t room for a temporary campus. The school continues to operate on the Brentwood Science Magnet campus. Enrollment has dropped from 410 before the fire to 307, down 25%.
About 70% of Palisades High School survived, but the buildings needed major remediation. Palisades High is an independently operated charter school and its administrators opted for temporary quarters at the former Sears building in Santa Monica. At the time of the move, enrollment had dropped about 500 students, nearly 20%.
The three projects are budgeted to cost as much as $600 million. The money will be fronted as required from the proceeds of the district’s recent $9 billion construction bond — although the money was not originally for this purpose. Officials hope to obtain substantial reimbursement from federal disaster relief funds and insurance.
Concerns and conflict
District officials have posted data they say verifies that the soil on the school grounds and the air are safe — and say they will continue to monitor as debris removal proceeds nearby. That reassures parents who see the school as a needed early step to rebuild the community.
Others want first to see more of a community to return to. The school is surrounded by empty lots. Many — but not all — are scraped free of fire debris from destroyed homes and businesses. The mini-market where 5th graders used to walk down the street on Fridays to get snacks after school is gone.
The terror of the early January fire remains vivid among school families.
“One of the worst things is remembering when I went to pick my daughter up from the lower yard, enveloped by smoke and flames,” said Andrea Samulon, who lost her home in the fire. “The terror in the kids eyes, them yanking my shirt, begging me to take them with them.”
With the return to the campus, “I’ve been forced to make a really terrible decision,” she said. “Do I want to create more upheaval in my daughter’s life? The few friends are there — and the teachers I have confidence in for 5th grade.”
While dealing with the fallout from the fire, the school community dealt with another, internal disruption — a dispute over a series of musical American history plays, written and composed by school staff, that represent a 30-year tradition at the school.
These plays — three in the 5th grade and one in the 4th grade — were a collaboration of long-retired educators who created them specifically for Marquez. Supporters say they make the campus unique and and help students learn and retain history content that is part of California learning standards.
This fall, school district administrators suspended production of the shows, threatening to cancel them.
District officials declined to explain to The Times what was wrong with the plays.
In interviews and emails with The Times, parents said administrators called some of the wording in the scripts and depictions of characters culturally insensitive. The teachers involved in the plays — and the parents — say they have committed to addressing the issues that were raised by the district.
The three plays that the 5th graders perform over the school year are “Miracle in Philadelphia” — about the 1787 Constitutional Convention, “Hello Louisiana” — about the Lewis and Clark expedition and “Water and Power” — about the industrial revolution and the fight for workers’ rights in the cotton mills of Lowell, Massachusetts.
“We believe cancellation would adversely impact our children at a time when they have already lost their school and been displaced from their homes and community,” according to a petition signed by 45 5th-grade parents — in some families both parents signed the petition. “The larger impact will be to harm [Marquez’s] ability to instill trust in the community and ultimately recover from the devastating Palisades fire. This is a pivotal inflection point for a school attempting to rebuild and flourish.”
The first play is already about seven weeks behind schedule, but on Monday, in the school sent out a message.
“Following a careful and thoughtful review of “Miracle in Philadelphia,” our Instructional Leadership Team recommended moving forward with a few minor edits,” the message stated. “We are excited to bring this original musical about the Constitutional Convention of 1787 back to our community.”
The status of the other plays remains uncertain.