Chris Dennis walked up Palm Street and down Lincoln Avenue in west Altadena, past charred husks of houses and cindered carcasses of cars.<\/p>\n
The Eaton fire had destroyed his family’s nearby home, but his son’s school was still standing. And Dennis wanted to see it.<\/p>\n
The route he took Jan. 25 was the same one he used each morning when he’d walk his kindergartner son to Odyssey Charter School. Now, though, “It’s just wasteland,” Dennis said.<\/p>\n
“The wind picked up and I got ash in my eyes,” he said. “That school is downwind from a war zone.”<\/p>\n
Dennis, 43, said he wasn’t prepared to have his son return to Odyssey. Far from it. He has many questions \u2014 about the scope of campus cleanup efforts and the results of environmental tests conducted there, to name just two. And Dennis isn’t alone.<\/p>\n
At public meetings, on social media, and in interviews with The Times, parents at schools near the Palisades and Eaton fire zones have expressed deep health and safety concerns, and questioned whether their children should return to class. But officials have assured parents that schools have been cleaned and are safe. Some campuses close to the devastation have already welcomed students back, including Canyon Charter Elementary School and Paul Revere Charter Middle School in Pacific Palisades, which together enroll more than 2,000 students.<\/p>\n
In an always-on culture \u2014 one in which harried parents are inundated with social media posts, group chats, and town halls \u2014 it’s been hard for some to know which sources to trust for information about best practices after a fire.<\/p>\n
“The whole ‘what is acceptable in terms of cleaning’ question is something I don’t feel confident in knowing,” said Mike O’Connor, a parent of a transitional kindergartner at Odyssey South, the Odyssey sister school that burned.<\/p>\n
There are general guidelines published by county and state agencies on cleaning schools after a conflagration. Suggested steps include opening windows and doors to allow the smoke smell to dissipate; misting an area with water before wiping, sweeping or mopping to help prevent ash from going airborne; washing toys and carefully wiping those that can’t be submerged.<\/p>\n
Some experts said that these guidelines underestimate the risk from smoke and ash, and that the toxicity and scale of L.A.’s recent fires demand a higher standard of care. The blazes incinerated plastics, metals, electronic components, and building materials \u2014 including older, no-longer-permitted ones, such as asbestos, which is carcinogenic.<\/p>\n
“Why isn’t a more thorough investigation being done to look for suspended particles that are too light to settle on surfaces and that are still of respirable size, small enough to get into your lower lung?” said Dawn Bolstad-Johnson, an industrial hygienist who has studied exposures in post-fire environments.<\/p>\n
Many concerned Westside parents wanted the campus cleanups supervised by an on-site industrial hygienist \u2014 preferably one with a degree of independence who answered to an agency other than the school district.<\/p>\n
That did not happen at Canyon and Revere. Instead, L.A. Unified hired environmental firms to review paperwork documenting the district’s actions.<\/p>\n
The effort at Canyon was reviewed by hygienist Ibrahim M. Sobeih of Fullerton-based Titan Environmental Services, who wrote to the district: “Adequate cleaning was performed in areas where ash was observed, and filtration and deodorizers were utilized. No further action is recommended at the Site.”<\/p>\n
Dr. Lisa Patel, executive director for the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health and a pediatrician, said that in a disaster of this magnitude, it would be “difficult to come up with all the resources to be able to” have professional cleaners scour every space. She suggested accommodations that could help protect children, such as having them bring an extra set of clothes to school, so that they could change outfits if they were exposed to ash.<\/p>\n
She noted that “younger kids are at higher risk because they have more hand-to-mouth behavior.” Older children, she said, can wash their hands well and are more easily taught to identify ash and avoid it.<\/p>\n
But even handwashing would be complicated at Canyon, where the water is still not potable. Officials say it can be used only to clean hands if it’s completely unheated. Bottled water has been brought in for the school’s roughly 400 students.<\/p>\n
On Jan. 23, a staff geologist from Oakland-based Terraphase Engineering walked around Canyon Elementary, located over the hill from the Palisades burn zone, and carried out a test that would help determine whether children could return.<\/p>\n
The geologist took a big sniff. He did not smell smoke.<\/p>\n
That inhalation, described as an “olfactory inspection” in a letter Terraphase wrote to L.A. Unified, contributed to the reopening of a campus that escaped flames but still suffered an assault by ash, debris, and smoke.<\/p>\n
When Canyon Elementary reopened Monday, only 37% of students were in attendance, according to a district tally.<\/p>\n
Before the sniff test, the work at Canyon mirrored cleaning that occurred at other affected schools, including Lanai Road Elementary School in Encino and Roscomare Road Elementary School in Bel-Air. Shortly after the fires began, the district sent its maintenance staff and outside contractors from campus to campus. Cleanup measures included changing air filters, mopping, sweeping, and dusting. The district has also placed portable air purifiers in classrooms at some schools.<\/p>\n
Campuses are safe, district officials have insisted in online presentations. As one slide at a meeting for parents said: “We feel confident about allowing a return to normal school operations, giving discretion to site administrators to pivot should conditions change.”<\/p>\n
Canyon was lucky compared with Palisades Charter Elementary School and Marquez Charter Elementary School, two nearby campuses that mostly burned to the ground. But when it reopened Monday, many parents were unconvinced of its safety: Only 37% of Canyon’s students attended school, according to a district tally. Tuesday was a little better, with a rate of 52%.<\/p>\n
Eight parent leaders at the school sent a letter to L.A. Unified’s Board of Education this week that demanded “third-party industrial hygienist testing, remediation, and ongoing air quality protocols.”<\/p>\n
They were unhappy with a report shared by the district that detailed “visual and olfactory inspections.” The report said a geologist found unsuitable conditions at Canyon during a Jan. 18 walk-through: “Smoke odor was noted upon entering all rooms in Buildings A, B, C, D, and Room 21 in Building F.” Five days later, a different geologist recorded no odor during his follow-up visit. Some ash had reappeared and was cleaned again. Still, parents who took part in a walk-through reported finding areas that they believed were inadequately sanitized.<\/p>\n
Odyssey and Odyssey South, independent charter schools that lease campuses owned by Pasadena Unified, remained closed Thursday while other schools welcomed back students after three weeks.<\/p>\n
The district had offered space to Odyssey South \u2014 the school destroyed in the fire \u2014 on the same campus that houses Odyssey. When officials from the two schools held a town hall Jan. 23, it was clear that parents did not want their children returning to the site on West Altadena Drive anytime soon, said Bonnie Brimecombe, principal of Odyssey South.<\/p>\n
“That property is literally on the burn line,” she said.<\/p>\n
This week, Pasadena Unified released the results of environmental testing done at its properties, including the site housing Odyssey, which is flanked by the Eaton burn area on two sides. Those evaluations \u2014 completed by Orange-based EnviroCheck, the company hired by the district \u2014 included what it described as a “thorough assessment of potential contamination” that tested items including door handles, lobby desktops, and cabinet tops.<\/p>\n
The evaluation of the Odyssey campus was marked “non-detect” across 20 samples tested for soot, char, and ash, meaning those items were “not found in a high enough concentration for the laboratory equipment to detect” them, according to the district. But parents at the Odyssey schools, which combined have about 840 students, weren’t sure what to make of the results.<\/p>\n
“What’s the sustained cleaning plan? I am not seeing it,” Dennis said.<\/p>\n
Pasadena Unified has said that it will monitor air quality daily using California Department of Public Health guidelines, and that airborne asbestos, lead, and other toxic substances are being monitored by the South Coast Air Quality Management District.<\/p>\n
Even before the town hall, officials at the Odyssey schools had been scouring the area for an alternative site. Carlos Garcia Salda\u00f1a, executive director of Odyssey Charter Schools, said in an email to parents Wednesday that administrators had secured venues to host both campuses’ elementary school students. But he said a place for middle schoolers had yet to be secured.<\/p>\n
Some parents are unhappy with the decision to house both schools’ three youngest grades at a Boys & Girls Club on North Fair Oaks Avenue,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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