Hundreds of public schoolteachers are among the Southern Californians who lost their homes to raging wildfires in the last week. Some are scrambling to find places to live, even as they hope to return soon to their classrooms to restore some normality for their students — and for themselves.
In the Pasadena Unified School District, which includes the communities where the Eaton fire has killed at least 16 people and destroyed thousands of structures, about 300 employees lost their homes, said Jonathan Gardner, president of United Teachers of Pasadena, the district’s union. The district has about 1,500 teachers and staff members, according to federal statistics.
In the Los Angeles Unified School District, which includes an area where the Palisades fire leveled whole neighborhoods, the teacher’s union has counted nearly 150 teachers and staff members whose homes were lost, and hundreds more who’ve been displaced. Cecily Myart-Cruz, president of that district’s union, United Teachers Los Angeles, said that she expected that figure to rise.
Many students have also lost their homes, a mass displacement that will affect the rest of the school year and beyond, and could lead to declines in enrollment, Mr. Gardner predicted.
“There’s not going to be anything resembling normal for the rest of the semester,” he said.
The Pasadena school district is closed this week, but nearly all schools in the Los Angeles school district reopened on Monday. Students and teachers at two elementary schools that were destroyed by the Palisades fire will resume classes later this week at space set aside for them in two nearby schools.
In the Los Angeles district, teachers who were displaced by the fires have been given the week off. Rebecca Mitsuse, 57, a middle school science and English teacher whose home in Altadena was destroyed in the Eaton fire, said she was using the time to search for housing for herself, her husband and their 16-year-old son. She hopes to be back in the classroom next week.
“Life has to keep moving forward,” she said.
Still, she is grappling with loss on many levels — including keepsakes that she cannot replace. Among those are books she used in lessons, notebooks where she had recorded plans and resources, a note from a student she received during her challenging first year of teaching 20 years ago. “We’re so glad you’re our teacher, and I know it’s hard, but please stay,” she recalled the note saying.
LoriAnne Denne, 66, a middle school English teacher and college and career adviser, also lost her home in Altadena. She described herself as fortunate because she and her husband can stay with her brother, who lives nearby.
Even so, she was finding the process of submitting insurance claims and applying for help overwhelming.
“Everything should be done yesterday, by people who can’t even cope and have no home,” Ms. Denne said.
Many teachers in Los Angeles-area districts already struggled to afford to live near their schools, so the cost of temporary housing was a major concern.
Mr. Gardner said that roughly half of Pasadena school employees lived inside the district, and their shorter commutes allowed many of them to coach sports teams and advise after-school clubs. Those staff members had been heavily affected by Eaton fire damage, he said.
“For those that aren’t able to find a place nearby, those schools will lose some of that color, that joy” created by teacher-led extracurricular activities, Mr. Gardner said.
Scott Mandel, 68, has taught in the Los Angeles district for 40 years. As one of eight regional chairs of the union, he has spent the last few days calling roughly 15 teachers in his area who lost their homes to check in and share information. Some, he said, were crying when they picked up the phone.
The closest comparison to the fires, he said, was the 1994 Northridge earthquake, which killed about 60 people and caused $35 billion in damage. While a few teachers lost homes in that quake, he said, it was “nowhere near the scale that we have now.”
Ms. Mitsuse, whose school has reopened, said she was looking forward to the sense of routine that returning to work would provide. In the meantime, she knew her students could go to her partner teacher, who teaches math and history, with questions or concerns. He lives in Pasadena, and although fire had come within a few blocks of his home, she said, it escaped damage.
