Dreading both a repeat of COVID’s virtual learning online, and the loss of their strong sense of community, students and families from Palisades Charter High School are trying to find a new space to replace their badly damaged high school.
School administration and public officials are trying to find a place for 3,000 displaced students from the school, and Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order on Tuesday that suspends some rules in order to allow use of temporary and out-of district facilities for schools.
Some students from the severely damaged school in Pacific Palisades are also doing their part to keep their school community together.
“Obviously myself and my family and most of my close friends, we all lost our homes and everything in the fire,” said Charlie Speiser, 18, senior class president. And roughly 2,000 of the 3,000 students at Palisades Charter High School live outside the area.
“We’re really trying to find out whether people have office space, warehouse space, anywhere we can meet once again as a community and as a school, and start doing school again,” he said.
“All these students still don’t have a school to go to,” Speiser said.
In a press release, high school officials said, “Our primary goal is to keep the community united during this challenging time, enabling students to continue their education alongside their friends, teachers, and peers.”
Negeen Ben-Cohen, a parent, is involved in the push to find a viable new space.
“Pali High has lost 40 percent of its campus to the fire,” Ben-Cohen said. “The rest of the campus is still standing but it’s not accessible to students right now.”
The school was on break until this week, she said. But now, in order to restart their classes, a pandemic-type protocol will be required with all-online classes — and she doesn’t think that is the way to go.
“These kids that are at Pali right now have already been through Zoom learning and remote learning,” Ben-Cohen said. “We saw that it resulted in learning loss and mental health issues. We don’t want our kids to end up on Zoom for the foreseeable future while the city and the state figure out what they’re doing with this fire recovery.”
“This school is one of the last links holding everyone together,” she said, noting that the thousands of students who attend Palisades Charter High School scattered around the city are already starting to engage with other schools. “We don’t want that link to break,” Ben-Cohen said.
Patrick Ashby, 17, a senior from Pacific Palisades who lost his home, noted that his graduating class of 2025 started its year in 2020 with fully remote learning.
“But our hope is to avoid Zoom, because that wasn’t good for anybody,” he said.
Ashby and Speiser have known each other since second grade, growing up riding their bikes down to the beach together, swimming, surfing, serving as junior lifeguards together, and enjoying a hometown they always saw as safe and welcoming.
“It was such a tight-knit community,” Ashby said.
He noted that while he and Speiser are in their last semester and are already hearing back from colleges, it’s a shame that younger students will be robbed of the chance to experience an in-person high school community unless space is found soon.
Parent Rose Durcan, whose family lost its Pacific Palisades home in the fire, said, “I feel like we’re not only mourning the loss of our home, but our community — which was such a special place to live.”
Durcan said, “We also have been unbelievably touched by the people that have reached out to us, kids I grew up with, families I grew up with, perfect strangers, so I often feel like we’re crying because we’re mourning. But we’re often crying because we’re overwhelmed by the kindness.”
“It’s good to know that people care about you,” said her daughter, Caroline Durcan, 12.
Husband and father Declan Durcan said his family worked hard to live in Pacific Palisades, and it wasn’t easy financially. He said not everyone who lives in the Palisades is wealthy, and some work hard to live there.
“There’s an opinion that everyone’s very rich and wealthy here, but there are so many people that are not,” he said. “I think it’s important for people outside of this area to know it’s not just celebrities and Caruso Village and wealthy people … There’s lots of people, including ourselves, who are kind of paycheck to paycheck just to live in this area.”
And while they won’t return to their small town on the Westside any time soon, they hope they can at least salvage the vital vestiges of their community.
“I just hope we can go back soon,” said Conor Durcan, 15, a sophomore at the school. “At least Pali is trying to find some spaces. Like there might be some home offices that nobody uses that we can use, or some other school campuses that we can use.”
Principal Pamela Magee hopes to keep the school community from breaking farther apart. “By coming together, we can ensure that our students can stay in their learning environment, with their friends and mentors, at a time when they need it most,” she said.
Anyone who might know of available space for the school can reach out to PCHSrecovery@palihigh.org, while donations to help the school can be made at www.go.palihigh.org/giving.
Jarret Liotta is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and photographer.