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Jessica Grose

By Jessica Grose

Opinion Writer

I could feel the anger in Erin Kyle’s voice when I spoke to her last week. She was in the harried process of moving from a hotel to an apartment in the Marina del Rey section of Los Angeles because her family’s townhouse was destroyed in the Palisades fire. Her daughter, who will be 16 on Friday, was a sophomore at Palisades Charter High School, a beloved local institution of 2,900 students where “about 40 percent of the campus was damaged or destroyed,” the principal told The Los Angeles Times. Pali High is providing virtual instruction while school leaders try to find a temporary location for their students, who come from all over the city.

Kyle was especially furious and bereft because her daughter — like other Los Angeles high schoolers affected by the fire — has already had so much disruption to her young life. During Covid, Los Angeles schools stayed closed to in-person instruction longer than those of many other cities across the country. She talked about how much online learning harmed her daughter, a social butterfly, in fifth and sixth grade. “These kids suffered so much during that time period,” she said. I have heard this complaint from many parents over the past few years: California opened up hair salons and restaurants but kept schools closed, and that said everything about how the state values children and families.

“Just to have to do this again, it’s terrible,” Kyle said. “I mean, she’s traumatized from what we went through. We were stuck on the road for 45 minutes with fire on both sides of us trying to get out.” Even though her daughter was so happy at Pali — she was a cheerleader and had lots of friends — Kyle decided to enroll her at a public school in Manhattan Beach, where she will start next week. “She needs to be in school in person,” she told me.

School disruption from natural disasters is becoming more common because of climate change, and America is not ready for it. In 2023, Jonathan T. Overpeck, dean of the School for Environment and........

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