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Kids lose so much when a disaster strikes. Too many have lost family members to the wildfires that have raged across Los Angeles in recent days. They’ve lost homes. They’ve lost the sense of security and predictability that so many kids depend on. And, to add insult to injury, many of them have lost their schools.

At least nine schools in the Los Angeles area have been destroyed or severely damaged by the fires. Video posted by the principal of Odyssey Charter School’s south campus in Altadena shows flames still smoldering in the buildings as smoke rises from the playground, blotting out the sky. Marquez Charter Elementary School in Pacific Palisades “is dust,” one parent told The Cut. Meanwhile, thousands more schools were closed last week as communities faced evacuation warnings, power outages, and smoke-filled air, leaving more than 600,000 students out of school.

Unfortunately, these disruptions are part of a new normal for kids as climate disasters become more frequent. Last year, Americans experienced 27 weather-related disasters costing $1 billion or more in damage, the second-highest number ever — meanwhile, the number of days American schools are closed for extreme heat has doubled in recent years.

There’s often nothing officials can do to avoid a closure, especially if schools are damaged or without power. But “when schools close, kids aren’t learning,” said Melinda Morrill, an economics professor at North Carolina State University who has studied the impact of closures.

Research on school closures after Hurricanes Matthew and Florence in North Carolina is sobering. Especially in the early grades, “students didn’t bounce back,” said Cassandra R. Davis, a professor of public policy at UNC Chapel Hill who studied the closures. In some cases, the academic impact persisted for

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