Our children lost their school in the January 2025 Palisades Wildfire. LAUSD has completed initial designs for the rebuild, yet construction still won’t begin for years because of avoidable bureaucratic red-tape. We're asking the LAUSD to stay true to its initial promise to cut through the red-tape, utilize available emergency provisions to bypass the rules causing the delay in our reconstruction and ensure student safety. It is unreasonable for public school students to return to campus after private school students simply because of bureaucratic processes that do not apply to private institutions.

As background, at the latest LAUSD community update, families were told the rebuilt Palisades Elementary won't reopen until January 2029. Meanwhile, Village School, literally across the street and damaged in the same fire, will reopen in January 2028. That means our public school kids would return a full year later.

LAUSD has confirmed that the obstacles to matching the private school timeline is PCC § 20111, requiring a lengthy rigid competitive bidding process for projects, and PCC §20163 which prevents public agencies from breaking a project into smaller pieces to speed up work. 

BUT there is an available, legal (and previously anticipated) solution that can put our return on track to match the private school across the street. 

LAUSD has the legal ability to declare this rebuild an emergency and use a specific emergency authority that allows construction to begin immediately rather than waiting for the full bidding sequence to finish.

To use this emergency authority, LAUSD must take formal action with approval from the Superintendent and the School Board.

In addition, with the LAUSD budget of $135 million, which translated to roughly $6500 per square foot, the parents expect LAUSD to prioritize our children's continued safety and replace the surviving HVAC equipment and kitchen equipment to match the new facilities being contemplated. LAUSD plans to simply "clean" the HVAC equipment (instead of replacing it) and only replace kitchen equipment if it's broken, while leaving the old and fire contaminated kitchen equipment. This leaves our children vulnerable to potential hazards that LAUSD should not ignore and with the funds available, should have more than enough to address.  
 
Why this matters so much:

If Pali Elementary can reopen earlier, in line with the rest of the community, it avoids:
- Any further enrollment drop from families choosing more stable schools;
- Continued disruption for an already burdened community;
- The loss of the elementary experience for over half of the current school; and
- Prolonged economic pressure on the community already struggling to recover.
- This affects the entire Palisades community, not just Pali Elementary families.

A delayed school return slows:
- Stabilization of home values
- Repopulation of the neighborhood
- Commercial recovery for local businesses
- The overall rebuild of the Palisades
- Therefore, we ask LAUSD to:
- Formally declare the Palisades Elementary rebuild an emergency; Invoke their emergency authority      that would bypass PCC §§ 20111 and 20163;
- Move the reopening date to align with the private school; and
- Prioritize our children’s safety and return to their community.
- This is not a typical school construction project, it is a post-disaster rebuild that deserves urgency!
 
Please sign to urge LAUSD leadership to take these essential, cost-free and available steps and bring Palisades Elementary students home with the rest of the community.