An old Sears building in Santa Monica, California, is being eyed as the temporary home of Palisades Charter High School, which was damaged in the Palisades fire in early January.
The Los Angeles Times reports that Los Angeles district administrators acknowledged the ongoing negotiations during a meeting of the school’s board of directors, who stressed that a deal had not yet been reached.
Administrators and board members hope that students can return to the Palisades High property as soon as the fall, using portable buildings as well as the 70% of the campus that did not catch fire.
The Sears building closed in 2017. The complex has enough room for a high school with a pre-fire enrollment of 3,000 students. Palisades High Principal Pamela Magee has estimated the post-fire enrollment at about 2,700.
The fire left behind complicated situations to sort out. As one example, teachers want to know when it is safe to return to the intact, but smoke-and-ash impacted main structure to retrieve belongings — before a deep cleaning results in items being removed and thrown away.
Back-campus buildings destroyed by fire have been cleared away, leaving flat ground that one administrator described as safe to walk on — even if the campus itself is not ready to reopen.
