The destruction in Altadena and Los Angeles could mean kids there will deal with a variety of academic and mental health challenges.
When Inez Moore’s father called her after a long day, she couldn’t believe what she had just heard: “We lost the house.” Thirty years of family memories were “gone in an instant,” says Moore, a professor in the College of Education at Cal State, Fullerton.
Both the Eaton Fire that destroyed large swaths of Altadena — a historically Black community in Los Angeles’ northeast suburbs — and the Palisades Fire, which razed the Pacific Palisades neighborhood on the westside of L.A., impacted Moore’s family.
The Eaton Fire destroyed Moore’s childhood home in Altadena. The Palisades fire burned Pacific Palisades Charter High School, the high school she was bussed nearly 40 miles away to attend. “This didn’t just hit the woods or the mountains — it reached our neighborhoods, impacting our lives and our schools,” she says.
At least 10 schools across the Los Angeles Unified School District and the Pasadena Unified School District, serving Altadena, have been severely damaged or destroyed. PUSD has been closed since Jan. 8. Schools in LAUSD and other area districts are temporarily closed due to evacuation orders and the poor air quality caused by toxic smoke and ash.
The reality is that climate change is no longer just a science class lesson — education’s new normal now involves shuttering schools, displacing families, and deepening the racial inequities that have long plagued America’s education system.
And when disasters like these fires strike, not everyone suffers equally. Students in Black communities like Altadena are facing a triple threat: the burden of displacement that disrupts their education, increased risk of PTSD, and limited access to resources and federal aid.
Schools Burned, Students and Families Displaced
Each year, about 7.4 million children across the United States are affected by wildfires. A large portion of these kids are in California. In 2018, over 1 million California students missed school due to wildfires, with the most vulnerable facing compounded challenges such as missed meals and learning loss, according to an analysis of California Department of Education data by CalMatters.
The academic impact of disasters such as wildfires can be profound. Extended school closures often lead to significant learning loss, especially for Black, low-income families who are already falling behind their peers at an alarming rate. Studies from the National Center for Homeless Education reported that children affected by natural disasters are at a greater risk of chronic absenteeism, lower test scores, and higher dropout rates. These impacts could be even further heightened for students displaced by disasters.
Moore understands this reality. “Much like during the pandemic, these students are losing access to stable learning environments,” she says. “If they’re displaced, where are they supposed to go?”
Black communities also often bear the brunt of natural disasters like wildfire devastation. According to a report by the National Equity Atlas, communities of color are more likely to live in areas with fewer resources to mitigate disaster impacts, making recovery more difficult and prolonged. That means schools in those neighborhoods, which are often underfunded, will also face significant hurdles in rebuilding afterward.
“A general perception is that communities most affected by wildfires are affluent people living in rural and suburban communities near forested areas,” the report’s lead author, Ian Davies, a graduate student at the University of Washington School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, told Nature. “But there are actually millions of people who live in areas with a high wildfire potential and are very poor or don’t have access to vehicles or other resources, making it difficult to adapt or recover from a wildfire disaster.”
Communities that are mostly black, Hispanic, or Native American have been found to experience a “50 percent greater vulnerability to wildfires compared with other communities,” Davies said.
Lasting Trauma
Beyond the classroom, the trauma of losing everything — homes, belongings, schools — can have lasting effects on children’s mental health. “Many of these kids have never experienced this kind of loss before,” Moore says. “They’ve lost their clothes, their toys, their computers. For a child, it feels like they’ll never recover.”
According to The Society for Research in Child Development, “As many as 50% of children report post-traumatic stress symptoms after experiencing a disaster, such as recurring thoughts about the disaster, hypervigilance, or difficulty concentrating.” The organization reports that “trauma exposure can alter brain anatomy and functioning, inhibiting learning and memory processes, which can interfere with learning at school.”
However, accessing mental health resources, especially culturally competent therapists, remains an uphill battle for Black children and families. The American Psychological Association reports that only 3% of psychologists across the nation are Black, despite the unique cultural and systemic factors that often influence mental health experiences in the Black community.
“It’s going to be emotional for our students. I can only imagine that maybe they think: ‘Will it happen again?’ or ‘Am I safe?’” Denisha Jordan, a teacher at Valley Oaks Center for Enriched Studies in LAUSD, told Education Week.
A System Stacked Against Us
A significant factor in these challenges for Black communities is the disparity in federal aid distribution. A 2022 report from the Center for American Progress found that predominantly Black neighborhoods received less FEMA funding than White neighborhoods for similar levels of damage.
For instance, Moore’s father, who lived in their family home for over 30 years, recently faced hurdles when filing an initial FEMA application, which she says was denied because he had insurance. “Insurance companies are overwhelmed and have yet to send assessors to affected areas. Without specific documentation from the insurance company, FEMA assistance is stalled. It’s hurdle after hurdle,” she explains.
Moore also notes that communities like Altadena would likely suffer financially more than wealthier suburbs because many people don’t have the resources to experience navigating complex bureaucratic systems.
“You’re going to have some folks who are not going to get as much as they deserve, and some folks who may get more than actually they need,” she says.
The consequences of such systemic issues further accelerate racial wealth inequality — where studies show that White residents living in counties struck by natural disasters see their wealth increase by as much as five times the rates of White people not struck by natural disasters. Meanwhile, Black communities lose wealth in the wake of these disasters. They experience less investment, longer waits on funding, and even struggle to receive public assistance to meet their disaster-based needs.
This disparity, in turn, ends up affecting schools’ ability to reopen and students’ ability to resume their education.
Feeling the Effects for Years to Come
Isaac Opper, a senior economist for the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit research institution, told Education Week that the mental, emotional, and academic damage of these fires will be seen in students for years to come.
“Figuring out how to mitigate that damage, though, will be an ongoing challenge for educators, as climate change causes more severe and frequent disasters,” said Opper, who has studied the effect of natural disasters on people. “A highly-decentralized education system means there’s not tons of communication across districts and across states, on what the best practices are.” Disasters like these fires could catalyze people to work together to “repair and mediate the effects.”
As for Moore, her parents are safe with her at her home in Riverside, California. “My family, we’re lucky to have a place to stay and each other to lean on,” she says. “But the road ahead isn’t easy. Recovering from this isn’t just about rebuilding homes — it’s about healing, regaining stability, and ensuring our children and families don’t fall through the cracks in the aftermath of such a devastating loss.”
This story was originally published by WordinBlack.
