Palisades School Construction Updates

Allison Holdorff Polhill, senior advisor to LAUSD Board Member Nick Melvoin sent a May 13 update on the three public schools, Palisades and Marquez Charter Elementary Schools and Palisades Charter High School that were damaged in the Palisades Fire.

Temporary classrooms have been placed on the Marquez Elementary School campus.

MARQUEZ ELEMENTARY:

“The plan is to reopen Marquez ES on the Marquez ES campus sometime in the fall (or whenever the district and school community feel it is safe enough to return). We have had multiple community meetings with the Marquez school community. Many in the Marquez sending zone are relocating to their properties.”

The temporary campus will have 19 portable classrooms, administrative spaces, a library, food services and play space and is projected to open this fall. The rebuilt permanent campus will be an entirely new structure and will support the pre-fire enrollment of 310 students. Completion with 22 general classrooms, new library, no food services, new multipurpose room and office space is anticipated to be ready in the winter of 2028.

The classroom portables for Marquez Elementary School were on the school site when the photo was taken on Saturday, May 17.

In preparation for campus construction, soil sampling will be conducted and if necessary a soil removal plan will be prepared. When students return air quality monitoring will remain.

PALISADES ELEMENTARY:

At a May 7 Town Hall with school families and LAUSD, it was noted that at Palisades Elementary 199 families and 45 staff members were surveyed. It was decided that school will stay on the campus of Brentwood Science Magnet until the construction of Palisades Elementary is completed.

About 30 percent of Pali is still standing and replacement and repairs for that building is currently underway. New building construction on that campus will start in the first quarter of 2027, with buildings completed in the fourth quarter of 2028.

PALISADES HIGH SCHOOL:

Although Palisades High School is an independent charter, LAUSD is its landlord and responsible for the campus repairs.

Unfortunately, the baseball field was removed, leaving that popular sport at PaliHi no place to practice or hold games. There was space at the continuation school site below the stadium and the lot immediately below it, which also belongs to LAUSD, and could have held portables.

Portable classrooms have been placed on the Palisades baseball field.

Currently portable temporary classrooms are being installed on the baseball field off Sunset Boulevard and Temescal Canyon Road.  The school could be opened in the fall as construction proceeds with the permanent classrooms, which are anticipated to be finished winter 2028.

Also, bad news for the football, soccer, softball, lacrosse and track teams, the replacement of the turf field at the stadium is part of Phase 2, which is slated for the first quarter 2027.

Phase 2 permanent construction includes 22 general and specialty classrooms with associated support spaces for the high school programs. It also will replace the buildings destroyed at the former Temescal Canyon Continuation School, and administrative spaces.

Other phase 2 replacements include the synthetic track and football field, ancillary football field buildings, football and baseball field lighting, baseball field, and storage containers throughout the campus.

Some parents had argued that Marquez Elementary should be reconfigured to become a smaller in-town middle school. LAUSD analyzed enrollment projections, demographic trends and the matriculation data and during the Town Hall said, “After thoroughly weighing all the information, we ultimately determined that none of proposed scenarios would warrant the construction of a new middle school. Marquez and Palisades will remain K-5 and Paul Revere Middle School has ample space to effectively accommodate students who reside in the Palisades area.”