Palisades Charter High School (Pali) students turning onto Bowdoin St. from Temescal Canyon on Jan. 27 were greeted with a group of celebratory parents, community members and former teachers and students holding signs, hopeful and happy for their return.

Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and Pali officials welcomed back students and staff with a promise that the campus, a year since the Palisades Fire devastated the surrounding community, was safe for return. School officials even delayed the initial return date of Jan. 13 for two weeks in order to fulfill the necessary environmental air, soil and water tests required to return to a fire site. 

But in the background of the excitement hid some parents who feared that the school didn’t perform adequate testing to deem the campus truly safe for their children. Specifically, they condemned the school for not testing the Environmental Protection Agency’s TO-15 method, which is used to identify the existence and measure the levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the surrounding air inside enclosed buildings, including common carcinogens like formaldehyde, benzene and ethanol. 

“We presumed before Pali dropped the reports on us last minute, a little over a week before school started, that they were going to test on the [TO-15] panel, that extra panel of tests,” said a Pali parent who chose to stay anonymous out of concern for their child. “But they didn’t. They didn’t. They did a basic panel testing and said everything is wonderful.”

Ultimately, the parent chose to send her child to school, saying there were no other viable options. This is a situation that an untold number of families faced.

Pali and LAUSD conducted a multitude of tests in order to consider the school safe for occupation. The district “engaged environmental consultants with extensive urban wildfire experience to guide all testing decisions, and [LAUSD’s] sampling strategy for fire-related VOCs and SVOCs was specifically designed to screen smoke and fire residue,” a spokesperson for LAUSD said. According to Carlos Torres, Director of the LAUSD Office of Environmental Health and Safety, the Environmental Assessment Report was approved for Pali.

Pali and LAUSD officials opted to not run the panel for airborne VOCs, saying that “a full-suite TO-15 sampling was (including petroleum and chlorinated VOCs such as benzene, carbon tetrachloride, and PERC) unnecessary and not useful in fire recovery context, particularly more than a year after the wildfire.”

However, airborne VOCs can be released from and created during and after fires, according to a Purdue University 2025 guide. The EPA said that these hazardous air pollutants can cause eye, nose and throat irritation, damage to the central nervous system, headaches, cancer in animals and possibly cancer in humans.

In an attempt to mobilize school administrators, Purdue University scientists sent a letter to Pali administration and LAUSD on Jan. 21 asking the school to run the TO-15 panel and outlined the necessary steps needed for the test to be successful. The letter noted that when testing for VOCs, “naphthalene was the only carcinogenic analyte included” and “LAUSD did not investigate or test for other carcinogenic VOCs commonly evaluated in commercial or industrial indoor air quality assessments, such as benzene, carbon tetrachloride and perchloroethylene (PCE) and tetrachloroethylene (TCE).” According to multiple Pali parent sources, no response has been issued.

“So many parents have written letters that have not been replied to by Pali or LAUSD,” a second Pali parent said. “The only replies we have received are saying ‘you saw the letter, the LA Fire Health Consortium says it’s good, so we’re good.’”

LAUSD contacted the LA Health Fire Study consortium, a collaboration of researchers from various universities, to perform an “expedited and independent review of the latest environmental testing data” at Pali, according to Pali Executive Director and Principal Dr. Pamela Magee. While the report does state that “[testers] would feel comfortable sending [their] own kids or loved ones to Palisades Charter High School on Monday, January 26, 2026,” the study also advocated for follow-up indoor air testing.

“We recommend conducting a re-test of indoor air quality in the coming weeks or months to verify that conditions remain stable. To address community questions, we recommend this future round of sampling include the full suite of VOCs (EPA Method TO-15 or TO-17), as requested by community members, not only fire-specific VOCs,” stated the LA Fire Health Study.

Magee said in an email to students and parents on Jan. 24 that “LAUSD has been actively engaged in implementing a broad range of health and safety measures” and will “continue to monitor Pali High’s indoor and outdoor air quality once the campus is occupied by students and staff,” but no further testing has been released or made public.

The Purdue University guide, After a Wildfire: Considerations for Building Environmental Testing, stated “VOC testing can sometimes help identify causes of odors and illnesses before and after initial remediation activities have been conducted. Consider sampling with USEPA Method Toxic Organics (TO)-15 and include screening of all 100+ chemicals.”

The Pediatric Firestorm TEAM is an initiative focused on connecting lived experiences, clinical insights and environmental science to advocate for a cautious, evidence-driven approach to aiding communities after fires. According to Dr. Sarah Heinonen, the Founder and Executive Director of the Pediatric Firestorm TEAM, the impact on the campus and the possible long-term health effects are still being established. 

“The questions being raised by students and parents right now are entirely valid,” Heinonen said. “After an event like the Palisades and Eaton Fires, it is appropriate and responsible to ask hard questions about safety, health and what we do and do not yet know. Protecting students’ health must remain everyone’s central priority.”

Some parents said that they are hesitant to make the decision to transfer their children from Pali because of the culture and community that the school has built. 

“My son didn’t want to leave. The kids love Pali. I think [Pali] is a town anchor that is needed to be opened for optics and rebuilding the town,” said another Pali parent and Palisades resident.

But despite this feeling of school spirit and pride, the concern for their child’s safety continues to overwhelm some parents.

“We understand how the school is critical to the Palisades revival, but you don’t send 2,400 kids and the staff and the teachers to a possibly contaminated school to support the town,” another parent said. 

Looking forward, some Pali parents and experts want the school and LAUSD to still test the TO-15 panel even though students have already returned to campus.

“The path forward requires a shared responsibility between schools, health experts and families. We must advocate for an evidence-driven approach that protects the physical health of developing lungs while remaining deeply mindful of the mental and social well-being of the student community,” said Deputy Director of Pediatric Firestorm TEAM Dr. Derek Corpus. “At this stage, prioritizing student safety means choosing rigorous monitoring and transparent communication over definitive assurances.”

According to multiple Pali parents, there are “very detailed letters being prepared to demand further testing of the TO-15 panel.” Some said they will continue to advocate for a response from the school and voice their grievances with the actions taken by Pali’s administration.

“We want the school to succeed. We want the students and staff to succeed,” said the Pali parent and Palisades resident. “We just don’t want to be kept in the dark.”