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<\/p>\nOn Wednesday morning, Los Angeles Unified School District students returned to campuses for the first day of school. For many, that meant coming back to schools located near a Boyle Heights warehouse that burned for more than a week in June.<\/p>\n
The disaster forced the district to relocate summer programs at several nearby schools, including Christopher Dena Elementary. But on the morning of back-to-school, Maria Bravo said she was ready for her third-grade son and sixth-grade daughter to get back into Dena Elementary classrooms<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aI know that they’re going to be in a good place here,\u201d Bravo said. She said her kids needed a new routine after a summer spent largely indoors, trying to avoid the heat and the smell of rotting food wafting from the Lineage warehouse.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey’re going to find ways to keep them busy and active, and at the same time safe,” Bravo said.<\/p>\n
Principal Robert Salazar said classrooms have air purifiers and there\u2019s a plan to bring students inside if rotting food smells interrupt recess or lunch.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aIt’s like three plans \u2014 we have, A, B and C,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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Karoline Linde, a 5th grade teacher at Dena Elementary, brought souvenirs back from a summer trip to Croatia to include in her Medieval Times unit. “\u200aYou want the kids to succeed. You want the kids to do their best,” Linde said. “That’s my job as an educator. How am I gonna do that?”<\/p>\n
However, as has been true throughout the summer, the odor varied across the neighborhood.<\/p>\n
At Eastman Elementary, Ivett Dominguez walked her child to Eastman Avenue Elementary School and told LAist the smell outside was \u201cconsistent and annoying,\u201d but that she didn\u2019t notice it inside her son\u2019s classroom.<\/p>\n
Other parents were more critical of the district\u2019s decision to reopen the schools while the clean-up continued<\/a>.<\/p>\n LAUSD Superintendent Andr\u00e9s Chait visits a classroom at Belvedere Middle School the first day of the 2026-2027 school year. <\/p>\n Andr\u00e9s Chait, LAUSD\u2019s superintendent, said preliminary attendance results showed about 92% of students enrolled at campuses near the burned warehouse came to the first day of school, exceeding the district\u2019s overall attendance rate of 90%.<\/p>\n \u201c[I have] \u200agratitude to our communities for having faith in us and in the measures that we took,\u201d Chait said.<\/p>\n He said the district will take \u201ccorrective action\u201d where lead and other toxins are found and that he\u2019s directed his team to look into other ways for the district to advocate for climate justice.<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aOur primary role always is to provide education and academic advancement, but I think we can do more than that,\u201d Chait said.<\/p>\n Some environmental health experts and advocates who reviewed the district\u2019s testing results told LAist that school officials have more work to do on testing and cleaning at some campuses.<\/p>\n Environmental testing raises questions about long-term fire impact<\/p>\n District officials said environmental tests \u2014 which they released the day before school started<\/a> \u2014 concluded the Boyle Heights warehouse fire did not result in widespread contamination at nearby campuses and affirmed the decision to reopen schools.<\/p>\n Soil tests found lead levels that exceeded California\u2019s acceptable threshold at two elementary school campuses \u2014 Christopher Dena and City Terrace. The district said in its report that staff will evaluate whether more testing or cleanup at those sites is needed.<\/p>\n Carlos Torres, director of LAUSD\u2019s Office of Environmental Health and Safety, said the front lawn at City Terrace and the tree wells at Dena, where elevated levels of lead were detected, have been fenced off.<\/p>\n At Christopher Dena Elementary in Boyle Heights, school officials fenced off a tree and a patch of soil where environmental testing found elevated levels of lead.<\/p>\n Torres said the district doesn\u2019t believe the lead is tied to the warehouse fire.<\/p>\n \u201cMost likely this could be from things like lead-based paints from use in the past. It could be from agricultural use,\u201d Torres told LAist on Tuesday<\/a>. \u201cThere isn’t such a thing as clean soil anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n The district said the levels of several other substances, including ammonia, formaldehyde and manganese, were low enough that they did not threaten the health of students or school staff.<\/p>\n Teacher Jose Salazar introduces Belvedere Middle School students to the different components of the career and technical education class which include engineering, child development and criminal justice on the first day of the 2026-2027 school year.<\/p>\n Jill Johnston, an associate professor of environmental and occupational health at UC Irvine, agreed that elevated lead levels in the soil at nearby schools could have been present before the warehouse fire.<\/p>\n But she expressed concern about test results for ammonia at three schools within two miles of the Lineage warehouse: Eastman Avenue Early Education Center, Humphreys Avenue Elementary School and Stevenson College and Career Prep.<\/p>\n Two indoor samples and one outdoor sample from those campuses were found to have between 319 and 327 micrograms of ammonia per cubic meter<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cAmmonia is a respiratory irritant,\u201d Johnston said. \u201cIt can affect lung function, particularly in kids\u2026 Breathing in ammonia, particularly at levels that are much higher than background concentrations, is something we want to try to avoid, especially for vulnerable kids.\u201d<\/p>\n California\u2019s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment sets a 200 microgram safety limit for chronic exposure to ammonia, meaning situations where people are breathing in the chemical compound continuously. District officials noted that the test results were far below the state\u2019s 3,200 microgram limit for acute exposure, meaning about an hour or less.<\/p>\n Johnston said closing schools would have been a difficult decision for district officials. But she said additional scrutiny and monitoring at those three schools is warranted.<\/p>\n \u201cIf they’re also kids from the neighborhood, they’re being exposed at home,\u201d she said. \u201cIt just builds this evidence that we’ve been observing over the last several weeks, that toxic chemicals associated with the activities at Lineage are getting into the community, and in this case, is getting inside the schools.\u201d<\/p>\n East L.A. has a long history of pollution<\/a> linked to nearby freeways and dense industrial development. In May, about 25,000 gallons of crude oil spilled into the streets after an underground pipe ruptured<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThis continues to remind us where our schools are located and how vulnerable our communities and schools are,\u201d said Roc\u00edo Rivas, school Board vice president and representative for the neighborhood. \u201cI think it’s important to elevate the testing and continue to monitor regardless if there’s a fire or not.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786593503_386_.jpeg\")
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