As the Los Angeles Unified School District heads back to school, nearly 2,500 students at Palisades Charter High will start the year in their temporary campus at the old Santa Monica Sears. But unless you were in the market for a new appliance about a decade ago, you might not even recognize the transformed space—which has become a fully operational learning environment following the devastating wildfire that swept through the Palisades earlier this year.
After the fire left three of our public schools damaged and inoperable, I knew we had to act quickly. As the LAUSD Board Member representing the Palisades Charter High community, I was one of a large group of civic leaders, school staff, and external partners who faced a clear and urgent mandate: get students back to school.
And we did. The following week, we were able to move the two elementary schools onto nearby LAUSD campuses. Six weeks later—and in a larger logistical feat—Pali High welcomed students to a safe, modern, and fully operational temporary campus. The site had 90 classrooms, gathering spaces, offices, and wifi strong enough to support thousands of devices. It wasn’t just a makeshift fix—it felt like a real school, ready for real learning. The students and staff, displaced and reeling, finally had a place to call their own again.
This kind of turnaround isn’t the norm.
Anyone familiar with public infrastructure knows the usual rhythm: delays, bureaucratic red tape, ballooning costs, and years-long timelines. Shade structures that take two years to build and cost over half a million dollars. Campus greening projects that stall over permits. Basic modernization work that takes longer to plan than to build, with price mark-ups your average homeowner would balk at. Many of the safety and regulatory layers are critical — but many are outdated, duplicative or simply inefficient.
Why was this time different? In the face of disaster, we were able to cut through the bureaucracy without cutting corners. We cleared debris from two elementary campuses in weeks, not months. We relocated entire school communities in under a week. And with Pali High, we repurposed an abandoned retail space into a vibrant educational hub. All of this was done safely, legally, and with high standards for students’ well-being and academic success.
If you are wondering how, the answer lies in collaboration and urgency — priorities we can easily apply to future projects.
First, we utilized parallel processing and streamlined approval processes. Typically, we do things sequentially, which can add months, if not years to a project. By allowing construction to start as designs were still being finalized and working on parts as soon as they were approved, we were able to drastically cut down on delays.
We also used multiple shifts to expedite the work. In just one month, the construction team logged over 28,000 hours — more than 1,000 hours a day at its peak. While the cost may be higher per hour, you save money in the long run because the project takes so much less time. Time literally is money in these situations.
We worked as a team. Pali High, LAUSD, Gensler, CW Driver, the cities of Santa Monica and Los Angeles, state agencies and countless civic leaders across jurisdictions moved forward in lockstep, aligned in our singular mission to get kids back in the classroom.
And lastly, we had a deadline we knew we had to meet. Timelines are often amorphous, with change orders and unforeseen barriers causing delays that we’ve come to accept as standard. But this time, we didn’t—we set an ambitious timeline and figured out what we needed to do to stick to it.
We’ve been here before—after earthquakes and hurricanes, during the pandemic shutdowns, and now in the wake of Los Angeles’ most devastating wildfires. In every crisis, the public sector finds ways to move faster, coordinate better, and rethink what’s possible. And after every emergency, we walk away with lessons on how to build smarter, act faster, and serve our communities better. But too often, we default back to outdated systems and slow processes. Waivers granted during emergencies are rarely made permanent. Innovations are celebrated briefly, then shelved.
We don’t have to wait for the next crisis to reimagine how we build and operate our schools. And I am gratified that we’ve taken some positive steps. At LAUSD, we had an outside firm do a review of our construction processes and in the fall we’ll be exploring their findings to implement some of those suggestions. And at the state level, a CEQA law was just overhauled to boost housing production. But these are not enough.
The success of the Sears-to-school transformation isn’t just a feel-good story — it’s a blueprint. It proves that with urgency, trust, and the right partnerships, public agencies can be nimble, responsive, and bold. And if we can do all of this in six weeks under pressure, imagine what we could do with six months of intentional planning. This type of collaboration and decisive action doesn’t have to be the exception. It can be our new normal.
Nick Melvoin is an LAUSD board member.