Psychological Perspectives on Contemporary Educational Issues- Educating the Phoenix

Educating the Phoenix focuses on the rebuild of an entire school system in the wake of absolute physical devastation and population diaspora from wildfire. This book uses interviews with key personnel to tell the remarkable and moving story of how the people of the Paradise Unified School District made this happen. Educating the Phoenix focuses on the rebuild of an entire school system in the wake of absolute physical devastation and population diaspora from wildfire. When school started on November 8, 2018, the Paradise Unified School District (PUSD) boasted a thriving network of eleven campuses housing 3,401 students and 390 full-time employees. Four hours later, the Camp Fire had reduced three schools to ash, and all PUSD power, communications and maintenance infrastructures were wiped out. The food service warehouse and offices were gone. The transportation office was gone. Seventeen buses were damaged or converted to melted, sooty shells. The remaining eight campuses were in various states of ruin, from smoke damage only (one school and the District Office) to partially or mostly destroyed (seven schools). Nearly all of the students and seventy percent of PUSD employees also lost their homes. Meanwhile, some teachers, bus drivers, administrators, and other school personnel shepherded thousands of children to safety in a small, spontaneous Dunkirk of the Sierra Nevada foothills. Many of their colleagues stayed at the campuses, checking every cranny in every school to make sure no one was left behind. It may be the most dramatic story of in loco parentis ever recorded. California law required that the PUSD shut down, perhaps permanently, but this is not what the students or their parents said they wanted. When PUSD leadership visited with families, the message was…