Aveson Global Leadership Academy,<\/a> enrollment dropped from 200 to 165 at the middle and high schools, mostly because it discontinued a prep sports program at the end of the 2024-25 year for reasons unrelated to the fire, executive director Aaron Gerwer said. Even though Aveson\u2019s location at the campus of a former private school survived largely intact, leadership still decided to relocate. <\/p>\n ![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1766151386_975_\")
<\/p>\n
Declan O\u2019Neil, a seventh grader, plays a video game during a break in the Beat the Odds drum class at Aveson Global Leadership Academy.<\/p>\n
(Myung J. Chun\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
\u201cWe talked about going back to our old campus, but there had been a lot of smoke damage and the community around [it] had all kind of burned down \u2014 so it was painful to go back there,\u201d Gerwer said.<\/p>\n
Enrollment at Odyssey Charter Schools\u2019 two campuses \u2014 which included elementary and middle-school grades \u2014 had been growing before the fire. The inferno all but destroyed one campus, which has relocated, and the other sustained smoke damage and later reopened. <\/p>\n
This year combined enrollment dropped from 835 to 496. At least 83 families lost their homes and others were displaced by smoke damage. <\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1766151387_865_\")
<\/p>\n
Aaron Gerwer is the executive director of Aveson Global Leadership Academy in Pasadena.<\/p>\n
(Myung J. Chun\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
\u201cOur goal is to rebuild back to where we were \u2014 to continue to be a school that focuses on the social and emotional well-being of students,\u201d said Sylvia Corona, Odyssey\u2019s director of education.<\/p>\n
A similar scenario played out at Aveson, which ran an elementary program \u2014 Aveson School of Leaders \u2014 at a former Pasadena Unified school site in Altadena, and Aveson Global on another property. The elementary school burned to the ground. <\/p>\n
Parent Amber Sealey said the lost elementary campus had \u201ca huge garden with vegetables and chickens.\u201d It was a place \u201cwhere kids are taught to get along with others, how to be themselves … and be a part of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aveson School of Leaders did not find a new location for more than a month and lost 40% to 50% of its enrollment, said Gerwer, the Aveson Global executive director.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1766151389_225_\")
<\/p>\n
Students attend the Beat the Odds drum class at Aveson Global Leadership Academy.<\/p>\n
(Myung J. Chun\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
Among those who left is Sealey\u2019s son. Their family remains out of their house amid smoke damage repairs. They are living in Los Angeles and finishing the year at an L.A. Unified school. The teachers are good, but the vibe there is comparatively bureaucratic and conformist, Sealey said.<\/p>\n
Aveson Global reopened in January, moving into additional space in what used to be Pasadena\u2019s Wilson Middle School, which it already had been using alongside other programs operated by the district. The school had to squeeze into tight quarters. Private schools donated furniture. Parents erected partitions in classrooms. And Gerwer\u2019s office became a desk in the hall.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe community is more than a building,\u201d he said, \u201cand one thing that we\u2019ve come away from this is seeing just how strong our community actually is, and that\u2019s been a beautiful thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the school\u2019s decreased enrollment is a major problem. Gerwer said Aveson Global needs to bring in more than 200 students. \u201cIf we don\u2019t, it becomes difficult to continue to run our programming in the way that we\u2019d like,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
![\"Eighth-graders](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1766151390_190_\")
<\/p>\n
Eighth-graders Rain Qualtrough, left, and Eben Wingren play a Tibetan hand drum at the Beat the Odds class.<\/p>\n
(Myung J. Chun\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
On a recent weekday at Aveson Global, students sat in a circle with an array of drums in front of them. They were taking part in a program called Beat the Odds, brought to the school by the Arts & Healing Initiative through a $50,000 fire-aid grant. The drum thumps were meant to evoke their emotions. <\/p>\n
Outside of the class exercise, several participants talked about how they were doing. One student said he had survivor\u2019s guilt after the blaze. Others didn\u2019t want to talk about their trauma at all. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis program is honestly God-sent,\u201d senior Henry Blood said. \u201cAnything that gets kids … playing music together is just incredible, especially after the fire. Just talking about your feelings and expressing yourself \u2014 a lot of these kids, I\u2019m sure, just feel a whole lot more secure from that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Altadena\u2019s Eliot Arts Magnet Academy burned in the Eaton fire, its theater program\u2019s substantial collection of largely…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":457842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[209477,1582,276,209478,6279,5810,209476,209479,316,2961,224,5337,209480,6291,209475,11645,6831,15689,67016,1628],"class_list":{"0":"post-457841","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-aveson","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-charter-campus","12":"tag-district","13":"tag-eaton-fire","14":"tag-enrollment-drop","15":"tag-gerwer","16":"tag-home","17":"tag-la","18":"tag-los-angeles","19":"tag-losangeles","20":"tag-muir-student","21":"tag-other","22":"tag-pasadena-unified-property","23":"tag-school","24":"tag-staff","25":"tag-student","26":"tag-teacher","27":"tag-year"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115746504470064309","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}