When Happy Camp Elementary School in rural Northern California started class two weeks ago, it was one of the few in California to reopen classrooms for children during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Abigail Yeager had worried at first whether sending her 6- and 8-year-old sons was the safe thing to do and whether wearing masks “was going to freak them out.”
Those fears were quickly relieved. Her sons and other students were thrilled to be back in school, and it seemed like a major victory in Happy Camp, a Siskiyou County town of 800 people along the Klamath River.
But this week, the Slater fire devastated Happy Camp, destroying 150 homes and killing two people. Half of the elementary school staff lost their homes, and administrators estimate that half of the 109 students are now homeless.
Read the full story on LATimes.com.
