School district fundraising to rebuild elementary school in Grizzly Flats destroyed by Caldor Fire
GRIZZLY FLATS — Nearly two and a half years after the Caldor Fire, Grizzly Flats still has not been able to rebuild the elementary school it lost.
Walt Tyler Elementary was originally built in 1997. When it burned to the ground in 2021, 36 students were attending its T-K-5th grade classes.
Now, students like Lily Tyler travel 45 minutes up and down the hill on a school bus to Pioneer Elementary in Somerset every day.
"It's pretty scary to put my 5-year-old daughter on the school bus down the hill in the snowy, icy conditions," said Lily's mom, Candance Tyler.
Candance's great uncle, Walt Tyler, was who the school was named after. She took us to where the school once stood just five minutes from her place in Grizzly Flats.
"There really isn't a mechanism for recovery for the state of California for the school districts that have lost a school through fire," said Chief Business Officer at Pioneer School District Kelly Howard.
Insurance estimates show that the rebuilding of the school will cost about $9 million to rebuild what it once had up to new state codes.
"We're not asking for a Taj Mahal or anything very immense," said Pioneer Union School District Superintendent Patrick Paturel. "We are asking for the same thing we had there that meets current code."
Paturel said some of the biggest challenges have been construction costs, changed building codes, inflation, insurance and securing state and federal grants.
Right now, insurance is giving the district about $4 million, leaving them about $5 million short.
Howard said FEMA has come through with about $350,000, but applying for state grants continues to be a challenge. She is working closely with state senators to try and secure more money and eventually make a change to the rebuilding process for school districts after a fire.
"What other out-of-the-box solutions do we have?" Howard said.
Howard started an online fundraiser, welcoming any dollar from the community to give the families who already lost so much something back.
"Really? We need a $9 million school in a poverty-stricken burnt community?" Candance said. "No, we just need what we had back."
The school district hopes to generate enough dollars to rebuild the school by October 2024.