School’s triumphant recovery
Anova, serving students with autism, welcomes its kids home
The sky was red and flecked with ash the night they lost the school.
Like many Wine Country fire survivors, Andrew Bailey had no trouble recalling that October evening when flames ripped through Santa Rosa and devoured the city’s Anova campus. The school is part of a regional nonprofit that serves high-functioning autistic students.
Bailey, Anova’s co-founder and CEO, announced that night that the phoenix would become the school’s mascot. So, too, Anova would rise from the ashes.
Under clear skies Monday morning, Bailey made good on his promise, along with some 125 students, many of whom were being reunited for the first time since the fires reduced most of the Santa Rosa campus and surrounding area to charred debris. They joined school administrators, parents and emergency responders to unveil 16 newly constructed portables and bring
Anova back to life.
“We lived through the burning part of the phoenix,” said Bailey, wearing a jacket with the school’s new mascot: a blue bird with flames for wings reading a book. “Now we’re living through the rising-up part.”
The fires forced Anova to send its Santa Rosa-area students to three different spaces over the the last four months: Healdsburg Community Center, a space offered by the Bennett Valley Union School District in Santa Rosa and the Anova administrative office, a few miles from the burned campus. Insurance money helped quickly fund construction of the new portables, while donations allowed Anova to replace hundreds of textbooks, computers and desks destroyed in the fire.
A GoFundMe campaign raised around $175,000, and $1 million more came through donors such as Martin Fink, the retired chief technology officer of Hewlett Packard, who along with his wife donated $500,000, Bailey said.
Classmates split up by the fires returned to the campus Monday excited yet uncertain.
Jordan Vennes, 16, has spent the past four months attending the Healdsburg campus some 13 miles away, she said, making Monday’s homecoming a little “weird, to be honest.”
“It’s definitely better to be back here than at a campus where there are other students that aren’t even from Anova,” she added.
Jordan was forced to evacuate her home for a week during the fires, she said, but some of her friends fared far worse.
“It’s very horrifying, very traumatizing and just devastating in general,” Jordan said. “Two of my friends lost their house, like, it just burned to the ground.”
The Northern California fires killed 45 people across four counties and destroyed nearly 9,000 structures. The Tubbs Fire in Sonoma County accounted for more than 5,600 of those buildings, including 4,655 homes.
William Ference, 16, said he remembers seeing a “big orange cloud” the night he ran out of his home in Santa Rosa with nothing but an iPad and the clothes on his back. His twin sister ran out barefoot.
“My mom and dad were telling me, ‘Fire, fire!’ ” William said. “We ran out the door.”
The family now stays with William’s grandmother in Petaluma while their neighborhood is being rebuilt.
Parents at Monday’s event
noted that change isn’t ideal for students with autism, who find comfort with routine, but William seemed to be adjusting well.
“He’s a good kid. He’s doing good,” said William’s mother, Cathy. “Everyone’s dealing with it the best they can.”
On Monday, parents, students and school officials stood on the campus’ basketball court alongside first responders from the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, as well as Sarge the Bear, a mascot who represents the agency. David Cruise, deputy regional administrator for OES, said the agency has shown up to reopen three other schools in the area, and it appears that Anova will be the last.
“It’s a long road to recovery,” Cruise said. “This is one of those really important moments for the city and the county to get through.”
Only 10 percent of the
“It’s definitely better to be back here than at a campus where there are other students that aren’t even from Anova. It’s very horrifying, very traumatizing and just devastating in general. Two of my friends lost their house, like, it just burned to the ground.” Jordan Vennes, 16, student at Anova Center for Education in Santa Rosa
neighboring Luther Burbank Center for the Arts was damaged in October’s fire, but nearly all of the Anova campus was destroyed. About 20 percent of the 25,000-squarefoot school had minor smoke damage, while the remaining 20,000 square feet was a pile of charred and twisted metal.
Anova’s return will follow a three-part plan, Bailey said.
Phase 1 required administrators to find interim campuses for the students and the acquisition of the portables. Phase 2 entailed bringing students and parents back to school Monday. Phase 3 will require a couple years of construction until Anova’s facilities can be rebuilt within the arts center.
Anova co-founder and COO Mary Beth Ludwig walked through the campus Monday and called the day a homecoming, not just because of the physical location.
“It’s not the walls. It’s not the building. It’s the people and the students that make a school a school,” Ludwig said. “You can have a school anywhere.”