The Altadena school opens its new South Campus on Monday, ending a year in borrowed classrooms

Five days after Altadena gathered to remember the Eaton Fire, Odyssey Charter Schools will open the doors of a new campus. 

For 375 students who spent a year learning in borrowed spaces at ArtCenter College and Boys & Girls Club facilities, the day marks something they lost in January 2025: a school they can call their own. 

The school was to host a tour of its new South Campus at 575 West Altadena Avenue on Monday, January 12, at 7:30 a.m., as the spring semester begins. 

The Eaton Fire destroyed the original South Campus at 119 W. Palm Street on January 7-8, 2025. At Odyssey, the losses were specific and personal: four and a half buildings gone, 80% of classrooms reduced to char, and 40% of the school’s families also lost their homes. 

“It was gone,” Principal Bonnie Brimecombe said in an interview with CalMatters last year, recalling the moment she saw video of the destroyed campus. “And then all the text messages from families started coming in. You’re just getting message after message,’My home is lost; I have nothing.’ The school didn’t even matter at that point. You just think about the families.”

What followed was a year of improvisation. 

Middle schoolers attended classes in a dedicated space at ArtCenter’s Pasadena building. Younger students gathered at Boys & Girls Club facilities. Teachers navigated their own fire losses while working to rebuild routines for children whose worlds had upended. 

“This is what we do as charter folk,” Executive Director Dr. Carlos Garcia Saldana said at the time. “We just pause and think outside the box and say, OK, how can we make this happen?” 

Odyssey Charter School was the first charter school approved by the Los Angeles County Office of Education when it opened in 1999. The South Campus opened in 2018 to serve growing demand. Before the fire, it enrolled students from transitional kindergarten through eighth grade—about 30% Latino, 45% white, and the rest a mix of Black, Asian, and multiracial families. Students consistently scored above state averages in math and reading. There was typically a waiting list. 

The fire tested the school’s founding principle: that Odyssey is a community first. 

“Odyssey is not about buildings,” Saldana said. “We are a community first, and then we are teachers, administrators, and students. This is who we are—a tight, connected, and supportive family.” 

On January 7, 2026, approximately 1,000 people gathered in the Grocery Outlet parking lot to mark the one-year anniversary of the fire. Nineteen clergy members held photographs of the 19 lives lost. Phone flashlights rose in silence for one minute and 19 seconds. 

Five days later, Odyssey returns to a campus of its own. 

The school’s new address is 575 West Altadena Avenue, Altadena, CA 91001. The office can be reached at 626-209-5635.