In January, the school, its farm and gardens were wiped out in the Eaton Fire.
"It's been very hard," said Village Playgarden Director Geoff Ramsey-Ray. "We've lost more than half our business. Of the 30 kids a day, that's really more like 45 families who were attending, more than half of them lost their homes and have been scattered to the winds."
He said he plans to rebuild, but in the meantime, the school has settled into Barnhart School, a middle school in Arcadia.
"We feel we have come through it, so there's a lot of optimism for sure," said Ramsey-Ray.
Less than half of Village Playgarden's students are set to return for the new school year, and they can expect things to be as normal as possible.
"We've been able to replicate a lot of those unique elements that we had in our preschool up in Altadena," said Ramsey-Ray.
Meanwhile, parents like Penelope Gazin, who lost her home in the Eaton Fire, have children back in the classroom already, but they don't know how long that will last.
"I don't know where I'm going to live and I'm like wherever ... I'm basically going to choose whichever school that I find a place closest to," said Gazin, who has a 4-year-old son named Skip.
Schools damaged by LA fires welcome back students for new school year
Marquez Charter School in the Los Angeles Unified School District is set to welcome some of its students back on Thursday, August 14. The school was heavily damaged in the Palisades Fire and is temporarily located at Nora Sterry Elementary School.
"Our enrollment is down. Some families that lost their homes, they've relocated," said Principal Lisa Timmerman. "We do have separate schedules. We are two separate schools on one large campus."
Work to rebuild Marquez is underway, and students could go back as soon as this fall.
"I can start imagining us there," said Clare Gardner, a teacher at Marquez. "I can start envisioning it being a school, and that's super exciting."
Both schools are focused on giving their students the best education possible.
"Through everything, even last year when the fires happened, education never stopped," said Timmerman. "The learning never stopped."
"All of us teachers and parents had to dig deep after the fire and find our own resiliency, and we did," Ramsey-Ray added.
Village Playgarden continues to rebuild and is enrolling new students.
The school's plan is to reopen their farm by the end of the year so students can take weekly field trips.