How a Pasadena gardener worked through the worst January of his life to help open schools

The community of Juan Villegas is still burning on the afternoon of January 8. But he had to get to one place: his alma mater, Elliott Institute of Art Magnets.

Pasadena Middle School welcomes Villegas when she was 12 years old from Mexico. Here he found his position in a new and strange country, connected with other Latino immigrants and made lifelong friends.

He heard that the campus was destroyed, but in the first few hours of the Eaton fire, rumors spread quickly. He was told that the Super Kings Market on Lincoln Avenue had burned, but it turned out to be wrong. Maybe somehow, the school is OK.

Roads near Elliot were closed. But Villagas knows one way of closing Lincoln Avenue. He walked through the residential area where flames still emanated from the muffled houses, and ashes rained from the sky.

Then he arrived at Elliott. The imposing bell tower of the nearly 100-year-old school is still standing – but most of the campuses on Lake Avenue have been destroyed.

“I was shocked,” Villagas said. “It brought me back to when I started at Eliot – it was my first school in the United States and now the whole place is gone. I’m thinking about how many other schools might be going on. We’re not sure we How much has been lost. ”

As the chief gardener of Pasadena Unified School District, Villagas will soon receive the most important task of his decades of career: supervising the cleanup of the campus during the competition to bring about 14,000 children back to the classroom. Over the past few weeks, Villegas, like thousands of others in his community, has found himself experiencing a tragic month of shock: his father just passed away and his in-laws’ house burned down. The school venue is in trouble.

That afternoon, when he picked up the smoking shells from the middle school in the unified landmark in Pasadena, it was too much.

“That was when I hit me. I broke down and tears started to fall,” said Villagas, 49.

A daunting task

Villegas knows the complexity of all 24 Pasadena unified campuses. Located on approximately 226 acres of land in Altadena, Sierra Madre and Pasadena, these schools serve a wide range of populations and offer multilingual, scientific and art-focused education as well as other programs.

On January 8, they were all closed.

Five campuses were severely burned. Many survived, but schools must be cleaned up before they reopen. The district said it would not welcome students until an environmental testing company evaluates and confirms its property. The area evaluated soot, Char and Ash evaluated “extensive testing was conducted in various places within the affected school buildings.”

Ultimately, Pasadena reopens schools uniformly In the two-week phasebring the last group back to the end of the month. Despite the efforts of the region, some parents Have told The Times They are not sure if their children are safe in class. Pasadena unified, released Its environment testinsisting that its campus is safe.

Pasadena Unified signed contracts with workers in most schools. But the area’s maintenance and operation staff, including Viagra, which oversees five colleagues, is integral to the program. The 12 interior gardeners focus on exterior cleaning, using chainsaws and rakes to remove fallen trees and large branches, then turn the push broom to clean smaller debris.

“We all rely on everyone here, especially Juan,” Michael Corrales, the region’s assistant director of operations and maintenance, said on a visit to Jackson Elementary School on January 23.

Their mission is more difficult because Pasadena’s temporary ban Regarding the use of blowing leaves to limit the diffusion of hazardous particles. Villegas stood outside Jackson and said he longed to return to his childhood moments—like using a leaf blower and then turned it off so that parents or students could pass.

He said, “We miss that.”

Gardeners wearing N95 masks, goggles and in some cases respirators work methodically. Villagas said they would stay in school until it was considered “clear.”

Then there is the next campus – including another alma mater of Villegas, who includes John Muir High School. His time there will give him the opportunity to reflect on his journey from Mexico to the United States and consider how his Pasadena unified education helped shape him.

New kids on campus

The childhood of Villegas was spent in Potrero de Gallegos in Mexico, a small town 200 miles north of Guadalajara. In 1987, his parents moved their family to the United States – with a total of seven children – and settled in Pasadena, where other relatives already lived. At first, he lived with his grandparents on Summit Street.

Villagas still remembers his first ride on the highway: “We have two or three cars in town, so that’s different. everything It’s different. ”

He entered Elliott in the sixth grade and used English as a second language class, where many students from Mexico and Central American countries were found. Bilingual, Villagas can assist his new classmates in their studies – this experience helped him find a foothold on campus.

Shortly afterwards, Villegas moved to Muir High School. It was the early 1990s, and friends were the key point. He is a social teenager, “hanging around with bad kids.” Villegas owns a car – the 1983 Ford Fairmont helps. This is his work experience cherished for its huge tree trunks and spacious interiors, which is useful when he and his friends cut out their classes and go to the beach.

Villagas’s time at Muir was shortened. When his grandfather suffered a stroke in his senior year, he left school to take care of him. Villagas is still considering getting a high school degree.

He needs to find a job, and a brother helps him set it up as a residential gardener. It’s natural – Villagas has always loved working outdoors. Not long after, he had 75 clients.

His personal life is also thriving. Villegas met Nora Arevalo in Quinceañera in 1995. “She moved in with me three months later,” he said, “we have been together since then.” By the end of the year, they were married. Then there are the kids: Juan Jr. in 1996, Jorge in 1997, and Angels in 10 years later.

Soon, the boys attended Pasadena Unified Elementary School—all three of them ended up attending Muir. Villagas put them down on various campuses, saying he sometimes feels that beautification is “looks better for the kids.”

Villagas was hired as a gardener by the region in 2003. His eldest son marveled at his father’s new performance. “They saw me in the uniforms in school and they wanted to take pictures with me,” he said.

He still remembers the news he heard telling their friends: “That was my father there.”

“Depends” Villegas

Juan’s father, Enrique Villegas, died at the age of 74 a month before the fire.

“The entire neighborhood they live in disappeared,” Villagas said.

Villagas took a short break in mid-January to lean towards his father’s memorial service. He then rejoined the reopening contest in the area, which has gone well.

Despite the gardener’s responsibility, Villagas said he and his crew tied up any loose ends after the contracted workers left. “We made sure everything was clean. …Whatever they missed, we were behind and cleaned it up,” he said.

This did not bring Muir principal Lawton Gray to school with Villegas. Principal-When asked about his classmates’ high school days, the principal expressed opposition-the gardener always cared about small things.

“He came here on weekends and locked the door if he saw them open,” Gray said. “He has been in school and students.”

Villegas worked at Muir during the rain in February, and he and his crew had just reduced some of the overgrown clamps and took a break near the chain link fence. Nearby, a pruning of a carrot tree lies on the road. He seems to be in the green plants and chainsaws.

In Muir, which reopened on January 30, Villegas and his crew cleared downed trees, repaired other wind energy, and ensured that contract workers kept the interior space spotless. Even after class, they are still doing preventive maintenance, such as removing clumsy trees.

“To be honest, they never looked so good,” Villagas said of the school’s landscaping. “We do more than we usually do.”

But it’s not always that easy. Villagas has spent most of the time in the past few months. for his father. and his community.

Nevertheless, even during his horrible visit to Eliot on January 8, Villegas noticed something that gave him hope. A huge oak tree – He said that due to its size, it is often the subject of complaints and has survived the fire.

He has not been able to check the strong tree yet, nor know if it is burned by the flames.

But this still stands. Now, it’s enough.