up around 8:30 a.m. by the drive-thru drop-off area holding signs, waving to cars and opening doors. They shared hugs and smiles with parents and students.

Nancy Estrella held a sign that read, “We missed you.” Estrella works at Don Benito as a community assistant and her daughter Luna is a first grader at the school.

As they drove to school Wednesday morning, Luna saw the fire’s devastation in person for the first time on Valley View Avenue, where homes had burned across the street from the school.

Estrella said upon seeing the damage, Luna said she understood why such precautions were being taken. As a member of the school’s staff, Estrella walked through the school on Tuesday to see what cleaning and preparations had been done ahead of reopening.

“As soon as I walked in yesterday and I just got to see how detailed the cleaning was, it definitely settled a lot of those fears,” Estrella said.

Luna told her mom that she felt safe coming back because if it wasn’t safe their Principal John Maynard would not have reopened the school.

“We do have a strong community already before any of this and I just know that sense of community is just going to help pull us through,” Estrella said. “Anyone that was affected directly knows that they at least have their second home to come back to and everyone’s here to support.”

Superintendent Elizabeth Blanco joined the Don Benito staff to greet students and parents Wednesday morning. Blanco said while the district was not required to do environmental testing they did so out of an abundance of caution.

She said all results have come back positive and tried to ease the concerns of parents worried about allowing their children to return to schools near burned areas.

“I would like to assure them that schools are a safe place to be,” Blanco said. “They’re clean, they’re sanitized and we have tested where their children are going to be and we’ll monitor air quality and on days that it’s not safe to be outside we’ll keep them inside.”

After closing campuses on Jan. 8, PUSD began the phased reopening on Jan. 23 with 10 schools. On Monday, four schools and two programs resumed. On Wednesday, Sierra Madre Elementary School and Sierra Madre Middle School, along with Don Benito, reopened.

The remaining schools are set to reopen today, according to the district.

“At this point, we can say that the numbers of returning students is promising and increasing daily,” the district said in a statement.

Inside Amethyst Juknavorian’s first-grade class at Don Benito, about 20 students sat in a circle each with a different stuffed animal on their lap. Juknavorian started by introducing her stuffed animal, the character Bing Bong from the Pixar movie “Inside Out.”

On an easel next to the circle were pictures of the different emotions portrayed in the film. Juknavorian told her class she wanted to catch up with them to see how they were doing.

“I feel happy. I’m full of a lot of joy because I get to see all of you today,” Juknavorian said.

She said she had also been feeling anxious and worried about her students while the school was closed. Juknavorian then invited her students to share how they were feeling.

A few students talked about being anxious and sad at seeing homes that burned. One student shared that her friend’s home burned down.

Andrew Perez’s daughter Lucy is in TK at Don Benito. He said Lucy woke him up Wednesday morning because she was so excited to come back to school.

“It was pretty rough,” Perez said of the last few weeks. “She has been asking when she’s going to go back to school for weeks now.”

Perez said having a routine again would be a welcome change and said he did not have concerns about Lucy’s safety returning to school.

Mimi Cristobal’s son Noah is a fifth grader at Don Benito and her other son Nathan will be returning to school on today. Cristobal said while there’s always some concern about returning after such devastation, she said she trusts the district leadership.

“All of our kids, whether they’ve lost their homes or not, have been affected by this,” Cristobal said. “I think it’s good for them to be together and to kind of get back to something that is normal even though it’ll be different.”

Today, the Pasadena Unified School District Board of Education will meet beginning at 6:30 p.m.

According to the meeting agenda, there will be a presentation updating the public on the reopening of schools.

Board President Jennifer Hall Lee joined Blanco in visiting Don Benito on Wednesday.

“I am very impressed with the level of management, strategy and heart,” Lee said. “It’s really hard to find people who run school districts who have the ability to manage and think strategically and also have enough of the heart.”