Looking back, my elementary-school experience felt almost bucolic. My classmates and I ran around Saint Mark’s School’s 5½-acre campus carefree. With classrooms opening to the outdoors, we sat outside for lunch in the shadow of the San Gabriel Mountains and feared being sent to the administration building, a two-story house converted into offices. The smell of burning forest was a recognizable, if not frequent, occurrence. Teachers would cancel recess, lunch was moved inside from the patio—an