Ukrainian Refugee Arrives at Pali High

By LILY TINOCO | Reporter

“I was in the capital city of Ukraine, Kyiv. It was my birth city,” Illia Ishchenko-Leshchtnskyi said to the Palisadian-Post. “All my childhood was in this city … I was in school, I had a lot of friends and now, I miss my friends.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched efforts to seize Ukraine in February, causing thousands of families and individuals to flee. When asked, Ishchenko-Leshchtnskyi said, “a lot of people knew … Putin will start a war … but nobody wanted to believe.”

Ishchenko-Leshchtnskyi fled Kyiv to Los Angeles on his own amid the nation’s ongoing crisis.

“My dad called [me] and said, ‘A bus is waiting for you.’ It was a hard drive, uncomfortable … but I did it,” he recalled.

He was smuggled to Romania on a bus then secured a flight to Los Angeles, where his aunt Olena and uncle Eugene Jang live.

“When he got here, it was just a relief that he was safe,” Eugene said to the Post. “It wasn’t difficult for us to say, ‘Yes, you can obviously come here.’”

He arrived to LA on March 10, leaving behind his mother and 3-year-old brother, father, grandma and childhood friends.

Eugene, who is a tutor, said when he began exploring different schools for Ishchenko-Leshchtnskyi to attend, Lisa Woods—whose three children attend Palisades Charter High School and study with Eugene—stepped in to help.

“When everything started in Ukraine, my kids and Eugene started talking about it because his wife is Ukrainian and … her whole family is in Ukraine,” Woods said. “They started talking about it and throughout their sessions, they learned more and … found out that his nephew was able to escape and eventually made it here … Eugene started talking to me about getting him into schools and my first call was to Nick Melvoin.”

“I’m glad that Lisa reached out to my office, and of course she had my full support to help get Illia enrolled at Pali, but really she deserves all the credit for making this happen,” LAUSD Board Member Nick Melvoin said to the Post. “That was really the spirit of the resolution, to make sure that refugee families get connected and welcomed into a community that will help this new place feel a little more like a home.”

Woods said she spoke to Melvoin and a number of different schools, then Principal Pamela Magee of Pali High, who “went above and beyond.”

“We weren’t totally sure what applied because of his situation, he’s not with his traditional family and he’s been separated, clearly this is a highly unusual situation,” Magee said to the Post. “But we were able to do research with the district and the charter school division and our own legal counsel … Everyone came to the same conclusion that this is an essence of a situation … and [under these] circumstances, a school like Pali can say, ‘We will enroll you immediately.’

“We were able to quickly enroll him, he was able to get started right away and we’re excited that all of this worked out.”

Ishchenko-Leshchtnskyi enrolled at Pali High on Monday, March 28. He said he catches a ride with Woods’ three children and that he “likes the school” and his peers are “always helping.”

Woods and her husband also launched a GoFundMe page to raise funds not only for Ishchenko-Leshchtnskyi, but his friends who have fled to New York and Miami, and those still abroad.

“Everybody has been incredible and the sense of community has been extremely rewarding on a personal level,” Woods said. “What I hear from so many people is that they feel so hopeless and helpless and want to do something but don’t know what.

“This is … someone that is in our own community that we can have some sort of positive impact on … I’m just so glad that between all the players involved, we were able to make this happen.”

Jang shared that Ishchenko-Leshchtnskyi’s family has slowly—but surely—made their way out of Ukraine and he will be meeting his mother and brother in Greece in just a few weeks. His father is in and out of Ukraine, making sure his family is safe but still returning to Kyiv.

“We’re hoping they can come back and make residence here in the United States, and that [Ishchenko-Leshchtnskyi] can come back for school in the fall,” Jang said.

To make a donation, visit gofundme.com/f/ju98e-welcome-to-los-angeles-illia.