The LM School Board has a lot on its plate right now, from the debate over installing lights on Arnold Field to proposed school start time changes. However, possibly the most important and impactful issue in our school community is the fate of Oakwell Forest.
For those who have not heard from local news outlets, Oakwell is home to a forest stretching over 13 acres in Villanova near the new Black Rock Middle School. This isn’t a new issue, since LMSD has been trying to clear Oakwell to build athletic fields for the new middle school since 2018. This was made possible when the district used eminent domain to buy the Oakwell property, which is a process where the government can pay the owner of a property and take their land. The district now plans to start demolishing trees and buildings on the property starting in May 2023. Despite the need for new sports fields, bulldozing Oakwell isn’t the only solution, and it would hardly solve the problem at all.
The site isn’t walkable from the Black Rock campus, so it would require students to take buses to the fields. This system is inefficient, and it would put more pressure on the district’s bus system which, like many others across the country, already has a major shortage of drivers. There, given that buses will be needed to get students to the new fields, a much more environmental and strategic solution would be to bus Black Rock students to either Bala Cynwyd or Welsh Valley Middle School and use both schools’ unused playing fields. This is not a perfect solution, but it beats razing a forest of hundreds of century-old trees and disrupting an active ecosystem.
Additionally, destroying Oakwell is not just an inconvenient option, but also a harmful one. Losing the 500 trees that the district plans to cut down would negatively impact our environment and air quality. According to a study from a Villanova University professor, cutting down the forest would release 15,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide into the air, indubitably a complete environmental disaster. Even though LMSD plans to replace many of these trees, new trees would still take many years to grow to maturity.
Our School Board should have the school community’s best interest in mind, and that means listening to the people who make up our community. Since LMSD purchased Oakwell, there have been protests organized by the Save Oakwell and Preserve Oakwell organizations outside the administration building. Many LM students have joined these protests and showed the School Board that preserving Oakwell would benefit students as well, since it is a valuable resource to our area and general public.
Every student in the district should have the same opportunities to participate in athletics, and the LM School Board is under pressure to find a solution. Despite this, it’s not worth destroying hundreds of trees in a historic preserve, especially when we need to be working harder than ever to protect the environment from ever-present climate change. Oakwell is an important resource to our area and the health of the environment, and protecting it is the choice that will most benefit our community and its well-being.
Shawn McMurtry • Oct 13, 2023 at 8:32 AM
Well said!