By Nina Ahmad
The Philadelphia Tribune
https://www.phillytrib.com/
At a time when environmental protections are being rolled back across the country, Philadelphia should be doing everything in its power to prepare the next generation of environmental leaders, scientists, planners, and public servants. Instead, the School District is considering closing Lankenau Environmental Science Magnet High School, one of the most distinctive public schools in our city and a rare pathway into environmental careers for students who have too often been left out of them.
That would be a profound mistake.
Lankenau is not simply another school building. It is the only environmentally focused high school in the School District of Philadelphia. It offers students a curriculum rooted in environmental science, land-based learning, and real-world workforce preparation. It is one of only two schools in Pennsylvania offering coursework in Geographic Information Systems, a powerful tool used in planning, environmental analysis, infrastructure, conservation, and public policy. Under its leadership, Lankenau has also built a Career and Technical Education focus in agroecology, creating a direct connection between classroom learning and one of Pennsylvania’s most important economic sectors.
This is exactly the kind of educational model we should be protecting and growing.
Lankenau also serves students whose opportunities are too often narrowed by poverty, underinvestment, and instability. It is a Title I school. Its students come from neighborhoods across Philadelphia, including communities that have long borne the burden of environmental injustice and limited access to high quality educational options. For many of these young people, Lankenau is not an abstraction or a niche program. It is a lifeline. It is a place where they have found belonging, purpose, safety, and a path forward.
Students themselves have said so. They have spoken with clarity and courage about what this school has meant to them. They have described Lankenau as a place where they could finally connect, finally thrive, and finally see a future for themselves. That matters.
It also matters that Lankenau’s academic outcomes and unique programming do not support the case for closure. The school has been recognized nationally for academic success among students in a high poverty setting. It has maintained a 100 percent graduation rate. It offers Advanced Placement courses, special education supports, and specialized programming that simply cannot be replicated by moving students elsewhere and hoping for the best.
The District has pointed to utilization and facilities metrics in its school closure process. But those numbers, standing alone, do not answer the most important question: what would Philadelphia lose by closing this school?
And the answer is clear. We would lose a singular public asset.
We would lose 17 acres of living, outdoor learning space connected to the Schuylkill River. We would lose a hands-on environmental education model that cannot be recreated in a standard school building. We would lose a rare career pathway that introduces students, including underrepresented students, to environmental stewardship, food systems, mapping technology, and the green economy. We would lose a school that is already doing the work so many leaders claim they want to see more of.
If enrollment is the concern, then the response should be to strengthen enrollment, not eliminate the program. Lankenau’s low enrollment is not proof that the school lacks value. It is evidence that the District has not done enough to promote, support, and protect one of its most innovative schools. A robust public awareness strategy, stronger recruitment, and a renewed commitment to specialized admissions and program visibility could address that challenge without dismantling a successful and deeply needed institution.
Closing Lankenau would send exactly the wrong message. It would tell students from low income and underrepresented communities that even when a school is innovative, mission driven, academically successful, and uniquely aligned with the future economy, it can still be treated as expendable. It would tell families that environmental education is a luxury, rather than a necessity. And it would tell the city that short-term convenience matters more than long-term public value.
Philadelphia needs more environmental justice, not less. More access, not less. More pathways into science, sustainability, and public purpose careers, not fewer.
Lankenau represents all of that.
The School District owes the public a clear, objective justification for why a school with this mission, this record, and this singular educational value should be shut down. So far, that justification has not been made.
Until it is, Lankenau should remain open.
