Dedicated to improving responsiveness and performance of Montgomery County Public Schools
Pages
▼
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Cut List: The McKenney Hills Trees Slated to be Removed under Board of Ed Plan
What's all this talk about trees being cut down at an elementary school site? Here's the story. For decades an elementary school stood on the McKenney Hills site in Silver Spring. In 2009, the Board of Education demolished that building. The Board wants to build a new school on the site. But this time they want a building 3 times the size of the previous building.
While the previous building co-existed with the forest, the new building plans call for the removal of dozens and dozens of trees. The estimate from a neighborhood group is that over 90 trees could be removed.
What trees? Well, to the left is a list of trees with either remove or request for permission to remove in the future from page 9 of the Final Forest Conservation Plan. Below is a list of trees by type from the Final Forest Conservation Plan (Attachment C in the packet.) See the highlighting on the list when the tree is listed as "removed."
I attended the former McKinney Hills Elementary school in the fifties. It was a wonderful neighborhood school and a perfect size for its community. We often went into the forest surrounding it on three sides to see the native flora and fauna. That forest was the single greatest natural setting of my childhood and would be the same thing for new generations of children -- IF IT IS KEPT INTACT. Nothing else ever came as close, in terms of making me the respector of natural environments that I am than did those "woods." Our small school was perfect for children and an ideal place in which to learn. The loss of the school is sad; the loss of those woods would be terrible and irreversible. Alan Payne -- arpx@cox.net
While the previous building co-existed with the forest, the new building plans call for the removal of dozens and dozens of trees. The estimate from a neighborhood group is that over 90 trees could be removed. 
I attended the former McKinney Hills Elementary school in the fifties. It was a wonderful neighborhood school and a perfect size for its community. We often went into the forest surrounding it on three sides to see the native flora and fauna. That forest was the single greatest natural setting of my childhood and would be the same thing for new generations of children -- IF IT IS KEPT INTACT. Nothing else ever came as close, in terms of making me the respector of natural environments that I am than did those "woods." Our small school was perfect for children and an ideal place in which to learn. The loss of the school is sad; the loss of those woods would be terrible and irreversible.
ReplyDeleteAlan Payne -- arpx@cox.net