Philly’s building plan would close this high-performing magnet. Lankenau is fighting back.

There’s no place in Philadelphia like Lankenau High School.

It is the city’s environmental sciences magnet school and the state’s only three-year agriculture, food, and natural resources career and technical education program. It’s set amid 400 acres of woods, with neighbors including a vast environmental center and farm that are active partners with the school. Lankenau’s students have access to dual enrollment and an impressive array of internships.

But Lankenau just landed on the Philadelphia School District’s closing list, one of 20 schools proposed to shutter for the 2027-28 school year as the district grapples with 70,000 extra seats citywide, billions in unmet capital needs, and a desire to modernize and bring equity to student experiences in the school system.

The Lankenau community is already gearing up for a fight ahead of a school board vote on the proposal, expected this winter. Community members say the school must be saved because it’s one-of-a-kind, offering immersive education in agriculture and sciences and boasting a 100% graduation rate that’s rare in Philadelphia.

Shutting “the Lank” would be a disastrous move, said Jamir Lowe-Smith, a junior at the school. The district’s proposal would merge Lankenau into Roxborough High as an honors program, but you can’t replicate what his school has built anywhere else, Lowe-Smith said.

“Lankenau takes education to the next level,” said Lowe-Smith, president of the school’s chapter of Junior MANNRS — Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Related Sciences, which preps students for jobs in the growing green sciences industry.

“The environment is beautiful, the woods are — that’s another classroom,“ Lowe-Smith said. ”Nature is like therapy for a lot of people — it changed my life.”

Being tucked into the woods allows for a Friday advisory birdwatching club at Lankenau and research in a stream that leads directly to the Schuylkill. It lends itself to tick drags — studies of tick species — pesticide classes that will allow students to graduate as certified pesticide applicators, and work with school beehives. Its students engage in innovative project-based learning every day.

Lankenau students all receive yellow school bus transportation because the campus is not close to any SEPTA routes — adding to the district’s expense to keep it open.

» READ MORE: These Philly high school kids are trying to clean up the Schuylkill. With mussels.

The school is small — its building, on Spring Lane in upper Roxborough, is about half full, enrolling about 250 in a building that can accommodate 461. But the recommendations for closing need to be about more than numbers, said State Rep. Tarik Khan, a Democrat whose district includes that area.

“Respectfully, the recommendation to close Lankenau is one of those things that doesn’t make sense when you look at the full picture,” Khan said. “Right now, it’s a recommendation. Early on, it’s important just to say: This is the wrong decision. I will elevate my voice throughout this process, and I’m not alone.”

Lankenau, Khan said, is “firing on all cylinders. The school has so many opportunities for students, so many connections. To take this school out of its environment will break a lot of those connections, will break the cohesiveness.”

The school lacks a gym. But its students play flag football, hike in the woods, and practice archery. It has a 100% graduation rate, officials say, educating a student body that’s primarily Black and brown, with 25% of students requiring special education services.

Jessica McAtamney, Lankenau’s principal for the past five years, stressed that the school is “doing urban agriculture in a very unique campus setting that is anchored in the space. Agriculture is Pennsylvania’s No. 1 industry. Lankenau is preparing kids to do that. This campus is what allows us to do that.”

Roxborough High School, by contrast, is in a dense, residential area. Its building, which can hold almost 2,000 students, is about three-quarters empty.

Like many in the Lankenau community, Erica Stefanovich — who teaches the only Intro to Geographic Information Systems high school course in the city, she believes — was blindsided by word that the school was earmarked for closure.

“They can say that our building condition is an issue, but how is our building a problem when we have air conditioning, zero asbestos, and they put a brand new roof on our school two years ago?” Stefanovich said.

In 2006, the district actually made plans to expand the Lankenau building, going so far as to contract with an architectural firm to make a model. But those plans went by the wayside as the school system hit rocky financial waters in the early 2010s.

No slight against Roxborough, Stefanovich said. It does have a park close by, but “we can’t do mussel experiments in that park. We can’t do our internships that our students love. How do we have beehives when there isn’t enough pollinator space around Roxborough High School to have beehives? Our seniors are out of the building 40% of the time; they are off doing things. If we move, we don’t have that.”

Lankenau used to educate more students.

Before the district changed its school selection process, in 2021, instituting a centralized lottery in the name of equity, the school had bigger incoming classes. It’s a magnet, meaning students have to have certain grades and test scores to qualify, but in the past, administrators had some leeway to let in students who were close to qualifying if they were a good fit.

And though district officials said changes to the admissions procedure were necessary to ensure that that schools’ demographics mirrored the city’s, Lankenau did not have a diversity problem prior to the changes.

Lankenau had 106 ninth graders in 2020-21, before the lottery. It dipped to just 28 freshmen in 2023-24, but after a number of parents and administrators raised concerns about the process, some course corrections were made.

Its numbers are now rising again. Seventy-eight ninth graders entered this school year, and 107 students listed Lankenau as their top choice for the 2026-27 freshman class.

Even if the proposed school closing changes go through, Wyntir Alford, a Lankenau 11th grader from West Oak Lane, will be able to graduate from the school as-is — the change is not planned to take effect until the 2027-28 school year.

But her family was clear: If the closing were happening next year, Alford would have had to transfer.

“My mom told me her first thought was, ‘There’s no way she’s going to Roxborough.’ She said, ‘The reason we put you in Lankenau is because of all the opportunities and all the nature around.’ I’m not surrounded by any nature at home. So to be able to go to a school like this is a big deal.’”

Juniper Sok Sarom, a current Lankenau ninth grader, isn’t sure whether she’ll transfer to Roxborough if the school board approves the closure recommendation. But she knows she’s happy at a school that gives her plenty of hands-on experience.

“Our campus — it’s a special learning environment, which you wouldn’t get at any other school, not even Central or Palumbo or SLA,” Sarom said, referring to Science Learning Academy.

She and others are gearing up to fight the changes, they said.

Charde Earley, a Lankenau paraprofessional, dealt with her own sadness the day students found out about the proposed closure, working through tears. And then, she marveled at how students pivoted to problem-solving, resolving to write letters and speak at meetings.

“My motto is — respectfully, ‘Hell no, we won’t go,’” Earley said. “We’re secluded and we’re safe. You never know what hardship our kids are going through. Imagine what this is doing to our kids.”