Oak Lane Day School will close in June

The families of the 70 preschool and elementary students at Oak Lane Day School in Blue Bell got the bad news in an e-mail.

Despite selling the school's bucolic, 30-acre campus last month to try to stay afloat, the financial challenges of finding a new home and operating a tiny school in an increasingly competitive private school market were just too great.

After 93 years of offering progressive education, Oak Lane will close in June.

No matter what the school's board tried, it could not make the numbers work.

"We looked at a lot of places for the school and our summer camp, but it came down to what was going to work for us," said Martha Platt, a sixth-grade teacher who is a member of the school's board of trustees.

"Although we have a terrific school here, it is an incredibly competitive market," Platt said.

Oak Lane is one of a dozen private elementary schools within a five-mile radius. She said the number does include Catholic parish schools or the elementary programs at private K-12 schools such as nearby Germantown Academy in Fort Washington.

"We knew to best serve our families and our faculty, we needed to make a decision in October," Platt said.

The news was especially hard for parents like Amy Herzel who, after an intensive search, sent her son, Maxim Krinski, off to kindergarten at Oak Lane last month.

Maxim, she said, loves Oak Lane and wakes up every morning excited about a new day of learning and exploring the outdoors with his eight kindergarten classmates and the school's veteran staff.

"What is so great about what Oak Lane does is that their teachers are top-notch," said Herzel, an arts educator who lives in Roxborough.

She has not yet told her son that his kindergarten year will be his last at Oak Lane.

"We'll have that conversation when we start visiting schools," Herzel said. "Several kindergarten parents and I are starting to look. The enrollment process at private schools begins now. All are having open houses in October."

In a statement announcing the board's weekend decision, Platt wrote: "Looking back on its long and illustrious history, Oak Lane has a lot to celebrate as it enters its final year."

The school was founded in Cheltenham Township in 1916 by parents and educators during the days of the Progressive Education Movement, which produced several child-centered approaches that focused on learning by doing. The school was one of six model programs the U.S. State Department selected to show visiting dignitaries.

The school's philosophy calls for giving children opportunities to learn through discovery and developing their self-esteem through creative expression.

After three decades of being part of Temple University and used for Temple's teacher-training program, what was then known as the Oak Lane Country Day School was dissolved by the university in 1960. Parents and teachers rallied to save the school, which was renamed and reborn as an independent school in rented facilities in Glenside.

The school moved to its 30-acre campus at Stenton Avenue and Butler Pike in Whitpain Township in 1964.

In April, school officials announced they were selling the campus and would search for a new home after the 2009-10 academic year.

The property was sold for $3 million Sept. 30th to an individual with the understanding that the school would continue operating through June. Platt said the new owner, who has not been publicly identified, said he plans to build a large home. She said the purchaser has said he intends to preserve the school's gym, which has won architectural awards, and the barn.