The Trees are Singing No More

Yesterday we got to school and they were cutting a big limb off one of the beautiful trees out front of the school. Okay we thought, it must have been dead. Then we noticed the chipper and the caution tape all around the school. And they kept cutting, not just that one limb but the whole tree. It was sad but we figured the tree must have had it coming. So we went on.
Then we got an email from the principal telling us the sad news: Every single tree around our school (and there are tons, they give us much needed shade in when it's 97 degrees outside like it will be today) was to be cut down. Every single tree!
By lunchtime it looked like a tornado had gone through and by the time we left at 4pm it looked like a bad horror movie. The trees are all gone. All gone.
Apparently they stopped watering them several years ago and because we live in the desert, the trees' roots went looking for water. Guess where they found it, yep, under the foundation of the school. So the story is that the roots were starting to hurt the foundation. They tried rewatering this fall to no avail.
We had just read a novella in class, Song of the Trees, in which a family fights to save their woods from clear cutters because the little girl says the trees are singing to her. It's a great story and my class really liked it, even did well on the test. And yesterday it was really sad to have one of my girls come up to me and with all sincerity say, "Miss Knapp, the trees aren't singing any more."
One of my boys asked me what would happen in 50 years when we can't breathe and I said I didn't know because I really don't. But I do know it was sad to see those trees gone. It will be sad to drive up to school today and see the sand and only sand. And to look out my window all day and not see trees and shade but sun and highway.
There's talk of replanting and we were admonished to look forward not complain but I really think it's sad. I grew up with a pretty hefty respect for trees and nature and I wish there was something else they could have done.