100% agreed.
I am very grateful you appreciate trees and I thank you for standing up for them. 
I wish all of humanity would recognize the value of healthy tree(s), healthy canopies, and leave healthy trees alone, to the fullest extent feasible–I did have to cut one down that had started falling on our house.
(and now, with apologies for my treehugger soapboxing; and this is not directed at you because I think you get it already…)
Over the years, I have gotten into so much conflict re planting trees, protecting trees, mulching-watering-pruning-feeding-caging-staking-of-trees and more in my neighborhood. Having not been called before my property owners association in nearly two months, I know the clock is merely ticking seconds away from my next helping of reprimands, threats, etc.
The cathedral of trees you mention has always been the only church I belong to.
Cutting down any healthy trees, anywhere, has always been gut-repugnant to me. I have felt this way for as long as I can remember being alive, even as a kid. It bothers me more now because the world is hotter, we need more shade, more CO2 sequestration, more fresh air, more evapotranspiration, more beauty and living things in “the built environment” etc.
The lack of respect that [human] tree-killers have for living beings that are often tens or hundreds of years older than the chainsaw-wielding human in question is more proof to me that we as a species have left the path of reason quite some time ago.
Planting trees is and has been my only redress when I despair of humanity’s endless stupidity.1
That said, the whole “here’s a thumb in your eye” jack move from these school administrators who chose to kill off food-providing mature shade-makers…
… is, to me, even more perverse. Far more perverse.2 I have been to apple orchards with apple trees upwards of 100 years old. So I can completely sympathize with and feel the righteous anger of @moortaktheundea.
Human choices have generational consequences far beyond the one year the action is taken. The messaging too, from those school admins, is one of ignorance, blindness, laziness, short-sightedness, majorly-missed opportunities, and a real stab in the back for pollinators. So many learning opportunities missed. Fresh apple juice. Insect life-cycles. For pete’s sake, it’s possible to make a whole dang curriculum out of the apple trees they cut down.
Imagine the takeaway, stated and unstated, the students there learn from the school admin’s actions and mindsets. “Screw you, next generations!” would be one, IMO.
My dad worked at a food bank for years, before he died. This food bank was in a food desert, in a massive city, in the American midwest. No fresh fruit for miles, courtesy of redlining, late stage capitalism, cynical city planners, and so much more. I was just getting started with Global Re-Leaf in that city before I moved out. It would have been great to plant food-bearing trees in that city. Now I live near a town that has this and this for ongoing projects, both of which support fruit tree growing in urban areas, especially in food deserts.
In urban areas (i.e., not in a dedicated forest on so-called protected lands often logged for pennies courtesy of various governmental co-optors), trees’ services importantly include reduced crime rates, mental health benefits, and “increased property values” WTFTM.
The services all trees provide us are beyond financial and economic measure.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1618866718303893
https://www.fs.fed.us/psw/publications/mcpherson/psw_2016_mcpherson001_livesley.pdf
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As you may imagine, these days, I have been quite busy. Where I live now, it’s easily 2-4 hours labor to dig a hole due to the enormous rocks here in the Edwards Plateau. Watering through droughts here in Texas is not for the weak of limb or faint of heart, and every tree needs at least 2 years of weekly watering at minimum. I heartily recommend planting and caring for trees if anyone wanting an opportunity for spiritual growth.
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From where I stand, there are orders of magnitude re tree-killing sins. My opinions may be odd, and not widely held. Sheeesh in my own neighborhood, I know that’s true.
ETA: typos
