Am I being a party pooper?

[SassySandy]

Ok, I am a Philly transplant and not terribly into their professional sports teams. While I love +Chaput, I don’t understand why he is closing all Archdiocesan schools for the celebration parade. Isn’t this sending the wrong message? And yes, my kid will be off and we have to scramble to make alternate arrangements for child care.

 

[Irishmom2]

Yeah, just a bit of a party pooper.
Philly has been waiting for this for a long time.

 

[SassySandy]

I get it…I like other sports. It’s the alternate work arrangements many parents have to make on short notice, and that’s not always easy when you live in an area where school is closed for snow days.

 

[Irishmom2]

Yes, that is a problem. Maybe they think parents are going to have off too.

 

[SassySandy]

That’d be our Archbishop who thinks parents will have off…and that isn’t happening. Thank goodness my surgery wasn’t schedule for that day. Can you imagine?

 

[SassySandy]

If it helps the economy downtown, that would be great. The city is really suffering.

 

[Axsenex]

It’s once in a lifetime for Philly fans but I’m sure you’ll live through it.

 

[1ke]

I don’t understand why he is closing all Archdiocesan schools for the celebration parade.

Probably because a lot of people want to go to it, like teachers, students, custodians, administrators, etc.

Isn’t this sending the wrong message?

What “wrong message” would it send?

Would you prefer the message, “Don’t have any fun, ever?”

ETA: I also wonder if there are logistical concerns such as traffic, public transportation, etc., that would also give the Archbishop a reason to close the schools beyond the parade. Maybe public transport will be on holiday schedule, roads will be closed, and he might be preemptively avoiding all the problems of kids and teachers getting to school and home.

 

[1ke]

From the Archdiocese:

Given projected city street closures and heavy demands on public transportation in the Philadelphia region, Archdiocesan high schools and parochial elementary schools in the City of Philadelphia will be closed on February 8th.

 

[Xantippe]

ETA: I also wonder if there are logistical concerns such as traffic, public transportation, etc., that would also give the Archbishop a reason to close the schools beyond the parade. Maybe public transport will be on holiday schedule, roads will be closed, and he might be preemptively avoiding all the problems of kids and teachers getting to school and home.

Yeah. Our kids go to a downtown school and there’s a Major Event downtown in the fall. School has scheduled the parent-teacher conference day and an extra day off to coincide with the Major Event so that we won’t have to fight the event traffic.

The congestion issues can be extreme for these major events.

We accidentally had our Christmas service at the same time as another Major Event downtown a couple blocks away, and it was nearly catastrophic. I arrived in good time to our normal parking lot, nearly got trapped by a person who had parked wrong, blocking the normal traffic flow, and then had to drive two blocks away, and walk to the Christmas service in the dark with Baby Girl. Meanwhile, hundreds of other people in our school community were doing the exact same thing. It was a miracle we had our Christmas program at all.

 

[Allegra]

The archbishop probably has more information than you do. As others have pointed out, there’s the issue of parking and traffic. Also, not having enough subs if all the teachers bail. I know it’s hard to find childcare though.