PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The Philadelphia School District has announced that students will virtually attend class Friday, after life-threatening floods struck the city following severe storms from the remnants of Hurricane Ida.
The district announced that school will end at normal times Thursday, but students will "participate in 100% digital learning" Friday.
They also will cancel all after-school activities for the rest of this week.
The district said to expect delays for students returning home Thursday due to flood issues. They also said that staff would reach out directly to families about dismissal for specific schools in flood-prone areas, including:
· Shawmont Elementary School
· Cook-Wissahickon School
· AMY Northwest
· Thomas Mifflin School
· Academies at Roxborough
· Walter B. Saul High School
Schools and district buildings are scheduled to re-open on Wednesday, September 8 with Labor Day on Monday and Rosh Hashanah on Tuesday.
'Evolving situation' led to 2-hour delay Thursday; union called it 'irresponsible'
Parents and teachers were grumbling Thursday over the school district's last-minute decision to open schools on a two-hour delay Thursday because of the aftermath of Ida.
The district emailed and tweeted that schools with 8:30 and 9:00 a.m. start times would be on a two-hour delay because of storm-related road closures.
But those alerts went out around 8:45, well after many students and teachers were already on their way to school.
"Naturally, we want to make communication to families as early as possible," Schools Superintdent William Hite said at an online city briefing.
"The communication this morning went out later than we would have liked, and our goal is to always share that information as quickly as possible."
The district was dealing with "an evolving situation," Hite said.
"By that time, we had more of an indication of what the roads looked like and the difficulty with which individuals would have getting to and from schools."
Hite said it was important that schools stayed open as an essential service, but the teachers union ripped the decision to open as "irresponsible," saying in a statement that the union shared members' frustrations about the late announcement of a two-hour delay.
Mayor Kenney was asked whether he thought schools should have opened.
"Hindsight's always 20/20, but everyone seems to be safe," Kenney said.
The mayor said he didn't get involved in opening or closing schools, saying "that's why we have a school board and a superintendent."
