Education
Philadelphia Closes Schools for Eagles’ Super Bowl Parade
It was a dream come true for Philadelphia children when the Eagles soared to a Super Bowl victory Sunday against the Kansas City Chiefs. Now they’re getting a second wish granted: a day off school to celebrate with the champions at the city’s Super Bowl parade.
The School District of Philadelphia said on Tuesday that it would close all of its schools on Friday, freeing up nearly 200,000 students to join what is expected to be a million-strong crowd flooding the city’s streets. Nearly 20,000 school staff members will also get the day off.
“We look forward to joyfully celebrating the Eagles’ victory as a community,” the district announced, in what might be a formal way of saying, “Go Birds!”
The parade will travel through Center City, starting at 11 a.m. at Lincoln Financial Field, heading north past City Hall and ending by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, according to the city’s map of the route.
Parents face the decision of whether to bring their children to a parade that could involve, in some sections, standing shoulder to shoulder with strangers in temperatures expecting to hover in the 30s. Others might opt to take an impromptu vacation, as Philadelphia schools will also be closed on Monday for Presidents’ Day, giving students a four-day weekend.
Social media was buzzing with opinions and recommendations about the parade, ranging from optimists booking Airbnbs near the stadium to cautious parents advising others to leave their children at home with a sitter.
Philadelphia’s public safety officials issued some precautions for parents who planned to bring children to the parade: make sure they are wearing bright colors; snap a photo of them before leaving; and write their phone number on a bracelet, on their wrist or on a piece of paper in their pocket, in case child and parent get separated.
Other educational institutions around Philadelphia jumped on the bandwagon: Temple University and nearby school districts like Gloucester City School District, in South Jersey, and Ridley School District, in Delaware County, all canceled classes. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia Schools, which oversees Catholic schools in the city and its suburbs, also announced that its high schools, parish and regional elementary schools would be closed.
Transit officials said that there would be limited train service starting from early morning and congestion in the roads because of the street closures. City officials also said that government offices, city daytime centers and courts would also be shut.
The timing of the parade, falling on Valentine’s Day, drew some grumbling from restaurant and flower shop owners in the city, some of whom complained the parade would affect their dinner service and deliveries. Mayor Cherelle Parker of Philadelphia sought to calm those concerns at a news conference on Tuesday.
“To all in our restaurant community, we want you to know that we will be prepared,” she told reporters. “Nothing will interfere with our restaurant reservations on that evening. We will be done well before you are to appear for dinner. So don’t you dare touch any of those reservations.”
Philadelphia’s school district also closed in 2018 for the celebration of the Eagles’ first Super Bowl victory, against the New England Patriots.
Schools were closed during last year’s Super Bowl parade, in Kansas City, Mo., after Kansas City won against the San Francisco 49ers. A shooting at that parade left one person dead and about two dozen others wounded, including nine children.
One of my favorite podcasts is “So True With Caleb Hearon,” hosted by Hearon, a comedian. He recently appeared in “The Devil Wears Prada 2” as Miranda Priestly’s assistant. Having grown up, as Hearon put it, “fat, gay and poor” in rural Missouri, he never dreamed of booking the role “a million girls would kill for.”
Read more.
Here’s what you need to know
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California: Last night was the final televised debate before the primary for the state’s governor. The face-off between seven candidates was tame at first, but they eventually furiously attacked one another. See what went down.
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Hantavirus: Should you worry? Public health officials say the threat to the general public remains low based on what we know. Read more about the hantavirus.
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Jeffrey Epstein: A federal judge released a suicide note believed to be written by the convicted sex offender that had been sealed for years.
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Ted Turner: Turner, the media mogul, yachtsman and creator of CNN, died yesterday at his home in Florida. He was 87.
On an online note …
A few things you didn’t really need to know but now do:
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It’s been nearly 20 years since Guy Goma’s BBC appearance became an early viral internet moment. Goma thought he was interviewing for a job when he suddenly he found himself on air. He pulled it off much better than I could have.
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How are people getting their information about health and wellness? For at least half of U.S. adults under 50, it’s through influencers or podcasters, according to a new analysis.
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Clavicular, the looksmaxxing influencer, has been charged with shooting at an alligator during a livestream.
The New York Knicks hung on to the series lead in a 108-102 thriller against the Philadelphia 76ers. Game 3 is set for tomorrow in Philadelphia.
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Before you go, a quick recommendation
Nineteen books were recognized as winners or finalists of the Pulitzer Prize. I may add some to my reading list.
The 2025-26 academic year is coming to a close, and we have a post describing 10 ways to reflect on these last months and learn from them. But the 10 ways aren’t just for students — we also hope teachers can benefit from them. In fact, we would be delighted if teachers and students did some of the exercises together and told us what happened!
We invite you to post a comment reflecting on any aspect of this school year that you would like to make public, and we have provided some questions below to get you started.
We hope, too, that you will not only post your own reflections but also comment on the thoughts of others. As always, our staff will moderate comments, and we can’t wait to learn from you.
Students and teachers, read our related list of reflection ideas from which the questions below are drawn and then answer any of them that resonate with you. Please identify yourself as a teacher or a student when you post.
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What do you want to remember about this school year? Why?
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What are you especially grateful for this year? To whom would you most like to write a letter of gratitude if you could?
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What surprised you?
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What successes are you most proud of?
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What challenged you? What helped you face or overcome those challenges?
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What did you learn that most matters to you, whether in or out of school?
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What new skills, however small, did you acquire?
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How have you grown — as a student, a friend, a community or family member or a person?
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How could you build on that growth next year?
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What would you like more of in your life? What would you like less of? Why?
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What music would be on the playlist of your 2024-25 school year? Why?
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What books did you read this year that you would recommend to others? Why?
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About what, if anything, did you change your mind? How did that happen?
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If you were to collect and graph some data about your life this school year, what would you choose to graph, and what do you think it might show? What could you learn from it?
Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.
Find more Student Opinion questions here. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate these prompts into your classroom.
French: Can I stop you right there?
Gorsuch: No, let me finish three. Let me finish three. We can talk about two. Two is very important. But so’s three. He said: You write 10 times better than I do. And Jefferson said, oh, all right, I’ll do it. All right, now you can tap in.
French: OK. Well, was that humility or strategy or a combination to say that Jefferson writes?
Gorsuch: Well, I think No. 1 is humility, for sure, and probably true. No. 2 was strategic, for sure, right? I mean, you had had the Boston Tea Party, and all the goings-on in Lexington and Concord. What is it to a Virginian, right? You’ve got to drag everybody along, and you have to remember — everybody thinks we live in divided times, fine, we can talk about that, but back then, only about 40 percent of the colonists were backing the Patriot cause, even in June and July of 1776. Another percent were devoted Loyalists. And then the balance of the country was somewhere in between. Sound familiar? Yeah.
French: Yeah, absolutely. So, Virginia nationalizes this, in other words. It takes it away from being a Massachusetts rebellion, those ornery Puritans, and it turns into an American Revolution.
Now, the other thing that struck me is that Jefferson kind of squirrels away and does the writing on his own. And so, these really seminal words, this American mission statement, we’re “endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights.” This really does seem to be Jefferson’s heart expressed on paper, not writing by committee.
Gorsuch: Well, there’s some of that too, right? This is later on, and he called the “mutilations” what people did to it, all right? You know, we think of the Declaration as this wonderful — “mutilations.” Anyway, but yes, he locked himself in rooms he had rented from a bricklayer on the outskirts of Philadelphia, and he did it in two weeks, and he said he didn’t consult any book or pamphlet. He tried merely to come up with an expression of the American mind. And I don’t think he was thinking about just his mind. I think he was thinking about how people were thinking at the time. And in that, he came up with three, I think, perfect ideas: that we’re all created equal, every one of us, and that each of us has inalienable rights given to us by God, not privileges from government, and that we have a right to rule ourselves.
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