Joseph Sabino Mistick is an associate professor of law at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh.
When Pittsburgh Public Schools decided to close district campuses for three days during NFL draft festivities in a few weeks, it might have seemed like one more sign that football is supreme here. The city takes the game seriously enough to have a priest bless the end zones at Acrisure Stadium before every Pittsburgh Steelers game.
You would think that hosting such a marquee event — the draft’s first day is April 23 — would be all that people were talking about in coffee shops and bars and on talk radio. But the school closings — and shifting students to remote learning for those days — have ignited a debate about public education and the reasons for shutting down classroom instruction. Hard work, responsibility and, yes, in-person learning are important, and the school district’s decision sends the wrong message.
Pittsburghers take pride in their practical solutions, especially the quirky ones, such as the “Pittsburgh chair” that we use to save the parking space we shoveled out after a snowstorm. There are folding chairs, barstools, even an occasional upholstered chair — whatever your choice. The chairs are sacrosanct, and they help avoid neighborhood disputes.
Or the “Pittsburgh toilet” that stands alone and unobstructed in the basement of many older working-class homes — porcelain artifacts of when the mills were booming. It made practical sense when the men returned from the mills to wash off the grime in the laundry tubs and finish their business in the basement before going upstairs for their meal.
But there has been no easy solution for keeping schools open when an expected 500,000 to 700,000 visitors attend events split between Point State Park in downtown Pittsburgh and Acrisure Stadium across the Allegheny River in the North Side. And history is no help.
Detroit, with more than twice the population of Pittsburgh, kept its schools open when it hosted the event in 2024. Green Bay, Wisconsin, with one-third the population of Pittsburgh, closed its schools last year.
Lori Blakeslee, the Green Bay school district’s communications director, said the district planned ahead and requested state permission to start the school year three days early so that the schools could close for the draft. Blakeslee said Lambeau Field is in a business and residential area, with two schools only blocks away.
Only one of Pittsburgh’s 54 public schools is near downtown. Nearly all the rest are miles away and separated from the area by rivers and bridges and hills and tunnels, where the crowds will never come close. For parents with children in those schools, none of this makes sense.
Many parents are scrambling to find someone to pay to watch their kids for those three days, or they will have to miss work and lose money. The district’s roughly 18,000 students would be cut off from free daily breakfasts and lunches at school that they are eligible for.
Some educators believe that learning will suffer. The school district’s announcement said, “Transitioning to asynchronous learning allows us to support students academically while helping families navigate the logistical challenges expected across the region.”
Bill Isler, president and chief executive emeritus of Fred Rogers Productions, served on the Pittsburgh school board for 16 years, including five as its president. He does not believe that asynchronous learning qualifies as actual learning.
“Every time there is the smallest issue, we talk about remote learning,” he said. “But education is a social experience, and it is relationship-based with teachers. Real learning takes place in the classroom.”
James Fogarty, executive director of the nonprofit A+ Schools Pittsburgh, agreed with Isler about closing schools. But he also said the logistical problems of staying open are the result of a decision made decades ago to create magnet schools throughout Pittsburgh.
“Thousands of students must cross the city every day, and nearly every bus goes through downtown. Only one-third of our students go to their assigned neighborhood school,” he said.
In many ways, we should be thankful for the technical advances that allow us to turn to remote teaching and remote learning. Without that, students’ academic progress would have stopped abruptly during covid-19. But maybe it is too convenient, too easy to go remote now that we know how to do it.
Aside from this controversy, folks here are excited to host the NFL draft. Pittsburgh is no longer the “Smoky City” of decades ago, and visitors are sure to marvel at the city’s natural beauty, a reliable recruiting tool. And the economic boost to the city and region is welcome.
But we may have missed a great opportunity to teach students another important lesson rooted in Pittsburgh culture. Anyone who grew up here remembers that dads and granddads, uncles and aunts went to work every day in factories and mills. In the worst weather, when they were sick or injured or feeling down, they poured through the gates and worked their shifts. They certainly wouldn’t stay home because there was a big celebration in town. They all met their responsibilities.
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