The Philadelphia School District has announced that all public schools, early childhood and after school programs will be closed Friday, Feb. 14.  The second round of severe weather is expected in the region overnight. Schools were also closed today and will be closed on Monday, Feb. 17 for Presidents Day, the school district confirmed.

Photo by Annamarya Scaccia.

UPDATED (2/15/2014): The snow emergency was lifted at 2 p.m. on Friday and it is now safe to park your vehicle on all snow emergency routes.

(2/12/2014, 4:11 p.m.): Here we go again. The city has declared a snow emergency beginning at 8 p.m. tonight, so if you’re parked on one of the snow emergency routes in West Philly you will have to move your car (see below). Public and parochial schools have also been closed for tomorrow ahead of the latest storm, which is expected to dump as much as a foot of snow on the city tonight through tomorrow. Early childhood and after-school programs are also cancelled.

Trash and recycling pick-up is also suspended for Thursday and Friday. Those who usually get rid of their trash on those days are asked to hold on until next Thursday or Friday.

Several major streets in West Philly will be affected, including Chestnut Street, Walnut Street and Woodland Avenue. If your vehicle remains on one of these streets it will be ticketed and towed. If your car is towed, call 215-686-SNOW to find out where they took it. If you have to move your car, city officials are asking you to move it as far from a corner as possible to allow the plows room to turn.

There is no word yet on when the parking ban might be lifted.

In West Philly, snow emergency routes include:

• Chestnut Street from Cobbs Creek Parkway to 20th Street
• Walnut Street from Broad Street to Cobbs Creek Parkway
• Woodland Avenue from Cobbs Creek Parkway to University Avenue
• 34th Street from University Avenue to Grays Ferry Avenue
• 38th Street from Walnut to University Avenue
• 63rd Street from City Avenue to Walnut Street
• University Avenue from 38th Street to 34th Street
• Island Avenue from Woodland Avenue to Enterprise Avenue
• Cobbs Creek Parkway from Walnut Street to Woodland Avenue
• Schuylkill Avenue from Market Street to Walnut Street

School District Chief Operating Officer Fran Burns talks about the district’s plan to sell the Alexander Wilson School building at 46th and Woodland to developers who will likely convert it to a retail/residential building.

It appears that a mixed-used retail/residential building will replace the Alexander Wilson School (46th and Woodland), which the school district closed last June.

Officials from the School District of Philadelphia said during a public meeting Thursday night that all of the leading bids on the building proposed similar uses – a combination of street-level retail and housing. The district’s Chief Operating Officer Fran Burns told about 25 residents gathered in the auditorium of the Henry C. Lea School that it’s “probably not going to be a demolition, but a major renovation within.”

The final bid will not be officially announced and approved until the School Reform Commission (SRC) meeting on Feb. 20 or March 20 (we’ll let you know when we know). No other uses for the building, which many in the community hoped would reopen as a charter school, were proposed by developers and no more offers will be accepted.

Although the purpose of Thursday’s meeting was to elicit public comment on the proposal, officials offered very few details, which frustrated many in attendance.

“I’m a little frustrated about how little of this process seems to be about the impact on the neighborhood,” said a resident who lives near the school.

Burns hinted that the offers proposed student and “multi-family” residences and that senior housing was not part of any of the proposals. No charter school offered a bid, but the nearby University of the Sciences expressed some interest, Burns said.

There are more opportunities for public input, including at the SRC meeting and during the zoning process, but that will be input on the project’s details, not on whether the building should become housing or something else.

Neither the names of bidders nor bid amounts were released. Burns would not say how much is owed in bond payments on Wilson, but said that the sale of the closed schools will not do much to offset budget problems.

“The budget will not be fixed through property sales,” she said.

Here are some more details on the sale process.

The district hopes to close the sale of the school by June 30.

–Mike Lyons

All public schools in Philadelphia are closed Monday, Feb. 3 due to the winter storm warning in the area. Early childhood and after school programs are also closed, but administrative offices will remain open, according to an announcement by the School District of Philadelphia. Between 4 and 8 inches of snow is expected to fall in the area today. The snowstorm warning is in effect until 5 p.m., according to Accuweather.com.

The kindergarten registration line at Penn Alexander School in January, 2012. The school switched to a lottery last year. (Archive photo/West Philly Local)

The worst kept secret at Penn Alexander School (PAS) made the Daily News today. The neighborhood elementary school, which last year switched to a lottery from the first-come first-served kindergarten registration, has students who don’t live in the school’s neighborhood catchment.

The Daily News article focuses on a particular family who lives in Overbrook but has kids enrolled in PAS (you can read it here) thanks to connections with former Superintendent Arlene Ackerman. The family’s name came up in comments on West Philly Local last year when the district implemented the kindergarten lottery.

Here are some other details from the Daily News piece:

• 34 students out of PAS’s 550-student enrollment are living outside the catchment, according to the school district.
• Not PAS administration, but former Philadelphia School District superintendents, including the most recent one, now deceased Arlene Ackerman, could and did use admission exceptions for out-of-catchment students for “an extenuating circumstance … that’s for the well-being and safety of the child,” according to Fernando Gallard, the school district’s spokesperson.
• Current superintendent William R. Hite Jr. has not used this privilege, Gallard told Daily News.
• The district won’t pull any children who live outside the catchment from the school to avoid disruption of their education. In the future, however, the district will allow only families living inside the school boundaries to attend the school, according to Gallard.

To read more about PAS and its recent enrollment issues, click here.

Mayor Michael Nutter declared a “snow emergency” at about 3 p.m. today, meaning parked vehicles must be moved off “snow emergency routes” as soon as possible so they can be plowed.

Several major streets in West Philly will be affected, including Chestnut Street, Walnut Street and Woodland Avenue. If your vehicle remains on one of these streets it will be ticketed and towed. If your car is towed, call 215-686-SNOW to find out where they took it. If you have to move your car, city officials are asking you to move it as far from a corner as possible to allow the plows room to turn.

So far most bus, train and trolley routes are still running, but may have delays. Go to SEPTA.ORG for info. Also, public and parochial schools are closed tomorrow.

See the full list of snow emergency routes citywide here.

In West Philly, snow emergency routes include:

• Chestnut Street from Cobbs Creek Parkway to 20th Street
• Walnut Street from Broad Street to Cobbs Creek Parkway
• Woodland Avenue from Cobbs Creek Parkway to University Avenue
• 34th Street from University Avenue to Grays Ferry Avenue
• 38th Street from Walnut to University Avenue
• 63rd Street from City Avenue to Walnut Street
• University Avenue from 38th Street to 34th Street
• Island Avenue from Woodland Avenue to Enterprise Avenue
• Cobbs Creek Parkway from Walnut Street to Woodland Avenue
• Schuylkill Avenue from Market Street to Walnut Street