NFL Draft Chaos Forces Pittsburgh Students Home Ahead of Major Event

With the NFL draft right around the corner, representatives from the NFL, the Pittsburgh Steelers, the tourism agency Visit Pittsburgh, the Pittsburgh Public School District, and officials from city transportation and public safety have been holding regular meetings to discuss how the draft would leave a long-lasting impact on the city. As seen in past years, the draft is expected to disrupt the day-to-day life in downtown Pittsburgh.

Merecedes J. Williams, a public school official, who has attended these meetings, said that the group has obtained “high-level updates of information” on road closures and the number of visitors the city can expect. According to local officials, they are looking at at least 500,000 to 700,000 visitors. Notably, Pittsburgh only has a population of 300,000.

Officials say that they have no other option but to heighten security. They worry that, owing to the high number of travellers, traffic and transportation would be slowed down, causing inevitable chaos.

Williams further revealed that the group is considering the possibility of the schools offering remote learning during the draft, ticking off all the pros and cons. It’s now up to the superintendent and district leadership to make the executive decision.

Back in March, Pittsburgh Public Schools announced that they would provide remote learning for their students for three days this week, Wednesday through Friday, while the draft is underway. Physical schooling had shut down for at least 19,000 students, complicating their, as well as their parents’ schedules. State standardized testing was also scheduled to begin this week for some students, and now it has been adjusted as well, NBC News reports.

District superintendent Wayne N. Walters told NBC News that they received backlash for the decision. Many parents were not ready to accept that they had to alter their schedule because of the NFL.

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“It becomes a nightmare, really, for transportation, where students may be waiting for hours for their [bus] to show up. And that really creates a safety issue and a disruption and a concern that we want to address,” he said defending the decision.

Walters added, “It is not easy to make a decision like this. But this came in collaboration with a variety of partners. We had Visit Pittsburgh, we had the city of Pittsburgh, we had the NFL, we had the Pittsburgh Steelers, we had our public safety department, and just a variety of other partners really sort of informing this decision for us.”

An NFL spokesperson, however, stated that no representative for the league participated in these meetings and that it played no part in the decisions taken by the school authorities.

Pittsburgh Public Schools responded, saying, "(the statements in the meetings) may have been conveyed through intermediary partners or coordinating organizations working closely with the NFL, such as the Pittsburgh Steelers and Visit Pittsburgh."

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They also clarified that the school district can not speak to (the NFL's) internal staffing or representation."