When district cancels classes, students and parents play

LUCCA ORETO was palling around with his stepdad in the snow yesterday afternoon behind the Philadelphia Museum of Art when he pointed to an almost-black puddle in the road.

"That's not ice! That's not ice!" the sixth-grader repeated to Joe Silvasy. Then Lucca promptly stuck his leg in the slushy goo to prove he was right.

Laughs and guffaws ensued for Lucca and his family, all formerly of Tampa, Fla., and now residents of Fishtown. Lucca and his family, mom Kristel Oreto and sister Angel, had been sledding down the hill behind the museum because the district canceled school, including the kids' classes at Adaire Elementary School in Fishtown.

They weren't the only families who visited the museum yesterday.

Dominic McFadden was in front of the museum, at the top of the Rocky steps, taking pictures of his daughter, Amaya, 9. Her classes at Khepera Charter School in West Mount Airy were canceled Monday and yesterday.

"She's not a video-game kid, she likes to be outdoors," said McFadden, a paramedic who also owns a photography and video company. Amaya asked to tag along with her dad, she said, because she was "bored" at their Mount Airy home.

Silvasy and Kristel Oreto, 32, also got the day off from their jobs at Empire Tattoo in Blackwood, N.J., resulting in a supercool day, literally.

"I have a 35-year-old child [Silvasy] who is throwing temper tantrums that it's snowing outside," said Kristel Oreto, who moved to Philadelphia nearly two years ago. The four first stopped for lunch at Jim's Steaks, then headed to the Art Museum.

The snow day is "a good treat for them. . . . They're straight-A students, never ask for days off. It's good that they got a day off to play," she said.

Online: ph.ly/DNEducation