Are sure they said it’s the danger of the darkness? Do you have a link? The period of totality/darkness, assuming the eclipse is total, is the only safe time to view it with the naked eye. Whereas there is a lot more time before and after when the sun is only partly obscured that will cause eye damage if you look without proper eye protection. The time of danger is way more than 4.5 minutes.
Stoopid School Board! Why not just reschedule the eclipse for a Saturday?
“By rescheduling the PA Day to coincide with the eclipse, we mitigate possible transportation and safety concerns and challenges for families that could arise as a result of the darkness that would be experienced during school dismissal time."
Too bad the schools do not use the day to promote science, and how scientific study helps us understand our universe as opposed to superstition.
I remember going to school later on the day of the eclipse in 1979. Didn’t watch the eclipse live - it was cloudy, so we watched it on Good Morning America.
When the space shuttle made it’s final flight into Dulles (riding piggy-back) my daughter’s school principal had the bright idea to have a fire drill. All the kids got to line up outside and watch it go by for the last time. It’s a thing they’ll remember for life.
When I went to pick up my daughter that evening there were parents grumbling about the kids “missing class time” because of it. I took out an ad in the school newsletter that month thanking the principal for his wisdom in combining the required annual fire drill with this amazing opportunity.
Some people will never remember or understand the importance of awe in the life if a child. When life gets hard, it’s the memory of those bigger things, those glimpses of a wider world, a larger universe, that can get you through. So many GenXers will talk about that “pale blue dot” moment on TV when they are feeling overwhelmed.
tl:dr Let the kids see the dang eclipse.
Well said.
May I add they might also get a feeling of, “See? Humanity CAN do shit if we put our minds to it!”? Sometimes, I wonder… .
I could actually see traffic concerns, but it would be due to eclipse tourists maybe making traffic worse. But surely people could be trusted to wait a few minutes during the eclipse.
It makes me wonder if this is just a transparent excuse, and they want to be able to see the eclipse. Does a PA day end significantly earlier than the normal school day?
Yeah, I do hope this is the actual reason. I do plan to pull my kids out of school anyway and go to Buffalo or Cleveland or wherever to see the eclipse. A total solar eclipse is among the most amazing natural phenomena (actually, for me, it is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen it twice), so I totally support taking a day off to see it if you can. Near-total doesn’t even come close. It’s total or who gives a shit for me.
It could be that the school district only allows, by their own ordinances or state ordinances, cancellation of class due to holidays, teacher in-service days, and hazard. They really wanted to cancel school that day because kids will be taken out of school anyway, and/or be distracted, but their lawyer said “no can do…unless it’s a hazard?” and they decided yes, it’s a hazard. And that’s why it’s publicized as such.
My local school district here in the Cleveland area, and several others around us, have already canceled school. They didn’t frame it as a hazard, so I suspect their ordinances don’t require a hazard.
Some people seem to think that it gets pitch black during an eclipse-- it doesn’t. We were in Nebraska in 2017 where we should have taken a picture of the temporarily signs their highway department put up: “Use headlights during eclipse”. The streetlights came on, but it was barely as dark as sunset, and only for a few minutes.
I hope someone persuaded the school board to close school because it was going to get too dark for safety, while the real reason they wanted school closed is to give the kids a chance to NOT be in a classroom. Perhaps a scientist realized that arguing about science wouldn’t get anyone anywhere.
I’m gobsmacked that a school in the path of totality would do anything other than plan to have all the kids outdoors suitably supplied with eclipse glasses.
Also, looking at the eclipse is only dangerous before and after. During totality it’s safe to look.
OK. It’s official.
I’m 50, and kids today are spoiled little wimpy brats who apparently can’t walk home during 4 minutes of dusk.
Fer crissake, none of us went straight home after school, and we all walked, and it got dark not long after we were let out. That is, by the time we walked home for dinner it was completely dark.
Sounds like someone has watched the Riddick films too many times
Uphill in the snow! Both ways! 
I think you misread the article, the school board is cancelling school. They’re not cancelling the eclipse, that will still happen.
You’re eight. You’re walking home from school. The sun is doing something super weird in the sky. Your parents might have told you not to look at it, but it’s really weird. What do you do?
I’m almost 50, but I work with kids, and I think you’re fundamentally missing the point. It’s not about dusk, it’s about the unique danger that an eclipse presents to those with poor self-control, like children and ex-presidents.
Of the four localities mentioned in the article, only 2 are experiencing totality (and one of them only for 27 seconds.) If I were in the near-totality zone, I would take my kids out of school and drive somewhere where it’s 100%. It’s a huge difference, trust me. Now whether anticipated absences figures into this, I don’t know, but I hope so.
Another angle is that perhaps they didn’t want to take on any liability in taking the kids outside to see the eclipse, so they just let the parents deal with the viewing.
Definitely. Dismissal can be one of the least-supervised times of the school day, espeically in places where students walk home. Avoiding this liability may be a big piece of it.
But I still wonder whether they considered this press release:
A lot of staff members are planning to be absent during the eclipse, so we’re cancelling school that day.
and decided to write something about safety so it’d sound better.
Except upthread it’s specifically stated that it IS due to the darkness.