Feb. 9—GOSHEN — To accommodate for the April 8 solar eclipse, districts locally and across the state are reworking school calendars.

At Middlebury Community Schools, students previously had March 22 off, but now they’ll have April 8 off, to accommodate for the solar eclipse. The district made the announcement Thursday.

The solar eclipse in totality will reach portions of Indiana at 3:06 p.m. Northern Indiana won’t see the total eclipse, but at about 97%, it’s enough to cause a stir, and it’s a dramatically different situation than annual lunar eclipses or the Aug. 21, 2017, solar eclipse. In 2017, northern Indiana experienced 85% of the eclipse around 2:20 p.m. The April event features significantly more coverage in the region, and will be visible at least in part from around 1:50 p.m. to 4:20 p.m., at a time when the majority of students will be in transport home from school.

Concord made the decision officially during its Jan. 22 board meeting. The board chose to move the eLearning day previously scheduled for March 20 to April 8 to accommodate the eclipse.

Superintendent Dan Funston said during the board meeting that parents and bus drivers were asking him and expressing concerns.

“Asking bus drivers to make sure that kids aren’t looking at the sun, it’s a lot of different things like that,” Funston said during the board meeting. “People reaching out that they were taking their kids out of school … it just made sense because it’s really just a wash.”

Funston said he wouldn’t feel confident with the situation if they had to add an eLearning day to the calendar, but as one already existed to switch out, it was a reasonable alternative.

“In reviewing the reports, the near path of totality is expected to be covering our area at the same time that some Concord students were getting on the bus to go home,” Funston wrote later in explanation. “In order to ensure students’ safety and eliminate any potential concerns with students viewing the eclipse without appropriate eyewear, we decided to move a previously scheduled eLearning Day to April 8th.”

Superintendent of Goshen Community Schools Jim Dubois said he plans to present a recommendation to the district’s school board Feb. 26.

“We are planning on that recommendation to be eLearning of some kind,” Dubois said by text. “We will talk about safety and the science of the event prior to and part of the eLearning day.”

“When it gets dark like that and the change, you also notice a change in the birds and the wildlife like that,” Brenda Donat, an eclipse enthusiast from Syracuse, said. “And not only do you want to look up, but you want to look down, in totality, because the shadows completely change what you’re seeing. They’re all moon-shaped.”

For the August 2017 eclipse, Donat and her daughter Carrie traveled to Princeton, Kentucky, to experience the totality. Originally, they’d been stationed in Missouri, but thunderstorm predictions had them high-tailing it east to find another location to shoot the sky. Traffic, Donat said, was so bad that they ended up heading back west to Illinois to get a hotel for the night before returning home.

Carbondale, Illinois, is the center-line of the path of totality this year. Donat explained that they still plan to head south, but remain in Indiana, and from there, they’ll go wherever has the best view. This time, the totality zone passes through Vincennes, Bloomington, and near Richmond in Indiana

“We’re just going to go where we know there’s going to be clear skies,” Donat said. “We’ve got choices. Otherwise, we’ll stay in the path and set up wherever we can.”

From her experiences with the solar eclipse in 2017, Donat believes this one will be a sight to behold, even in northern Indiana. In Goshen, the expectation is that about 97% of the eclipse will be visible at its apex.

“This one here is the most amazing thing to ever see if you’re in the totality of it,” Donat said. “If you’re in 92 or 99%, you’re still going to think it’s awesome, but it’s nothing like the complete picture you’ll see.”

In Donat’s mind, keeping students out of school on that day is a good decision because, as she experienced in 2017, traffic backups only increase during eclipses whether on main roads and interstates, or local roads.

“It’s going to be bananas,” she said. “Maybe it won’t be in this area because we’re not going to be at 100% but it’s not going to be great.”

At Westview Jr.-Sr. High School, plans are to use the day to celebrate student achievement.

“Any student that passes and has no failing grade will get to participate in this,” said Principal Tim Wilson. “The eclipse will be part of it, but there will be other activities, too.”

Out on the soccer field in the afternoon, they’ll have food trucks and activities and join together using solar eclipse glasses provided to the entire district by the admin office to experience the eclipse together. The district purchased glasses months ahead to ensure they’d have a supply.

The event is funded by a grant from the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative aimed at student incentives to bring grades up. It’s the Monday after Westview’s spring break.

Dani Messick is the education and entertainment reporter for The Goshen News. She can be reached at dani.messick@goshennews.com or at 574-538-2065.