Citing safety concerns, the local school board has decided to cancel all K-12 classes across the district on Monday, April 8, because of a total solar eclipse set to occur that afternoon.

The Maine School Administrative District 75 Board of Directors made the last-minute calendar change during a meeting on Thursday, March 28, at the request of district Superintendent of Schools Heidi O’Leary.

She noted that the eclipse was expected to occur right when younger students would be boarding school buses to go home for the day. MSAD 75 covers Harpswell, Topsham, Bowdoin and Bowdoinham.

“This is something that a lot of people really didn’t know about when we formed the calendar last year,” O’Leary said, adding that over the past month, district officials in Maine have become increasingly concerned about student safety during the rare astronomical event.

In areas ranging from Mexico to Canada, including Maine at roughly 3:30 p.m., there will be a total solar eclipse on April 8, in which the moon passes between Earth and the sun, completely blocking the sun’s light with its shadow. The effect will resemble twilight and last a few minutes.

Although the district has ordered special eclipse-watching glasses for all students, O’Leary said it would be challenging and distracting to put the district’s bus drivers in charge of making sure kids are using them correctly and staying calm.

The cancellation requires the district to extend the school year by one day, placing the last day of school on Tuesday, June 11, unless there are additional snow days yet to come.

Another option would have been to have students attend a half-day, O’Leary said, but that would have created other logistical challenges and still would have required the school year to be extended by a day. She added that simply extending the school day past the eclipse on April 8 would have created employee issues.

“We talked a lot about this, and we proposed different ideas,” she said, and canceling classes outright made the most logical sense.

The school board voted unanimously among the 12 members present to approve the April 8 cancellation and June 11 school year extension, but not without criticism.

“I am very frustrated by the lateness of this decision,” said board member Kim Pacelli, of Topsham. “Here we are, six business days before the date, springing this on families. It’s profound.”

Pacelli said she didn’t blame the district for not staying abreast of celestial events, but that someone at the state level should have thought sooner about the coming eclipse and associated school safety issues.

She also lamented the loss of a potential teaching moment in which the district could have ensured every student got a chance to participate in viewing the eclipse. At home, some kids might not get that chance, Pacelli said.

O’Leary said it was clear from communications going on among her peers that other school districts in Maine were feeling similarly frustrated. She recommended that Pacelli reach out to Maine Commissioner of Education Pender Makin with her concerns.

“I think that every school district in the state of Maine, by my involvement with the text messaging of lots of superintendents … they’re all discussing the same thing,” O’Leary said. “Like, ‘What is going on?’ Like, ‘Nobody had this in their plan.'”

Have a comment or news tip? Email J. Craig Anderson at craig@harpswellanchor.org.