Wadsworth City Schools’ Superintendent Dr. Hill recommended that all schools in the district close for the solar eclipse on April 8 at the Board of Education meeting on February 12

Per Hill’s recommendation, the day off will be marked as a calamity day.

“I, in talking to our administrative team and getting feedback from our employee groups, think that probably what we need to do is revise our school calendar and officially close school on April 8 for the Solar Eclipse,” Hill said at the meeting. “We had initially planned to be open, there has been a lot of planning and thought that had gone into that actually for a number of years.”

Barberton, Norton, and Copley, who are all members of the Four Cities Compact, have already called off school for that day. Many other schools in the surrounding area have also done the same.

“The more that we get into some of the concerns that are being raised by employees, by parents, guardians, and others, and we take a look into what is happening around us as well, we think that the best decision to be made is to go ahead and close,” Hill said at the meeting.

Members of the community had voiced concerns about school being open due to the rapid increase of people and traffic coming from outside of the area to witness the eclipse. Additionally, the eclipse is happening around 3 p.m. which coincides with student dismissal. This worried parents with student drivers or students who walk home after school.

“We’ve ordered glasses for students that we can still distribute to be used for outside of school purposes,” Hill said at the meeting.

Previously, the school had planned to stay open due to the educational opportunities that the eclipse offered. To support this idea, they purchased 5,000 pairs of protective eyewear for students and staff in the district, and purchased another 5,000 pairs to sell to the community. With each pair of eyewear costing around 48 cents, the school spent around $4,800 on this.

Hill stated that the protective eyewear would still be distributed to students and staff for them to use on the eclipse day.