Districts to use calamity day for total eclipse

BUTLER COUNTY — Day will become night for a historically rare school day in April, and for thousands of area students it will also be a celestial holiday from classes.

For the first time in more than 200 years, southwest Ohio — and other parts of the state and Midwest — will experience on April 8 a total or near total solar eclipse.

Though the total blackout of the sun by the moon that day will center more on Ohio’s Darke County to the north of Butler County, the onset of nighttime blackness at mid-afternoon has already prompted some local school officials to schedule classes off for that Monday.

Among those cancelling school are the 10,000-student Fairfield Schools and the 9,000-student Hamilton Schools as well as Edgewood and Talawanda schools.

Thousands from around the nation and the world are expected to travel to Ohio given its central positioning within the 124-mile band of darkness that will hit our region beginning at 3:08 p.m.

Though dramatic in shadowing out nearly all sunlight locally, the eclipse will last only about five minutes.

“Because of this rare and spectacular event, it is expected that on the day of the eclipse, the local population near the eclipse’s center line could triple or quadruple,” wrote Hamilton Schools Superintendent Mike Holbrook in a recent message to school parents.

“Butler County and Hamilton, Ohio, are just south of the eclipse’s center line. School districts and municipalities have been warned to expect extreme demands and stresses on local infrastruc