This school bought 1,300 eclipse glasses. But then the district told them they couldn’t use them

Solar eclipse glasses are a hot commodity right now, but earlier this week Haile Middle School officials had 1,300 glasses they were looking to get off their hands.

That is because over the summer a Haile teacher and Principal Kate Collis ordered 1,300 glasses so the student body could watch Monday’s solar eclipse. But earlier this week, Superintendent Diana Greene announced that all district students must stay indoors, out of concern that viewing the eclipse without proper eye protection could lead to permanent damage.

With that announcement, Haile all of a sudden had 1,300 useless glasses on its hand, so they sold the glasses for $1 each, district spokesman Mike Barber said.

Barber said Haile didn’t have the permission of the district to order nor sell the glasses. He said the district wasn’t in the position to guarantee parents that the glasses would completely protect students’ eyes, so they were not comfortable allowing students to use them.

“The reason the district would not sanction that or authorize that is because we can’t with 100 percent authenticity verify the certification of the glasses,” Barber said.

Barber said the district would not have authorized the school to sell the glasses, for the same reason why they would not allow the students to use them.

School districts have responded to the solar eclipse in a variety of ways. While it is a once-in-a-childhood event that can be used to teach all sorts of science lessons, it also brings with it the danger of children looking directly at the sun.

Health experts say looking at an eclipse without proper glasses can burn the retina irreparably, causing blind spots. In order to safely view the sun during the eclipse, students should wear authorized eclipse glasses, which are far darker than typical sunglasses. But with the glasses in high demand, counterfeits have surfaced. Amazon has issued recalls on glasses that bear the official stamp of the International Organization for Standardization that do not actually meet the standard.

Barber said with so much misinformation about what glasses were safe, the district decided it was better to be safe than sorry.

“Our first and foremost priority is the safety of our students,” Superintendent Greene said in the advisory the district issued earlier this week. “Because we have more than 49,000 students, and we cannot assure that all of them will have the proper eye equipment to safely watch the eclipse, we are coming down on the side of safety.”

Collis did not respond to a voicemail seeking comment. Barber said the situation was unfortunate, but with the eclipse falling right at the very beginning of the school year, officials were dealing with a host of other issues to get the year off to a good start.

“They ordered it on their own not suspecting it would be an issue,” Barber said. “Keep in mind, there’s a lot of stuff going on with running a school district of this size, so everybody was focused on starting school as opposed to the fact that there was a solar eclipse coming up.”

This story was originally published August 18, 2017 at 4:57 PM with the headline "This school bought 1,300 eclipse glasses. But then the district told them they couldn’t use them."