It’s too early to say for certain, but schools could be out for summer.

One of the items on the agenda for Monday’s special meeting of the school board related to adjusting the Warren County School District calendar in response to COVID-19.

During a discussion of the schedule, Superintendent Amy Stewart expressed doubt about the schools opening again this year.

“I’ll be surprised if we end up coming back to school this year,” Stewart said. “But, I don’t know that yet.”

Still, the district is working on how to deliver education without utilizing its buildings.

The lack of knowing made making detailed plans for the future moot.

“To make decisions at this point would be premature,” Stewart said.

Those decisions would include things like graduation and prom in addition to the school year.

There were a lot of people in the Warren County School District community interested in some word on possible changes to the school calendar. But, after Gov. Tom Wolf announced Monday that schools would be closed ‘indefinitely,’ the board didn’t vote on its proposal.

That item and the corresponding proposed change were crafted when the district expected to return students to school on Thursday, April 9.

The proposal was to move an energy day — a day scheduled without school that could be switched to make up for a snow day — to April 9 to prevent students from having to return for one day before Easter break.

“The calendar revision was intended to switch out some days,” Superintendent Stewart said. “We were informed that schools are closed until further notice. It’s no longer necessary to revise the calendar to get this Easter thing fixed.”

Board member Marcy Morgan said she has heard that the virus is expected to reach its highest impact soon.

“They’re looking for the peak to occur around Easter,” she sad. “The highest number of new infections. When they let people go back out is when they don’t have any new infections.”

Exactly when that will happen is anyone’s guess.

“Right now we are on an indefinite hold,” Stewart said. “That’s why we removed it from the agenda.”

At some point, the district will have to consider more dramatic changes to the school year.

When schools were initially closed by order of the governor, it was announced that days lost to the virus would not have to be made up to satisfy the requirement that schools be held for 180 days a year.

Administrators are working on a ‘continuity of education’ plan, Stewart said. “I need to publish our continuity of education plan this week.”

“We are not willing to leave kids behind,” she said. “If we were to put every child behind a laptop, we would be leaving children behind. We are not an online district.”

The first phase of that plan includes distribution of enrichment and review materials to every student starting Tuesday. School buses will run their normal routes on a two-hour-delay schedule Tuesday. On those buses will be packets of materials for every student on that route. Those who cannot meet the buses may pick up the packets with their students’ names on them at district locations starting Wednesday. The locations are based on where the student attends school and where they live.

The second phase will involve “connecting teachers with their own students,” Stewart said.

The third phase will return to instruction.

That is down the road and it’s possible the schools could reopen.

The lack of a requirement to make up lost time does not mean the board could not choose to extend the school year.

“We’re not in a position right now as a board or an administration to talk about extension… until we get further notice from the governor’s office, or the president’s office, for that matter,” board member Joe Colosimo said.

“Absolutely right,” Superintendent Stewart said. “Twelve states have closed until the end of the year. We simply just don’t know.”

“We can’t pretend to know things that we don’t know right now,” she said. “We are all in the same boat.”

“We’re working hard. We have good plans,” Stewart said. “I don’t think it would be responsible for us to make a big, emphatic statement right now about what we’re going to do about graduation or what our end date is going to be.”