Times Observer photo by Brian Ferry A Warren County School District high school student works from home on Wednesday.

Unlike the last time students left Warren County School District’s schools in the middle of the school year not to return for more than a month, this time, there was some warning.

Due to the surge in COVID-19 cases in the county, the school board on Monday approved a motion brought forward by Superintendent Amy Stewart that closed the schools to in-person education, for the most part, starting Wednesday through Monday, Jan. 25.

Allowing the schools to remain open on Tuesday gave teachers one day to meet with the students, discuss online learning, and make sure they went home with everything they would need to continue their educations from home.

“Everyone did an amazing job getting kids out the door yesterday with the things they need to have at home to learn in the online format,” Stewart said following an administrative debriefing Wednesday after school.

In March, as students were leaving school on a Friday, Gov. Tom Wolf mandated the closure of all schools due to COVID-19. Since then, district officials have been working to make sure they would be prepared in the event such a closure happened again.

The district’s timetable for providing technology to every student was pushed up and internet hot spots were purchased to help students who would not otherwise have access at home.

Those devices were in use on Wednesday as the motion to “implement a remote learning model beginning on Dec. 9 through the end of the second marking period and with the understanding that only Warren County Career Center students, students with full time special education program needs, and students with a documented lack of Internet may still be permitted to do their remote learning at school and/or receive in-person instruction in a school building” was put into effect.

The schools were closed to students on Wednesday. The reopening for those students listed as exceptions will start on Monday.

To help identify problems with student access, most teachers worked from their usual posts in the school buildings.

“Most teachers are in the buildings,” Stewart said. “We wanted to make sure parents could call the school and relay information to the teachers if they were having difficulty.”

“We also wanted to make sure the teachers and their technology was the constant while we worked out the variables on the student end,” she said.

The teachers weren’t the only ones fielding an unusually high number of phone calls. “The technology department dedicated staff to handling troubleshooting calls all day,” Stewart said.

Some problems were identified and not every student was able to attend on the first day of full-virtual school in the district.

“The biggest issue we have right now is working through the logistics of getting all of the kids online from home,” Stewart said. “Some people thought their connection could handle it, but they are finding out that it cannot. Some people thought one type of hot spot would work, and it doesn’t.”

District officials will continue to refine the remote-learning operation.

“We are using these first couple of days to try different strategies, then we will decide if a child needs to come into school to use the district connection to access their online education,” she said. “Our most significant issues with connectivity are in the northern and western attendance areas.”