The return to in-person schooling in Warren County School District is two weeks away, and, for now, district officials are sticking with that plan.

The school board approved a plan to go to full-virtual instruction starting Dec. 9 and to return not before Tuesday, Jan. 26 – the start of the district’s second semester.

“It’s too soon to tell us what things are going to look like on the 26th,” Superintendent Amy Stewart said during Monday night’s meeting of the school board. “Things are looking good. We are far better off right now, than we were coming back from Thanksgiving break.”

She presented information about the number of employees isolated and quarantined so far during the school year.

“Between the start of school and the Thanksgiving holiday we had five isolations,” Stewart said.

Isolation is required of people who are COVID-positive.

“Between Thanksgiving and the end of the year, we had 43,” she said. “Now, we have five. Those five positives we have right now are spread over five schools.”

“When we came back from Thanksgiving, Tuesday was a crazy day here,” she said. “By Thursday and Friday, I was having conversations with (school board president) Donna (Zariczny) saying, I don’t think this is going to work. It was skyrocketing.”

Over the school year so far, there have been 145 quarantines among staff. There were 11 quarantines among the staff as of Monday. Quarantine is required of people who have come in close contact with a positive case.

She said officials at Warren General Hospital agree that the numbers in the county are trending downward. “I think things are moving in the right direction,” Stewart said. “We are going to have to watch how those numbers trend.”

For now, her recommendation would be to continue with the re-opening plan, she said.

District personnel are scheduled to start receiving vaccines this week.

“We’ve been spending a lot of our time and energy going through the process of what we would have to do for our employees that would like to get vaccinated,” she said. So far, about two-thirds of district personnel are opting in to the vaccine.