Warren County students should be back in their classrooms on Jan. 26.

That’s good news, but a look back at the situation the district was facing in late November shows board members made a good decision to move to remote learning for December and January. Between Thanksgiving and the end of 2020, the district had 43 people isolated as COVID-positive. Now, there are five isolations spread across five schools.

A majority of school district personnel are receiving COVID-19 vaccinations at Warren General Hospital, which helps with the district’s ability to reopen, and Warren General Hospital officials have said the number of COVID cases in Warren County are trending downward.

There are two takeaways from the past two months as far as the school district is concerned.

First, those who are on the fence regarding a COVID-19 vaccine should get off the fence. We have seen how quickly COVID can spread within the community, and vaccinations are the best way to reduce that type of community spread other than everybody staying in their house 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Second, the struggle to provide an education with so many employees in isolation speaks to the need for a deeper pool of substitute teachers for in-person learning. Schools nationwide have dealt with this issue, and none have come up with a particularly good solution. We hope deepening the substitute teacher pool or coming up with technological alternatives doesn’t get lost once COVID-19 subsides.