Stephen Penhollow, Falconer Central School superintendent, is asking the question that is on the collective mind of all school students and their parents — what will the state’s next round of guidance be for schools?

State officials have renewed the mask mandate for schools until at least early March. But even if mask mandates are lifted then, that doesn’t necessarily mean school will return to normal as everyone knew it before March 2020.

“I don’t know if they know what the plan is because this pandemic has seemed to have thrown everyone curve balls at one point or another,” Penhollow said during a recent board meeting. “But a lot of schools are starting to look at when this ends, how are we going to come out of this? What is it going to look like, so we can be prepared.”

Maureen Donahue, Southwestern Central School superintendent, recently remarked to board members that there are children whose parents started kindergarten two years ago and haven’t yet been inside one of Southwestern’s buildings. Those children are now in second grade, and parents haven’t spent the type of time in a school building with their children that they typically would. And while many schools use apps to communicate with parents, there is no replacement for face-to-face contact between teachers, students and parents.

In our opinion, state officials not only need to make a decision on masks, but on the other guidelines schools have to deal with. And school officials who haven’t already done so need to begin welcoming the public back into school buildings.

The time has come to learn to live with COVID rather than let COVID run our lives. Nowhere is that more true than in our schools.