Noticed all the news about schools across the country trying to reopen after nearly a year’s remote learning?

When area ones were reopening last fall, they showed readers all the work they put into it, like changing water fountains to bottle fill-up stations, spreading desks out more and having students wear face masks on the bus and in school. Wiscasset and Sheepscot Valley Regional School Unit have had brief closures, but in all these months COVID-19 was growing more prevalent in the Midcoast, the schools, families and students did well to keep and expand the in-person learning.

Our schools went back to school way before many in the U.S. Yes, we had less of a hill to climb because we never reached the disastrous levels of some states. But to have prevented the schools from being a source of spread, much less repeated spread, is a big deal.

Not everyone is back, but the area schools are on their way to that or something close to it. Schools elsewhere can look this way for lessons to help get and keep them on the path to in-person.

Well done, educators and towns. And the same to the Wiscasset parents we report on this week for their thank you treats to the schools. The encouragement to the staffs was thoughtful and well-deserved.